Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...

Javed Akthar in 2012 Octogenarian Javed Akthar, celebrated screenwriter and lyricist of Bollywood, was asked a question recently by a group of youngsters. Will art and literature have much relevance in the future? Akthar’s answer was an allegory. Millions of fish are caught every day by humans. They are skinned brutally, cut into pieces, cooked in infinitely varied ways, and savoured on dining tables all over the world. We, humans, raise our voice in defence of a lot of animals: cows, dogs, and wild animals too. But no one raises even a feeble cry of protest on behalf of the fish. Do you know why? Because the fish don’t cry. In fact, they do cry; but their cries have no voice. No one hears their cries. The fish are voiceless. The cry of the voiceless is literature. Art is the music of the voiceless. And so they will continue to be relevant as long as there are voiceless creatures on earth. The Jews were the voiceless fish during Hitler’s march of racial triumph – six million of the...