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

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The
62 comments
Read more

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
44 comments
Read more

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so
39 comments
Read more

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r
34 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
36 comments
Read more