Tomichan Matheikal's blog

India is governed by a political party which draws its sustenance from the Us-Them divisiveness.  From the infamous Gujarat riots onwards, India witnessed about 7000 incidents of communal violence engendered by the Us-Them thinking. The Us-Them thinking is as old as known human history.  Every people always loved to make some distinctions between themselves and the perceived others .  Look at our movies and you will see how people belonging to other cultures or speaking other languages are made to look like either fools or villains.  Such division achieves many purposes at the same time.  One, it enhances our own sense of identity.  Our group identity becomes stronger when the rival group is portrayed as weak, illiterate, villainous, etc.  Two, it tilts the struggle for the limited resources in our favour.  We turn the tables so that the resources will fall to our side.  Three, it prepares the members of the community to fight against perceived threats from the others. 

Some three or four years ago, a former student of mine who was then a budding leader of a national political party, told me that he could “sell” me a party ticket for Rs 5 crore.  The sum astounded me.  “It’s nothing, sir,” he reassured me, “I’ll teach you how to get that amount back in a month’s time once you win the election.” When I heard Aam Aadmi Party’s lament that the BJP was trying to buy its MLA for Rs 4 crore, it didn’t surprise me.  If people are ready to buy party tickets before the election for crores of rupees, the neta’s price after winning the election should be a double digit crore.  Four crore is rather cheap, I think, for a sitting MLA.  Is that why AAP decided to cry foul? Delhi BJP vice president, Sher Singh Dagar, reacted very formulaically.  “If it is proved I’ll not only resign from the party, but from politics itself,” he said.  Every neta worth his sodium chloride knows how to plug any hole with darkness.  If you are not a master of darkness, you c

Teacher was very fond of parrots.  They keep repeating A, B, C... And when they grow up they repeat s = ut + ½ at 2 or sin 2 Ɵ + cos 2 Ɵ = 1.  When they grow up more they keep repeating “Yes, sir; Yes, madam.”  That’s why Teacher decided to take over the caged parrot from his cousin who was leaving the village to settle down in one of the posh apartments in Delhi.   The cousin had just won the Lok Sabha bye-election. Teacher was not characteristically ignorant and so he knew that keeping birds in cages was against the law.  Love does not follow laws, however. Teacher was very upset when Parrot spoke.  It did not speak the formulas.  Instead it uttered expletives.  Teacher decided to teach Parrot.  “A, B, C...” Parrot said, “AAP, BJP, Congress...”  As if that were not enough, Parrot added some expletive to each word it uttered. Teacher presented the problem to Counsellor.  Every school must have a counsellor, according to CBSE, so that students learn formulas right

There has been no human society which did not have some myths and rituals.   Myths and rituals are a kind of psychological defence mechanisms.   Onam, Kerala’s most celebrated festival, revolves round the myth of a primitive king, Mahabali (more affectionately called ‘Maveli’), during whose reign there was no evil in the kingdom.   A kingdom without evil is a fascinating myth.   The associated rituals are meant to bring people closer to one another and to the environment.   Onam stresses on social functions and art performances as well as floral decorations.   But the traditional ways of celebrating the festival have been replaced with modern ways dominated by new rituals.   The high priests of the new rituals are traders of different shades, ranging from the unavoidable supermarket to the redundant jeweller, from the film industry to the television channels.   Onam is no more about equality and fraternity, goodness and generosity.   It is about shopping and entertain

Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the soil, it cannot grow into a new plant.  Jesus said that, but it is a very obvious truth.  The mailbox in the picture is one which was in function until a few years back.  Now it stands like a relic in Fatehpur Beri, South Delhi.  It will gather rust and fall down one day.  Civilisation has killed it already before time will kill it once and for all.  No one will mourn its death any more than anyone will mourn the death of the cassette player or the typewriter.  The new takes the place of the old.  And the old dies.  Naturally.  Civilisation keeps moving ahead with new technology and better ways of doing things.  Life becomes easier and better. But has life really become easier and better? Is the new life better than the old? Such questions are silly because their answers are as obvious truths as what Jesus said about the grain of wheat.  Everything has merits and demerits.  Life goes on.  Changes are as inevitable a

A friend who wished to start a school of his own approached me the other day with a request: “Please draft a vision and a mission for the school.”  “The vision: Earn profit,” I said; “The mission: Earn more profit.” Being familiar with my cynicism, he said without batting an eyelid or even smiling, “Of course, you’re absolutely right...  I’m here to get a vision and a mission that’s different from the ones we usually see on websites...” I drafted something which I can’t recollect now!  [You can guess how serious I was about what I wrote.] Education today is another commercial enterprise.  Students as well as their parents want it that way too; they have been “schooled” to want it that way! In 1971, in his book, Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich blamed the education system for institutionalising values.  He argued that the schools put undue emphasis on process rather than substance .  “Once these become blurred,” wrote Illich, “a new logic is assumed: the mor

Fiction I happened to be in Kerala when the news of Cherian’s murder reached me.  Cherian was what I would call a friend of mine when I was working as a teacher in Assam.  It took some time for me to realise that he had not considered me a friend, however.  For him I was a kind of entertainment.  He loved to call me to the residential school of which he was the proprietor, director, manager and principal.  He would give me brandy to drink and food to eat.  And even a place to sleep if I wished not to go back home.  I had none waiting for me at home and hence could spend the night anywhere.  I was a gypsy of sorts who considered it the sign of an intellectual to claim a cosmopolitan nomadism for one’s identity.  Cherian thought I was a like a buffoon in a circus troupe: born to entertain, though I perceived myself a very serious thinker, a philosopher, and even an intellectual.  I put the intellectual at a higher level because the intellectual thinks he has a duty to save the worl