Skip to main content

Roles we Play


When I saw the above picture of Narendra Modi in the latest issue of India Today, what rushed to my mind instantly was a Malayalam film song Veshangal Janmangal… Life is a series of roles dressed up for the occasion. There are different costumes for celebrations and mourning, and there are people who can shed one and move into the other instantly. Are your smiles genuine? Do your tears mean sadness? Or, are they all costumes that suit the occasion?

Are you just an actor who plays certain roles? Is the entire cosmos just a gigantic theatre for you? Where can we find the real you beneath all the costumes you keep changing day in and day out?

Have you relinquished dharma in favour of cravings? Truth over expediency?








 

Labels:

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanAugust 2, 2025 at 3:40 PM

    Hari OM
    "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage..." what what comes to my mind with these images... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 2, 2025 at 5:09 PM

      At least one thing is certain: the man reminds everyone of something. Shashi Tharoor was reminded of a "scorpion on Shivling" and got into trouble.

      Delete
  2. Jose D. MaliekalAugust 2, 2025 at 11:52 PM

    During my Epistemology classes, leaning on Heidegger, I used to tell my students that you are king on the stage, when you have lost yourself, no more George or William, names and identities, by which you are known. There is a loss of self-consciousness, to gain a heightened consciousness, through the loss of self. In the case of the PM, he is self-conscious all the way and all the time, he is dressed up as someone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 3, 2025 at 11:09 AM

      Isn't our man too much of a narcissist to ever reach that sort of un-self-consciouusness?

      Delete
  3. Liz A.August 3, 2025 at 2:09 AM

    He does play dress up a lot, doesn't he?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 3, 2025 at 11:09 AM

      Absolutely. I'm told that he changes his dress at least four times a day.

      Delete
  4. Pradeep NairAugust 3, 2025 at 11:45 AM

    Pandit Nehru once said, we all have a 'public face' and a 'private face'. That's very true. Applies to most people, if not everyone.
    (My latest post: Kerala in monsoon: A road trip)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 3, 2025 at 1:57 PM

      Yes, to most people. But in the case of our Prime man, there seems to be infinite faces.

      Delete
  5. MR R F SmithAugust 8, 2025 at 2:56 AM

    India has an amazing history. There have been leaders from the left, and right.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 8, 2025 at 9:21 AM

      Very colourful history, yes. Right now the colour is saffron, but without its sanctity.
      By the way, I went through your magazine and loved it.

      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

Taliban and India

Illustration by Copilot Designer Two things happened on 14 Oct 2025. One: India rolled out the red carpet for an Afghan delegation led by the Taliban Administration’s Foreign Minister. Two: a young man was forced to wash the feet of a Brahmin and drink that water. This happened in Madhya Pradesh, not too far from where the Taliban leaders were being given regal reception in tune with India’s philosophy of Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest is God). Afghanistan’s Taliban and India’s RSS (which shaped Modi’s thinking) have much in common. The former seeks to build a state based on its interpretation of Islamic law aiming for a society governed by strict religious codes. The RSS promotes Hindutva, the idea of India as primarily a Hindu nation, where Hindu values form the cultural and political foundation. Both fuse religious identity with national identity, marginalising those who don’t fit their vision of the nation. The man who was made to wash a Brahmin’s feet and drink that water in Madh...
22 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

Helpless Gods

Illustration by Gemini Six decades ago, Kerala’s beloved poet Vayalar Ramavarma sang about gods that don’t open their eyes, don’t know joy or sorrow, but are mere clay idols. The movie that carried the song was a hit in Kerala in the late 1960s. I was only seven when the movie was released. The impact of the song, like many others composed by the same poet, sank into me a little later as I grew up. Our gods are quite useless; they are little more than narcissists who demand fresh and fragrant flowers only to fling them when they wither. Six decades after Kerala’s poet questioned the potency of gods, the Chief Justice of India had a shoe flung at him by a lawyer for the same thing: questioning the worth of gods. The lawyer was demanding the replacement of a damaged idol of god Vishnu and the Chief Justice wondered why gods couldn’t take care of themselves since they are omnipotent. The lawyer flung his shoe at the Chief Justice to prove his devotion to a god. From Vayalar of 196...
10 comments
Read more

Insecurity and Exclusivism

“ Hindu khatare mein hai.” This was one of the first slogans that accompanied the emergence of Narendra Modi on the national scene. It means Hindus are in Danger . It reveals a deep-rooted feeling of insecurity. Hindus constitute an overwhelming majority in India – 80%. All the high positions in governance, judiciary, academics, any significant place, are occupied by Hindus. Yet the slogan was born. Strange? It will be facile to argue that Modi used this slogan and its concomitant hatred of Muslims and Christians as a political weapon for winning votes. True, he was successful in that; he rose to the highest political post in the country using minority-bashing. But the hatred did not end with that achievement; rather it spread outward and became more exclusive. Muslim and European rulers of India were booted out from the country’s history books and wherever else possible like the names of roads and institutions. With vengeance. Now there is a concerted effort going on to place In...
30 comments
Read more