Skip to main content

On the other side

PM Modi at Guruvayur Temple

A contemporary parable

The centipede trying to cross the road in Guruvayur this morning was held back by the barrage of traffic that moved in an unusual manner. The creature was not aware that the Prime Minister was coming to the temple for various reasons. There was the wedding of a local BJP candidate’s daughter. Praying at certain temples is one of PM’s ingenious strategies not very unlike his roadshows and other public appearances.

The centipede was not aware of all this. Ordinary denizens of any place will have no time to understand high-level political strategies and dramatics. For example, the centipede had never heard of the legend of the Meditation Cave in Kedarnath. The PM went all the way up the Himalayas to meditate in a cave near the Kedarnath Temple. He changed his costumes as he usually did before every public performance and squatted like the Buddha in the cave. For once he did not wave at anyone or anything. Instead he shut his eyes and went into deep contemplation. After a few moments, he opened his eyes saying, “I’m enlightened.” But then he saw all the videographers and media personnel around and muttered to himself, “Shit! Drama again.”

Costumes were changed many times this morning too. Guruvayur temple has its own dress code. There are many other codes too. For example, the celebrated singer K J Yesudas, who has given classical performances in many temples, was never allowed to enter the Guruvayur temple just because of one of those codes in spite of the many requests he submitted to the terrestrial gods in Guruvayur.  

Film stars and political stars and other stars as well as starlings and starlets had already passed by the waiting centipede. Then came heavily armed and armoured vehicles with all kinds of security men on them. Some big gun is here, the centipede muttered to himself.

When all the rush was over there was a strange hush. The centipede crossed the road.

Having crossed the road with so much patience and effort, the centipede was walking away from where all the stars and starlets were. The reporter of Vishwadarshan TV observed the centipede and turned the camera on it. Thrusting the microphone to its head, the reporter asked, “Why are you going away?”

The creature said rather mysteriously, “I have crossed over to the other side.”



Comments

  1. magiceyeJanuary 17, 2024 at 6:23 PM

    A peek into post 'elections' scenario.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yamini MacLeanJanuary 17, 2024 at 10:18 PM

    Hari OM
    You are the Aesop of our times... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Liz A.January 17, 2024 at 10:49 PM

    Ah, the drama of men...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 18, 2024 at 6:21 AM

      Politics in India is now a colossal entertainment. We have a superhero, not any ordinary protagonist.

      Delete
  4. peppylady (Dora)January 18, 2024 at 3:17 AM

    In dreams, a centipede represents progressing forward despite of difficult challenges. It signifies that your road will be fraught with obstacles and distractions. In your dreams, a centipede encourages you to be optimistic. It counsels you to let go of your anger, contempt, and any other negative feelings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 18, 2024 at 6:22 AM

      This is so different and nice, Dora! The centipede is in my subconscious!

      Delete
  5. Rajeev MoothedathJanuary 18, 2024 at 5:56 AM

    Very nice...

    ReplyDelete

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
44 comments
Read more

The Second Crucifixion

  ‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita:                         For certain is death for the born                         and certain is birth for the dead;                         Therefore over the inevitable                         Thou shalt not grieve . At that time Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare were moving to Retiring Room Number 6 at the Old Delhi railway station. They walked like thieves not wishing to be noticed by anyone. The early morning’s winter fog of Delhi gave them the required wrap. They found Nathuram Godse already awake in the retiring room. The three of them sat together and finalised the plot against Gand
6 comments
Read more

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation
4 comments
Read more

The Final Farewell

Book Review “ Death ends life, not a relationship ,” as Mitch Albom put it. That is why, we have so many rituals associated with death. Minakshi Dewan’s book, The Final Farewell [HarperCollins, 2023], is a well-researched book about those rituals. The book starts with an elaborate description of the Sikh rituals associated with death and cremation, before moving on to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and finally Hinduism. After that, it’s all about the various traditions and related details of Hindu final rites. A few chapters are dedicated to the problems of widows in India, gender discrimination in the last rites, and the problem of unclaimed dead bodies. There is a chapter titled ‘Grieving Widows in Hindi Cinema’ too. Death and its rituals form an unusual theme for a book. Frankly, I don’t find the topic stimulating in any way. Obviously, I didn’t buy this book. It came to me as quite many other books do – for reasons of their own. I read the book finally, having shelv
10 comments
Read more

Hate Politics

Illustration by Copilot Hatred is what dominates the social media in India. It has been going on for many years now. A lot of violence is perpetrated by the ruling party’s own men. One of the most recent instances of venom spewed out by none other than Mithun Chakraborty would shake any sensible person. But the right wing of India is celebrating it. Seventy-four-year-old Chakraborty threatened to chop the people of a particular minority community into pieces. The Home Minister Amit Shah was sitting on the stage with a smile when the threat was issued openly. A few days back, a video clip showing a right-winger denying food to a Muslim woman because she refused to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’ dominated the social media. What kind of charity is it that is founded on hatred? If you go through the social media for a while, you will be astounded by the surfeit of hatred there. Why do a people who form the vast majority of a country hate a small minority so much? Hatred usually comes from some
8 comments
Read more