Tomichan Matheikal's blog

O what nags you, dude with a smart phone, Alone and palely loitering? Like the sigh of a little dream That had no birds singing. O what nags you, dude with a smart phone, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel’s granary is full, Though harvest will never be done. I see a dying lily on your brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on your cheeks a fading flower Much in need of a beauty parlour. I met a lady in the mela, Full wise – a Deva’s chela, Her words sweet, her smile drugged, And her eyes were wild. I bought her lollipop, And cotton candy, and Chocó dandy; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. She took me to her chamber cool, And there she taught and fought full throat, And there I shut my wild wild eyes With dreams in mind and doodles on smart phone.   And I dreamt and dreamt Until the heavens berserk went, And woke up to see an empty ground But for people going round and round. ...

“... the worst thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyses: 'I am talking with you in order to persuade you,' No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her own identity. The church grows by attraction, not proselytising.” It is Pope Francis who said it in a recent interview he gave to an Argentine weekly.  The Catholic Church was the foremost champion of religious conversions for centuries.  The Church now has a visionary leader in the person of the Pope.  What reminded me of the interview is a report that appeared on the front page of today’s Hindu with the headline, BJP, Parivar outfits to intensify campaign against ‘love jihad’ .  The last paragraph of the report reads: “On December 23, the martyrdom day of Swami Shraddhanand (the leader of the 19 th century Shuddhi (re-conversion) movement) we will convert Muslims to Hinduism in at least 50 locations in west UP” he [Rajeshwar Singh, coordinator of Religious Awakening, an affili...

Language is primarily a means of communication.  More importantly, it is the primary means of communication.  Secondarily, it is an integral part of culture; it is the most important carrier of culture. The struggle going on in Delhi against the English questions in the CSAT exams is a multidimensional struggle.  It seeks to anoint Hindi as a dominant language in India.  Indirectly, it is an attempt to impose the lordship of Hindi over the whole of India, though it may appear to be something much simpler and pro-poor. Some time back, when Mr P Chidambaram, then Union Finance Minister, visited Kerala he asked the man sitting near him to translate into English what a bureaucrat was speaking.  “But he is speaking in English,” answered the bewildered man.  [Chidambaram would have understood had it been Malayalam.] George Orwell This anecdote which became a quasi-legend in Kerala illustrates the importance of language as a means of communi...

Shoah is the Hebrew word for catastrophe.  Al-Nakba is the Arabic word for the same thing.  The Israelis use Shoah to mean the Holocaust.  The Palestinians use al-Nakba to refer to their exodus caused by the creation of Israel.  Shoah created al-Nakba; one catastrophe led to the other.  The victims of one catastrophe created another catastrophe and its victims.  6 million Jews were the victims of Shoah and their relatives uprooted 700,000 Arabs from their homes in Palestine.  The latter figure has kept on increasing since the Nakba has not ended.  In the words of Anton La Guardia (whose book on the issue was the basis of a former blog of mine), “The wandering Jew found a home, while the homeless Palestinians still wander the Middle East.”  La Guardia wrote that in 2002.  Twelve years down the line, the Jews are so well settled in their homes that they are in a position to eliminate the remaining Palestinians. One catastrophe l...

Had it not been for a couple of messages I received, I would not have known that today was Friendship Day.  One of the messages said, “Happy friendship day to the most fantastic friend.  Thanx for being my frd sir...”  It came from a past student.  I found it both amusing and encouraging.  Amusing, because the sender of that message is 36 years younger than me.  Encouraging, because I believe the best teacher is a friend to his/her students especially if the students are adolescents.  Teaching adolescents is fun.  Because they teach me more than I teach them.  Also because I think I’m an adolescent at heart.  In fact, a few months back one of my present students remarked that in the class.  And I laughed nodding in agreement. Adolescents are excellent friends.  In fact, their loyalty in friendship has no parallel in any other period of human growth and development.  Every parent who is struggling to deal with...