Tomichan Matheikal's blog

A palimpsest is a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on erased earlier writing. In the olden days, when parchments were used for writing, palimpsests were quite common. The motive for reusing parchments must have been pragmatic and economic. Maybe, political too, as when Christianity replaced original pagan writings with its own texts. Jawaharlal Nehru described India as a palimpsest, “an ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously.” India witnessed many conquests. As a result, quite a variety of cultures and civilisations entered the country and intermingled. Hinduism, Islam and the Western civilisation, all have left their imprints on the palimpsest that India is today. The present government in Delhi is going out of its way to erase a lot of the country’s past and write an entirely new history...

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r...

The title of George Orwell’s celebrated novel could have been 2024 and its setting India. Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling party. Like anyone else in the country, he is also under the constant surveillance of Big Brother, the omniscient ruler of the country. Big Brother’s Party controls everything including the people’s history and language and even their thoughts. Certain words are banned from Newspeak, the official language. Even nurturing rebellious thoughts is criminal and ‘thought-crime’ is the worst. Winston works in the Ministry of Truth which is rewriting the history of the country. Even love is a crime and so Winston has to keep his love for Julia secret. Winston is trapped eventually by the spying police and is subjected to severe brainwashing. Finally he begins to love Big Brother and to have no feelings whatever for Julia whom he has betrayed. My summary doesn’t do justice to Orwell’s great work. Frankly, I had never considered 1984 a great work u...

I had been looking at Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa for a long time wondering why people admired that painting so much when Mona Lisa started talking. There is really nothing much surprising about Mona Lisa talking. My cat, Bobs, talks to me. The images of deities in holy places talk to me when I care to visit them. Sometimes a flower in my garden talks, the stream in the village does, and the cloud in the sky too. If you care to listen, even the grain of sand outside your house will talk to you. You wonder why an apparently bland woman like me caught the fancy of the world , Mona Lisa said. I couldn’t make out whether it was a statement or a question. It was like her smile: neither here nor there.   I wouldn’t use the word ‘bland,’ I said. You don’t have to be so deferential , she said. Men hardly gave us any respect in our days. Is that why your smile is not so… happy? Was happiness permitted to us? Mona Lisa asked. Everything we did was controlled by the conventions ...

Old man Lao Tzu [lived in 5 th century BCE] was wise enough to be known as the Old Master. He thought that a leader was best when people barely knew he existed. When his work is done, his objectives are fulfilled, people will say: ‘We did it ourselves.’ A good leader makes the people successful. A bad leader makes himself successful. You never saw Mahatma Gandhi advertising himself anywhere, did you? Since Gandhi is not fashionable anymore in India, let me take another example. Let it be from fiction. Neoclassical fiction. Joseph Conrad’s character, Jim in the novel Lord Jim . Jim is a promising young man whose dream is to become a hero. But when the chance comes, he fails. While serving on a ship, named Patna , that is carrying Muslim pilgrims to Mecca and the ship strikes some underwater object, Jim’s opportunity to be a hero arises. The ship springs a leak and there is a storm rising in the horizon. The crew save themselves by abandoning the ship. Jim succumbs to the tempta...

Colonel Sanders of KFC I lived and worked in a strictly vegetarian school in Delhi for 14 years. Maggie and I, like all other staff from principal to sweeper, lived on the campus. All the students too lived on the campus. It was an exclusively residential school. We were all given food in the school’s ‘mess’. Most teachers preferred to take dinner at home with family though the school did provide that too. The ‘pure vegetarian’ food was absolutely delicious. I loved it as much as the students did. All reputed schools in Delhi and many other North Indian cities provide quality food to students and staff. I visited a number of those schools in order to take students for various competitions such as debates and declamations. The standards maintained by them are remarkably good. When we went out of the campus for personal needs, we had food of our choice. Both students and the staff could be seen in restaurants that served what is known in India as non-veg food. KFC was a favourite eat...

T-Rex Tastes the Rainbow  is a painting by Olga Shvartsur In the Jurassic world of the movies, man-made monsters go out of the control of their creators and become lethal to the creators themselves or their fellow human beings. Something similar is happening in today’s India. Certain skeletons of a bygone civilization are disinterred by some self-proclaimed nationalists. The skeletons slowly acquire life. Then they move out of the control of their excavators and behave like the dinosaurs in the Jurassic World movies. One of the most lethal actions of these dinosaurs is on the school curriculum. A lot of history is being deleted. New history is created gradually. The Mughals who ruled most of India, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, for three whole centuries, were swallowed by the dinosaurs some time back. Now the freedom fighters are chomped on. Not even Mahatma Gandhi is spared. His killer is all set to be hoisted on a pedestal. Even chapters like ‘US hegemony in world polit...