Tomichan Matheikal's blog

  Remember the Pink Chaddi campaign that rocked India in 2009? Hundreds of pink panties were couriered to Pramod Muthalik’s office by Indian women as a mark of protest against his organisation’s [Sri Ram Sena] offensive actions upon young couples found together on Valentine’s Day. The colour pink was chosen because that colour was considered to be conspicuously feminine. The campaign was a revolutionary assertion of autonomy by India’s women. Now look at this quote from a trade publication called Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department , published in 1918: “ The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” Pink for boys and blue for girls. That was a century back. Today it’s just the opposite. Who makes such conventions? The society, of course. And randomly too. There is no rationale behind why...

  Marmala Waterfall Pic by Noel Joseph Audrey Hepburn thought that a woman would grow more beautiful with age because “the beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole but … is reflected in her soul.” The caring nature is the real beauty of women, she said, and that quality only gets better as a woman ages. Passion is another aspect that makes women beautiful and age doesn’t affect that too, according to Hepburn. Marmala landscape Pic by Navya Joseph As I visited the Marmala Waterfalls in central Kerala along with a few family members this Sunday, I became acutely aware of my vanishing passions. The place had a unique charm, a pristine beauty, because it has not yet been ravaged by massive tourism. The waterfall lies tucked away in the hills which are not easily accessible. There is a very narrow road leading to it from Theekoy in Kottayam district. If another vehicle comes from the opposite direction you will need great manoeuvring skills of driving. It prompted my nephew, Noel, ...

Fiction Joe lived alone in that two-storey building which he had inherited from his parents.  His parents were no more and he was a bachelor. Then one day someone asked him whether he would let out the upper portion of his house to a young couple. Joe was not at all interested in having a young couple invading his privacy. “They won’t disturb you,” said Mathew, the acquaintance who had come with the request. “Your staircase is outside anyway.” That was not enough to convince Joe to take a couple into his house. He was not fond of people, to tell the truth. He loved to live alone. That’s why he probably didn’t even marry. But if you can get into Joe’s heart and ask the question, the heart is likely to say that Joe considered himself too young to marry. He was in his late forties, though. Age doesn’t make you old really. Look around and you will find a lot of grown-ups who are more childish than children. Nowadays children are more like adults anyway. But that’s a different mat...

Dr Jose Maliekal Dr Jose Maliekal is a Catholic priest who is the Principal of St John’s Regional Seminary, Kondadaba, Andhra Pradesh. He is a profound thinker who perceives the realities around us very keenly and discerningly. I am pleased to bring here this interview with him which was held via email. He speaks frankly about contemporarily relevant topics such as religious conversion, love jihad, fascism in India, and the farmers’ agitation.   Apart from being a professor of philosophy and a deep thinker, you are also a Christian priest who has worked for decades among the Dalits in Andhra Pradesh. Many of the Dalits have been converted to Christianity. Why do you think they choose Christianity? The Dalits negotiate religion in the particular context of their political, social and economic marginality and appropriate the various elements of religion to respond to their own needs and to pursue their own dreams. This dynamics challenges the missionaries as well as those who ...

  The year 2020 is dying having delivered little of value. A pandemic that held three-quarters of the year hostage is threatening to mutate into a deadlier version of itself having already claimed 1.8 million lives. Will it lead the world to the final whimper that T.S. Eliot prophesied a century back? The whimper of hollow people, stuffed people, who made too much noise for too long? As a teacher I made quite a lot of noise for three-and-a-half decades. As a blogger too I made pretty much noise. 2020 put an end to the first noise. Classes went online and smartphones replaced students. Phones without automatic response mechanisms. So my questions in the classes went unanswered. I realised I was talking to no one. My dried voice, as Eliot would put it, died into meaningless whispers like wind in dry grass or rats’ feet over broken glass. 2020 rendered my job absurd. I spoke and deathly emptiness echoed my voice back to me. My New Year resolution is to give up teaching unless the...