Tomichan Matheikal's blog

  Sunday musings Arundhati Roy on my bookshelf A friend forwarded Arundhati Roy’s latest lament about India’s pathetic condition. I love Ms Roy’s passionate probity. I have admired her ever since I came to know her political writings about two decades back. I have personal collections of most her writings. My continuing admiration for her notwithstanding, I now feel more like Estragon standing beside Vladimir in Samuel Beckett’s inimitable play, Waiting for Godot . “Don’t touch me! Don’t question me! Don’t speak to me! Stay with me!” I feel like telling her in frustration. India is frustrating. But I don’t feel like shouting in indignation anymore. It’s futile, I begin to despair. Two thugs are ruling us and we have no way forward. We are condemned to be stuck in the filthy alleys beyond Lok Kalyan Marg holding motley flags and shouting dissonant slogans. Forever. Or at least until the goons of the thugs will come and ram nationalism down our throats. I feel weary to hold flag...

  ‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita:                         For certain is death for the born                         and certain is birth for the dead;                         Therefore over the inevitable             ...

  Antony always ready for new leaps My cat, Antony, fell on my TV while trying to catch a lizard from the wall. The TV which couldn’t hold Antony’s weight fell with an explosive sound to the floor before Maggie or I could save it. Antony was stunned by the sound. He realised he had done something rather terrible and so he lay down with his forelimbs stretched ahead as if seeking pardon. His gesture extracted a smile from me. “You’re smiling?” Maggie was scandalised. “Give him a slap,” she said. “Will he understand?” I asked. “Moreover, our TV is nearly 15 years old. Maybe, it’s time to replace it.” I picked up the TV from the floor. Its stand was irreparably broken. But the set could stand by itself. I replaced the detached cables in their appropriate places and switched the set on. It worked as if nothing had happened. “This is old technology,” I said. “A traitor to the TV industry,” I almost added sotto voce. That traitor concept came from an American contractor of last centu...

 The following is one of the chapters of my e-book, Coping with Suffering .   Your suffering is your choice to a great extent in Hinduism. Your karma determines what comes your way. Karma is the principle that governs the unfolding of events in your life. Your karma depends on the integrity with which you lived your previous lives. It is not a punishment because unlike in the Abrahamic religions there is no punitive God sitting in any heaven meting out retribution to people. Karma is the unfolding of the moral law that drives the whole universe. As Dr S Radhakrishnan put it, “The working of karma is wholly dispassionate, just, neither cruel nor merciful.” It is not about cruelty or mercy. It is the natural consequence of what you do. If you eat salt, you will drink water. Quite as simple as that. There is no escape from it because it is part of the eternal law of the universe which is applicable to everything and everybody in the universe without any discrimination. The hi...

  83-year-old Stan Swamy who can’t even have glass of water without somebody’s help is thrown in jail for terrorist activities. A young stand-up comedian, Munawar Faruqui, is in jail for a joke that didn’t crack but might have cracked. Siddique Kappan, a journalist who went from Kerala to report a gang rape in Yogiland, is in jail for suspected terrorist links. Laughter is a crime in Modi’s India. Helping the poor and the marginalised is a crime. Even questioning the government’s crimes can land you in jail. Nitish Kumar’s Bihar has enacted a law for gagging people’s mouths. And Nitish Kumar is the “Bhishma Pitamah of corruption” according to Tejashwi Yadav. Now, why is Mr Yadav not arrested yet for making that statement? Well, this is Modi’s India. You can never say who will go behind the bars for what. Somebody like Arnab Goswami can say anything and do anything – even induce suicides – but won’t be caught by the law. He is above the law like a lot many other hardcore crimi...