Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Many psychologists have argued that the purpose of life is self-actualisation .   In simple words, self-actualisation means becoming a more fully developed, a more complete individual.   It’s an increasing unfolding of one’s potentialities.     It’s personal growth by fulfilling one’s needs. Kurt Goldstein, professor of neurology and psychiatry, defines need as a deficit state that motivates a person to replenish the deficit.   Need is like a hole to be filled in, a hole in the psyche.   Psychologists like Abraham Maslow made a hierarchy of human needs .   At the basic level are the physiological needs.   Food, sex, and other needs of the body are very fundamental needs.   The need for security, stability, freedom from fear, need for structure, etc comes at the next level.   Maslow placed “affectionate relations with people in general” in addition to those with family and friends at the third level.   Esteem needs come next; self-esteem as well as esteem from others.   At this

On this Independence Day of my country, I’m glad to have Baba Ramdev’s entertainment as a prelude.   Most newspapers today, including my Malayalam one, carried photographs of the Baba sticking his neck out of a bus in which he was carried after his arrest.   I must say he has come a long way from the time he tried to escape arrest in the garb of a woman last year: he has the courage to accept arrest now, though he may lack the confidence to carry out his promised indefinite fast. I love India because of people like Ramdev.   They provide entertainment.   When my wife wants to watch some serial like Na Kaha Aap ne Kutch, Na Kahi Mein ne Kutch (or something like that) on the TV, I urge her to switch to some news channel which will provide better entertainment.   What better entertainment can there be than people like Ramdev and Hazare?   When our politicians turned big bores or at best became the President of India, we are blessed with Hazare and Ramdev.   Advani has joined the

Dehradun Railway Station Age has not withered my willingness for learning new lessons in life. That was the real reason why I agreed to take two of my students for a debate competition to a school in Dehradun. It was my first trip to the place whose railway station reminds us of the colonial days. The British building does not seem to have undergone much change, except that a new wing was added later for reservation of tickets. When we landed there at 5.40 in the morning (very punctually by the timing printed on the ticket!), the railway station looked sleepy and deserted. I attributed it to the time – too early for a small town to wake up. I wondered, though, how the capital of a state in India could afford to be as sleepy as that when the sun had already started smiling gently. When we returned to the railway station at 3 in the afternoon, after our competition, the railway station did not look much busier. It was then I noticed the metre gauge train that was ticking on pla