Tomichan Matheikal's blog

From  www.13draw.com In 1978, more than 900 people consumed drinks laced with cyanide and committed suicide. They were obeying their leader, a man named Jim Jones. Jim Jones was the founder of a cult called The Peoples Temple. There was nothing original about the cult. Its credo was a mixture of Christian rhetoric and socialist ideology. Jones was a charismatic orator. If you have charisma and eloquence, you can get people to do anything, provided you know how to wield religion effectively. You can even get people to kill themselves or others. Thomas Theorem in sociology states: If humans define situations as real, they are real in their consequences . In other words, much reality is a creation of humans. Reality is a social construct, shaped and developed by a culture. Culture is a particular way of thinking, feeling, and doing. It resides in a people’s collective thoughts and emotions, shared beliefs and behaviours, many of which are sheer myths. For example, milk and milk...

Illustration by Copilot Designer Personally, I’m not much concerned about whether the gods are real simply because, for me, they aren’t. I can accept the mysterious nature of the cosmos, the realms that science hasn’t fathomed yet and may never, and the awe that some of it inspires in a lot of people including me. But I won’t ever find myself imagining a god that looks like a man or woman, as is the case with most of our divine entities. What will a god do with a gender, in the first place? Forget the cumbersome physical masses of their bodies which will have to obey Newton’s laws of motion in the ethereal spaces. That is why I was amused when Facebook decided to enlighten me with a booklet titled Is the Bible True ? You can download it free of charge from the site Life, Hope & Truth . It being a Sunday when life is a lot relaxed for me, I decided to explore the material which Facebook seemed to thrust into the core of my being after censoring two of my recent posts for “going...

Courtesy: The Hindu 11 – 10 = ½ = 0.5 The equation on the blackboard baffled me as I walked into a classroom where I was given an exam duty.  Somebody had rubbed out something, I thought.  My mind started playing its usual game.  Come on, change it, said my mind. This is how I changed it:  11 – 10 = 1 I erased two figures mentally, the denominator 2 and the final decimal part of the equation.  Such a simplistic solution failed to satisfy me especially since I had a lot of free time in the exam room.  Seeing my solution, Sherlock Holmes would have said, “Elementary, Mr Matheikal.” My mind made the following equation: (11 - 10 ) ÷  2 = ½ = 0.5 That was neat, said my mind.  I had added a denominator 2 to the first part of the equation.     11 – 10 = 1 = 0.5 x 2 What I did was to transpose the denominator 2 to the RHS (right hand side) of the equation. One could go on.  How far you go wit...

There has been no human society which did not have some myths and rituals.   Myths and rituals are a kind of psychological defence mechanisms.   Onam, Kerala’s most celebrated festival, revolves round the myth of a primitive king, Mahabali (more affectionately called ‘Maveli’), during whose reign there was no evil in the kingdom.   A kingdom without evil is a fascinating myth.   The associated rituals are meant to bring people closer to one another and to the environment.   Onam stresses on social functions and art performances as well as floral decorations.   But the traditional ways of celebrating the festival have been replaced with modern ways dominated by new rituals.   The high priests of the new rituals are traders of different shades, ranging from the unavoidable supermarket to the redundant jeweller, from the film industry to the television channels.   Onam is no more about equality and fraternity, goodness and generosit...