Tomichan Matheikal's blog

From the Onam celebrations at my school today   Kerala has started Onam celebrations, the most colourful and joyful festival of the state. The schools in the state will be closed for a whole week from tomorrow. Even the government offices will not function for most part of the week. Onam is not just a festival, it is the heartbeat of the people of Kerala.  The legend that sustains Onam is quite paradoxical. Mahabali, or Maveli as he is affectionately called in Kerala, was an Asura king. He was the paragon of goodness though he belonged to species called demons, Asuras. During his reign there was no corruption whatever. People possessed and practised all good qualities. In short, Kerala was a utopia under Maveli's tutelage.  The gods became jealous. That's the paradox. Gods who should be happy to see humans living happily in peace and harmony became jealous! None but Vishnu himself decided to decimate the utopia on earth. He took the form of a dwarf named Vamana and deceived Mav

Welcome Maveli [Image courtesy ] I’m not superstitious, but I’m blatantly certain that this Onam has brought me some humour and its spices as well as condiments.   Bejan Daruwalla tells me that, with Mars shifting into Virgo in the 6 th House and Saturn posited in the 9 th House, I am all poised for great job satisfaction as well as lucrative income.   My stock broker tells me that my Bombay Dyeing and Tata Steel shares are ripe for sale after ditching me for over three years.   My body tells me that my health is pulsating once again. What really inspired me is Bejan Daruwalla telling me that September is the month of Virgin Mary .   So Narendra Modi will be able to “cleanse and purify the Ganga,” says the astrologer.   Within days of the prediction came the appointment of Nitin Gadkari as the Saviour of the Ganga.   I’m sure miracles are awaiting us Indians.   Gadkari has plans not only for cleansing the Ganga but also for linking all the major rivers in the country

Diwali in 2008 at the staff quarters of Sawan Public School, Delhi I don’t celebrate festivals now. I never celebrated them after I lost my childhood. Onam and Christmas were my favourite childhood festivals. Both were colourful and joyful. Onam called my attention to the variety of flora available in my village. Children used to come to pluck flowers from our land in order to make the floral carpet for Maveli. It is then I became aware of the very existence of some of those flowers. The cutest attraction of Christmas was the crib we made at home. Father led the exercise. The children’s duty was to collect the raw materials from the farm. We collected palm leaves and a particular variety of grass that grew abundantly in December. This grass was called Infant Jesus grass ( ഉണ്ണീശോ പുല്ല്). Then there were the stars and illumination. Today both Onam and Christmas have lost their innocence. Flowers are bought from the market. Cribs are readymade. When I lived in Delhi (un

The school reopens tomorrow after the Onam holidays. There was no Onam, however. The historic deluge that washed Kerala mercilessly stole the joy out of Onam. There were no grand celebrations. People were busy returning home from their relief camps, cleaning up their houses and seeking where and how to begin anew. Even now thousands of people are living in relief camps because they have nowhere to go; their houses have been washed away entirely or they are not habitable. While it has been heartening to see the way the people of Kerala cooperated with one another to bring life back to normalcy, it was extremely painful to watch the way certain sections fished in the troubled waters. The attitude of Prime Minister Modi and his supporters has alienated the people of Kerala almost entirely from the dominant political narrative. The financial aid given by Modi to the state is a pittance against what is required. Mr Modi rubbed salt into the wound of insult by saying no to countries th

I live in a state whose people’s most cherished legend is about a utopia. That legend revolves round Mahabali (whom the people of Kerala call Maveli affectionately). Maveli was an Asura (demon) king. But his reign was the most unparalleled in Kerala, according to the legend. No ruler could ever reach anywhere near the good governance implemented by Maveli. Maveli’s reign was marked by honesty, equality, justice and other fundamental human values and virtues. There was no discrimination in the name of castes and creeds. No sectarianism. No jingoism. No hate-filled slogans. No gods, too. Probably, this last thing - absence of gods – made it a utopia. I was brought up in an orthodox Catholic family. As a child I learnt about God and his absurd ways. The Bible opened with the idea of a weird god who created a Paradise (Utopia) for humans only to deceive them sooner than later. God placed an irresistible temptation right in the middle of the Paradise. He knew the human heart wasn’t im

Image from Xinature Last year during Onam Amit Shah greeted Malayalis in the name of Vamana Jayanti. The Malayalis not only pooh-poohed him but also trolled him left and right, up and down, so much so that the BJP President was left black and blue in the social media. Wishing the Malayali Happy Vamana Jayanti on the occasion of Onam is like asking the Bengali to celebrate the Durga Puja as the martyrdom of Mahishasura. There are people in India who worship Ravana as a divine entity. Imagine telling that to the North Indian who burns the effigy of the ten-headed villain during Dussehra. In short, India is a country with an infinite variety of festivals as well as cultures. Hinduism is not at all a monolithic religion. The gods worshipped in one part of the country may be demons in another and vice-versa. That is the fantastic diversity that India is even within the single religion of Hinduism, let alone the diversity contributed by other religions such as Islam, Sikhism, Ch

“Guro,” called out Maveli.  Maveli is the asura hypocorism for the deva name Mahabali.  Kerala is advertised by the Tourism Department as “God’s Own Country.”  But the people of Kerala love asura hypocorisms.  You can’t blame the people, really.  Like their favourite King, Maveli, quite many of them have been expatriated.  Those who are not expatriated geographically (or literally, if you wish) adopt expatriation by intoxication.  And expatriates love nostalgic hypocorisms. Kerala is the land of expatriates.  Pravasi is the most favourite word in the state.  Every pravasi is supposed to be living in bliss.   If there is any Malayali pravasi who is not living in such blissful condition, Benyamin or Mukundan will write Aadujeevitham or Pravasam in honour of the hapless pravasi’s nostalgia for God’s Own Country which is actually Maveli’s Own Country.  And Maveli was an asura, a demon. “ Prabho , My Lord,” came Maveli’s Guru, Sukracharya hearing Maveli’s call. 

രക്ഷകൻ അന്തകൻ - Source: here മതവും കലയും തമ്മിൽ ഒരു ആത്മബന്ധം പണ്ട് മുതലേ ഉള്ളതാണ്. കലയെ ഏറെ പ്രോത്സാഹിപ്പിച്ചിട്ടുള്ള ഒരു ശക്തിയാണ് മതം. മൈക്കൽ ആഞ്ചലോയും ഡാവിഞ്ചിയും അവരുടെ ഏറ്റം മഹത്തായ കലകൾ സൃഷ്ടിച്ചിത് ദേവാലയങ്ങൾക്കു വേണ്ടി ആയിരുന്നു. ഭാരതത്തിലെ സ്ഥിതിയും വേറൊന്നായിരുന്നില്ല. അജന്തയും എല്ലോറയും മാത്രമല്ല, നൂറുകണക്കിന് ക്ഷേത്രങ്ങൾ കലയുടെ കേളിരംഗങ്ങൾ തന്നെ.  കലയും വിജ്ഞാനവും ഒരു പറ്റം വരേണ്യ വർഗ്ഗത്തിന്റെ കുത്തക ആയിരുന്നു അക്കാലം. ഭാരതത്തിൽ കീഴ്ജാതിക്കാർക്കു നിഷിദ്ധമായിരുന്നു കലയും വിജ്ഞാനവും. സംസ്‌കൃതം എന്ന ഭാഷ തന്നെ ഒരു ന്യൂനപക്ഷത്തിന്റെ സ്വകാര്യ സ്വത്തായിരുന്നു. ഭൂതം കാത്തു കാത്തു വച്ചിരുന്ന നിധി ആയിരുന്നു സംസ്‌കൃതം. ആ നിധി സ്വായത്തമാക്കുക പോട്ടെ അതിന്റെ അടുത്തൊന്നു പോകാൻ പോലും കീഴ്ജാതിക്കാരന് അവകാശം ഇല്ലായിരുന്നു. സംസ്‌കൃത ശ്ലോകങ്ങൾ ആകസ്മികമായി കേൾക്കാൻ പോലും ഇടയായാൽ ചെവിയിൽ ഈയം ഉരുക്കി ഒഴിക്കുക എന്നതായിരുന്നു കീഴ്ജാതിക്കാരനുള്ള ശിക്ഷ. ഇന്ന് ആ വരേണ്യ ഭാഷ ആർക്കും വേണ്ടാതായപ്പോൾ അത് മൊത്തം, അതിന്റെ സംസ്കാരം, രാഷ്ട്രത്തിനു മേൽ അടിച്ചേല്പിക്കുക എന്ന അവസ്ഥ വന്നിരിക്കുന്നു അല്ലെങ്കിൽ സ

  One of the many allegations I face occasionally, after Mr Modi became the PM, is that I hate Hindus or Hinduism or both. This allegation was hurled at me yet again yesterday on Facebook by a person who worked with me for a couple of months in the same school where I taught in Delhi. It began with a 4-year-old blog post of mine in which I argued that the RSS view of Onam, which is the same as the North Indian view, will never be acceptable to Malayalis for whom the Asura Maveli, rather than the god-incarnate Vamana, is the real hero for obvious reasons. The above-mentioned friend first questioned my knowledge of Hindu scriptures because he, like most others of the fold, thinks that a non-Hindu does not care to study Hinduism. When he realised that I had perhaps more knowledge about Hindu scriptures than himself, he changed his charge against me. He said I refused to accept his good intention. When I questioned his intention, he changed his allegation again: I lacked “the purity of

A few years ago, Home Minister Amit Shah infuriated the people of Kerala by wishing them Happy Vamana Jayanti on the occasion of their state festival Onam. While Vamana is the fifth incarnation of God Vishnu for Amit Shah and his counterparts in North India, Vamana is a monstrous impostor for Malayalis. (That’s yet another of the umpteen instances that highlight the impossibility of a monolithic Hindu religion.) Vamana sent Kerala’s most beloved king, Maveli, to the netherworld merely because of jealousy. Maveli (elision for Maha Bali or Bali the Great) was a demon (asura) king. But he was beloved to his subjects because during his reign Kerala was a utopia. There was fraternity, equality, justice, truthfulness, and so on everywhere in the kingdom. Maveli had become greater than the gods for the people of Kerala. Obviously, gods didn’t like that. So none less than Vishnu took the form of a dwarf, Vamana, and deceived Maveli. That deception was punishment from gods to an asura for b

Dear Maveli, The sight of your beloved Kerala during this Onam will break your heart. There are no floral carpets to welcome you. The air does not resound with joyful songs. The charming thiruvathira dancers are not seen. Where are the tigers of the pulikali? What you find all over your land is devastation. Hills collapsed in the fury of gushing waters. The waters carried away homes and roads. They carried away the flowers that used to bloom cheerfully for you. Whole townships like Cheruthoni are ruined entirely. Rivers have changed their courses and redrawn the map of your country. What is left is helpless gloom. And our determination to spring back to vitality. We will bounce back. In spite of the hostility of our present king who calls himself our Pradhan Sevak just to mask his colossal narcissism. He has not only refused to help your country with the required assistance but also blocked the assistance coming from across the borders. So, you see, we have to fight not