Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Dussehra was celebrated all over the country yesterday in various ways in tune with regional beliefs.   Today’s [25 Oct] Times of India carries a few interesting headlines in relation to the celebrations. “Filth, stench mar Durga idol immersion,” says one such headline.   “Puja material adds to Yamuna’s woes,” laments another. The devotees of Durga were not aware of the Delhi government’s order that the idols should be immersed only in certain places allotted specifically for the purpose.   Consequently people disposed of the idols wherever they liked.   Along with the idols was also disposed a lot of waste matter including plastic wrappers of food items and empty mineral water bottles.   The much polluted Yamuna was ill fated to carry more pollution than it could ever digest. A question that should necessarily arise in our minds is: why can’t we modernize certain rituals that have become out of tune with the time?   Doesn’t religion require modernisation, renewal, or – in tec

The novel that I started reading yesterday and keeps my attention riveted is Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of the Celt (2012).   Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature two years ago.   The reason why I bought this novel of his is not that, however.   The novel is about Roger Casement, a controversial hero of Irish nationalism.   My reason for buying the novel was not that either.   I ordered for the book when I read in a review that the novel was about the barbarism perpetrated by the European colonists in the Congo.   Llosa’s protagonist was an Irishman who went to the Congo with the noble desire to “civilize” the people there.   A few pages into the novel, I am quite delighted to come across Joseph Conrad as a character.   Conrad was a sailor and he met Roger in the Congo.   In Llosa’s novel, Conrad tells Roger that the latter “should have appeared as co-author” of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness . In Heart of Darkness , a character named Marlow tells the story of Kurtz to

Insuring ourselves is one of the silliest things we can do in life, I think.   Life insurance means that a certain amount will be paid to my dependents after my death.   Fine, there’s nothing that can give me more happiness (after my death) than seeing my beloved ones(not dependents , but loved ones) living happily after my death. The latest issue of the Frontline [dated 2 Nov 2012] argues that insurance has been made just another business of the capitalists.   For example, it says that “countries where competition is rife in the insurance industry, such as the U.S. have been characterised by a large number of failures.”   India is opening up itself to that competition. Because Dr Manmohan Singh has to save his image in the Western press.   Just because the Western press called Dr Singh (our beloved PM) all kinds of names, he chose to give us a lot of FDI, hike in prices of cooking gas and other items precious to most of us (leaving aside the most people who have no access t