Tomichan Matheikal's blog

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...

More than a hundred innocent children were killed by the Taliban today in Pakistan’s Peshawar.  Many were injured.  Teachers were burnt alive.  All in the name of religion. Nurturing a cruel thought in your mind implies you are cruel.  I remember having read something to that effect long ago in Dag Hammarskjold’s little classical diary, Markings .  How cruel must one be in order to line up innocent children and fire bullets into their hearts?  And they call that religion! Like most religious fundamentalist organisations, the Taliban was born out of a conflicting mix of passions: hatred towards certain sections of people and a childish longing for an ideal world .  Mullah Omar was a barely literate jihadi who had lost his right eye fighting the Russians in Afghanistan.  In 1994 he witnessed a local warlord eliminating an entire family, not before raping every girl in it.  The incident put the fire in the romantic soul of Mu...

Kidnapped by the Taliban is a recently published book written by Dr Dilip Joseph, along with a co-author, about his experiences with the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Dr Joseph is an American physician of Indian origin.  His dream was to offer his medical services for the welfare of humanity.  In 2009 he joined the Colorado-based non-profit community and economic development organisation, Morning Star Development. On 5 Dec 2012, Dr Joseph and two colleagues, en route from a medical clinic in an Afghan village to Kabul, found themselves face-to-face with four men carrying AK-47s. Forced at gunpoint into the back of a truck and driven to a remote location, the men were sure their hours were counted. The doctors were rescued on the fifth day by the American Navy SEAL Team Six, the elite group of soldiers that took down al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.  The book narrates the experiences with the Taliban terrorists.  Dr Joseph learnt how much America v...