Skip to main content

Followers


Vast majority of people are ideal followers.  Ask them what they are following and you will get blank looks.  For example, ask a person why he believes in his/her religion or why he/she votes for a particular party.  I’m ready to bet that you won’t get satisfactory answers unless some quotidian blah-blah is enough for you. 

People want other people.  Not merely for company.  People want other people in order to get on in life.  From the simple drinking water problem to the complex games that people play, everything becomes much easier to deal with if you have other people to help you. 

Other people throw in support if you belong to their religion, political party or some such group.  Religious beliefs and political convictions are not much more profound than that.  If you don’t believe me, probe a believer’s knowledge about his/her religion.  In 9 cases out of 10, you will meet with ignorance.  Politics is likely to fare better.

Even if there is awareness, probe a little further and you will be shocked by the lack of conviction. That is, they may know that their religion teaches love and such wonderful things but they are not convinced that all those wonderful things will actually help much in the daily drudgery called life.  Actual life has little to do with all those wonderful things associated with one’s religion.  Religion is good because I can get a job with some powerful religious leader’s help, gain admission for my children in reputed schools, or even get my plumbing done without much hassle.

It is much better in politics.  When I was constructing my house last year, I got all the paper works done with the ease of wading across a shallow river because my friend had at least one party associate in every office I went to.  Life is much simple if you have political connections.  So I have become a follower now.  But I know what I’m following and how much it actually means to me.  You can call me a super hypocrite.


Comments

  1. sunaina sharmaMarch 14, 2017 at 5:41 PM

    I am yearning to see some fiction from you now. Since I am a follower of your stories.....:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 14, 2017 at 6:25 PM

      I don't choose to write stories, Sunaina. They happen. I'm waiting too for the next one to happen. :)

      Delete
  2. Saru SinghalMarch 14, 2017 at 7:41 PM

    This post reminds me of the quote, “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” Being normal is more useful in life. In your case, I think being a follower is good. I would do the same. We live in real world and have to be a part of real mess to get things done.

    It's not hypocrisy, it's street smartness.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 14, 2017 at 7:59 PM

      There's no other way. The tragedy (or comedy, depending on how we look at it) is that if I had learnt this lesson earlier enough I would have been a roaring success in life :)

      Delete
    2. Jyotirmoy SarkarMarch 15, 2017 at 9:01 AM

      very much agree with your last line..."if i had learnt....success in life".

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 15, 2017 at 9:17 AM

      Some fools like me take a long time to learn the basics. :)

      Delete
  3. jayashreeMarch 15, 2017 at 10:28 PM

    True, many are just followers, but they be aware whom they are following

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 16, 2017 at 8:01 AM

      Diplomacy is not same as awareness. Many follow for the sake of personal benefits.
      No harm since there's nothing more to most things followed 😀

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Why India Needs to Reclaim its Liberal Soul

Russia’s Putin announced the demise of liberalism, America’s Trump wrote its obituary, and India’s Modi wielded the death as a political forge that transmuted him into a demigod. We are, unfortunately, passing through an era of so-called “strong leaders” like Putin, Trump, and Modi. A 2024 report based on a 2023 Pew survey found that 67% Indians endorsed a governing system with a “strong leader” who can make decisions without interference from courts or parliament. This support for autocracy was the highest among all surveyed nations and has increased consistently after Modi became the PM. Shockingly, the same 2023 survey found that 72% of Indian respondents expressed a favourable view of military rule. Indians don’t want individual freedom, it seems. We are used to the many gods who incarnated at appropriate times and destroyed evil ( Sambhavami yuge yuge ). Modi is our present divine incarnation. It is the duty of these avatars to conquer evil; hence individual freedom doesn’t ...
14 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

Being Christian in BJP’s India

A moment of triumph for India’s women’s cricket team turned unexpectedly into a controversy about religious faith and expression, thanks to some right-wing footsloggers. After her stellar performance in the semi-final of the Wormen’s World Cup (2025), Jemimah Rodrigues thanked Jesus for her achievement. “Jesus fought for me,” she said quoting the Bible: “Stand still and God will fight for you” [1 Samuel 12:16]. Some BJP leaders and their mindless followers took strong exception to that and roiled the religious fervour of the bourgeoning right wing with acerbic remarks. If Ms Rodrigues were a Hindu, she would have thanked her deity: Ram or Hanuman or whoever. Since she is a Christian, she thanked Jesus. What’s wrong in that? If she was a nonbeliever like me, God wouldn’t have topped the list of her benefactors. Religion is a talisman for a lot of people. There’s nothing wrong in imagining that some god sitting in some heaven is taking care of you. In fact, it gives a lot of psychologic...
26 comments
Read more

Shooting an Elephant

George Orwell [1903-1950] We had an anthology of classical essays as part of our undergrad English course. Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell was one of the essays. The horror of political hegemony is the core theme of the essay. Orwell was a subdivisional police officer of the British Empire in Burma (today Myanmar) when he was forced to shoot an elephant. The elephant had gone musth (an Urdu term for the temporary insanity of male elephants when they are in need of a female) and Orwell was asked to control the commotion created by the giant creature. By the time Orwell reached with his gun, the elephant had become normal. Yet Orwell shot it. The first bullet stunned the animal, the second made him waver, and Orwell had to empty the entire magazine into the elephant’s body in order to put an end to its mammoth suffering. “He was dying,” writes Orwell, “very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further…. It seeme...
6 comments
Read more