Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Four ways leaders can create a candid culture .  I laughed when I saw that title on the careers page in The Hindu newspaper today [16 July].  I must have laughed my belly out because Maggie came running from the kitchen asking if I was alright.  “Shall I clip this article and give it to …?” I asked her. She looked at the title and read the fine print which said, “Start by listening.  But that is just the first step.  You also need to demonstrate that you truly want people to raise risky issues.” Maggie prohibited me from doing anything of the sort my laughing brain was conspiring to do.  “Why do you always invite trouble for yourself when you know very well that the world will never improve?” she asked. I was not convinced.  Trouble for myself doesn’t convince me.  “Please…” That settled the matter.  I put the pair of scissors back in its place. But I kept wondering why The Hindu published such an article....

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things,” said Management guru, Peter Drucker.  Many institutions as well as nations have gone down the tunnel of damnation merely due to lack of good leadership, though their management was good.  Doing things right is not a guarantee that one is doing the right things.  When the Jews wanted to stone the adulteress to death, they were doing things right.  When Jesus told them, “Let him who has not sinned cast the first stone,” he was doing the right thing.  [John 8:1-11] The Hindu newspaper today [22 Oct] carries a review of Maya Tudor’s book, The Promise of Power: The Origins of Democracy in India and Autocracy in Pakistan.   Both India and Pakistan had the same origins: a British colony.  Yet India became a democracy that empowered the people and Pakistan became a theocracy which enervated its citizens.   Why did it happen? The answer lies in the differ...

Fiction http://www.flickr.com/groups/kidz_art_program/pool/16817853@N00/ “One day in the life of a residential school teacher,” I began writing the blog. “What do you think you are?” asked my wife with marked irritation.   “Ivan Denisovich?” Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is the protagonist of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel, One Day in the Life Ivan Denisovich .   Ivan was a prisoner in a Stalinist labour camp in Russia.   The fellow was an innocent peasant, almost illiterate, and very simple.   The prison routine was meant to dehumanise the prisoners, but Ivan survived.   He survived because he found meaning in that absurdly oppressive life, a meaning found by living intensively.   He slogged like a slave and ate like a wolf.   When he worked on a brick wall he worked as though every inch of it belonged to him.   He was a Sisyphus without the spirit of rebellion.   He was proud of whatever he did. “I’m Boxer,” I replied to ...

Short Story Manmohan returned home from the market with a bottle –  among the usual things –  that was totally unfamiliar to Meera, his wife.  “The tide is turning,” explained Manmohan, “and I’m going to celebrate it.” Manmohan was a teacher in a residential school which was taken over by a new management a couple of months back.  The new management was of the opinion that the old faculty was responsible for the “downfall” of the school.  “A school is its faculty,” asserted the new chairman.  So most of the faculty was asked to leave.  Manmohan was among the few who did not merit the axe yet. Yet! That’s not what he was celebrating, however.  “I won’t be able to meet you the whole day from tomorrow,” said Manmohan to his wife.  “See, I work in a residential school where I’m not just a teacher.  I am a parent to the students in the hostel, a guide to the students when they are in study, a tutor to the weak students, ...

The King said, “Who can get rid of that priest for me?” And Thomas Beckett was killed. Party workers go beyond the wishes of the Leader. I wish I could be a party worker.

Tuskegee was a little town in Alabama, USA, when Booker T Washington was invited to establish there a school for the coloured people of the state in the year 1881, 16 years after the Emancipation of the Negroes.   The Tuskegee Institute became famous for the holistic education it provided to the coloured students.   Washington did not provide mere bookish learning; he taught the students one trade or another so that they could earn their living as soon as they left the school.   Mere earning of livelihood was not Washington’s objective, however.   Education is “any kind of training... that gives strength and culture to the mind ,” says Washington in his autobiography, Up from Slavery (prescribed as an optional supplementary reader by CBSE for class XII). Washington’s book is a heart-touching expression of a profound philosophy which seeks to discover the good in every individual and cultivate it irrespective of race or religion.   There is a passage ...

This is a silly post though I dare to call it a poem.  Read it at your own risk. “In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.” T S Eliots’ Prufrock had at least the consolation of women coming and going talking of Michelangelo.   I’m back to regular routine tomorrow.  And women will come and go talking of duties, workshops and seminars.  They call themselves experts.  They will dictate the terms and conditions.  They have the backing of a religious sect. And I will sing along with T S Eliot : Weialala leia Wallala leialala The winter break is over.  The real break is going to begin. Religious break? Or feminine break? I’m looking forward to Madame Sosostris with her Tarot cards.  She will determine the future. The future of her staff.  She has started by terminating the services of the redundant.  Who is not redundant in this world? Is the expert essential? Is the Sw...