Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The phone rang just as I finished my breakfast. It was my sister calling from Kerala. “Do you remember that professor who got into a controversy with a question he had set for an exam on Muslims?” asked my sister. “Yes, has something happened to him?” I asked with a sense of foreboding. “He was attacked by a group of people this morning and his palms have been chopped off,” said my sister who lives quite near to the college where the professor teaches. I switched on the TV. A Malayalam news channel reported that about eight persons intercepted the professor’s car as he was returning home from church. They were carrying weapons like knives and axes. They also attacked the women in the car though not fatally. My thoughts raced back to J. S. Bandukwala’s article in the latest edition of Outlook which I read last evening and the interview with Salman Rushdie in this morning’s Literary Review of the Hindu. Both Bandukwala and Rushdie are Muslims who think that there is something ser...

The Tung railway station between Darjeeling and Kurseong. It is at a height of about 3500 feet. The railway station is just a small office on the roadside beside the residences of ordinary people. Every signboard in the Darjeeling Hills carries the name Gorkhaland, though Gorkhaland is yet to become a political reality. A view of the toy train. One of the many charming life-like stuffed creatures in the Natural History Museum in Darjeeling. The Kanchenjunga Peak - two views. For the text related to these pictures, please log on to: www.matheikal.wordpress.com

The bed of God Harbhajan Singh in the Mandir dedicated to him at Kupup, 16000 feet high on the Himalayas. Gangtok - Kupup: 60 km. But that road is closed right now. Take a 130 km stretch from Gangtok by a private tour operator and voila you're there at the Mandir which fulfils all your wishes! This is supposed to be the room used by God Harbhajan Singh! Quite a few decades ago. There are quite a few army trucks making their way up and down the 32 hairpin bends almost every day. Any day one of them could have transported a swivel chair. A cell in the Bunker Mandir, also known as Baba Mandir. The entrance to the Bunker Mandir.

The road to Kupup - with its 32 hairpin bends which our co-driver was keen on counting at every bend. Tourism is the chief, perhaps the only, industry in Sikkim. A yak with its calf. Our driver was very keen that we shoot the calf. "Shaitan [satan - mischief incarnate]" he said, "that's what the calf is." The hamlet of people living at an altitude of 16000 feet from sea level. Is ordinary Indian life any worse than life in the Indian Army? If you see the Indian Army's quarters in Kupup you'll think it's better to join the Army. Indeed, that's whay the Indian Army has a huge human strength. The bunkers on the frontier. This frontier right now is accesible for tourism. If China attacks India, it may be a different story.

Below is a handful of snaps selected from the two dozen that my camera captured from the perennial flower show in Gangtok. For the text related to my travels in Sikkim, please log on to: www.matheikal.wordpress.com