Tomichan Matheikal's blog

One of the stories in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is about a young knight of King Arthur’s.  The knight could not control his lust when he came across a beautiful maiden.   Arthur’s Court was scandalised by the rape and the knight’s execution was ordered.  The Queen and her ladies, however, interceded and got the punishment commuted.  The knight is given a year’s time to find out what women want most in the world. The knight went from place to place finding out what women wanted most.  He got different answers from different women.  “Wealth and treasure,” said some.  Honour, jollity, pleasure, gorgeous clothes, fun in bed... thus went the women’s options.  Some even wanted to be “oft widowed and remarried.”  Seeing that women could never agree on one thing, the knight rode back with the odour of death in his nostrils.  On his way back, he came across an old hag.  Chaucer’s narrator, Wife of Bath, reminds us that those were the days of fairies and elves, days before relig

Crises are an integral part of human life.  Doubts, anxiety and even despair seize us mercilessly sometimes.   They can be excellent opportunities for personal growth, provided we deal with them effectively. Personal growth calls for some change.  It may be a change of attitudes, environment, job or something else.  Most of us don’t like change.  Change frightens us with the uncertainty that inevitably accompanies it.  Psychotherapist Sheldon B. Kopp wrote 4 decades ago (in his book, ‘ If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! ’) that the neurotic who comes to a therapist doesn’t want to change himself.  “His goal is to become a more effective neurotic.”  He doesn’t want to give up his neurotic feelings and attitudes because he is scared of the changes that would ensue.  He would rather have his neuroticism and have the therapist make him feel more comfortable with it.  Change is  challenge to face the unknown.  The misery of the familiar is preferred to the myste

Games are interesting only when you get into the play field and get hurt. Hurts are like orgasm: pleasure and pain simultaneously. You can be an observer too.  But you will have no orgasm.

Fiction Manohar didn’t go home after he left his office.  Instead he walked up the mountain where Baba lived.  Baba was said to have the powers to see one’s future and give appropriate counsel. Yesterday Sunanda Pushkar proclaimed her love for her husband and today she is found dead in her bed.  Aam Aadmi Party’s law minister took the law into his hands and ordered the police to do something illegal, out of the natural earnestness of the new broom to sweep clean rather than malice.  Life is more complex than death. But these were not the problems that really nagged Manohar.  His office was in turmoil.  People were just disappearing from the office day by day just like they disappeared during Stalin’s rule in Russia.  More than half of his colleagues had disappeared without a trace.  If Sunanda Pushkar can die laughing and without a warning, people can disappear equally mysteriously.  Yet… yet, something seemed uncanny to Manohar.   He needed Baba’s counsel and solace.

The institution was going to collapse.  Everybody blamed everybody else for the situation.  The leader is not good, said some.  The staff were playing politics all the time, said some others.  The infrastructure is outdated, said yet others.  Everyone has a reason for blaming others, to paraphrase the advertisement slogan of an agarbati . Let us do something radical about it, said someone.  The action may make some drastic demands. “Let me ask my husband/wife,” said some. “I’d love to join you, but you know…” said some others. “I’m in the South Pole now, but I’ll definitely join you as soon as I reach our place,” said yet others. You deserve the leader who was foisted on you by your destiny. 

"What does the future hold for us?" she asked. "Look up," I said. 

A manager, who had just returned from a Motivation Seminar, called an employee into his office and said, “Hence forth you are going to be allowed to plan and control your job.  That will raise productivity considerably, I am sure.” “Will I be paid more?” asked the worker. “No, no.  Money is not a motivator and you will get no satisfaction from a salary raise.  Happiness comes from within, you know.” “Well, if I do my job better and production does increase, will I be paid more?” “Look,” said the manager.  “You obviously do not understand the motivation theory.  Take this book home and read it; it explains what it is that really motivates you.” As the man was leaving, he turned and asked, “If I read this book will I be paid more?” The above story is taken from Anthony de Mello’s book of parables, The Prayer of the Frog . The moral given by the author is: “Truth does not lie in theories.” A meeting which I attended today motivated me to bring this