Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Fiction His heart seethed with envy as he returned to his palace from the Pandava capital.  In spite of all that he had done to eliminate his cousins, they had become more successful and powerful than him.  “I can feel your heartbeat,” Uncle Shakuni told Duryodhana as they were returning from Indraprastha having attended the rajasuya ceremony meant to proclaim the sovereignty of Yudhishtira.  The envy that wiggled its way like a worm into Duryodhana’s heart during the ceremony had made him so blind that he could not even distinguish between land and water.  He fell into the lake beside the Pandava Palace.  His cousins laughed at him as he was struggling to swim with all the royal robes on.   Shakuni had helped his insulted and irate nephew come out of the lake without stripping himself of all dignity.  “If the step falters, even the elephant will fall,” Shakuni admonished the merry Pandavas.  The elephant was the royal animal of the Kauravas of Hastinapura, city of the e

Mahatma Gandhi was a radical thinker with an idealistic vision.  He strove utmost to put that vision into practice in his life.  He was no less than the Buddha or Jesus in his aspirations as well as materialisation of those aspirations.  Jesus was crucified by the religious people whose vested interests were at stake.  Gandhi was shot dead by a person who represented vested religious interests. Gandhi was a Hindu in the sense he followed the religious practices of Hinduism.  But his religion surpassed the straitjackets of any organised religion.  He internalised religion to the highest degree possible for an ordinary human being.  He interpreted the  Gita  in his own unique way just as he did with the other scriptures. According to Gandhi’s interpretation, the  Mahabharata  is not the history of an actual war.  “It [the  Mahabharata ] is not a history of war between two families,” wrote Gandhi, “but the history of man – the history of the spiritual struggle of man.”[1]  The Panda

Yuval Noah Harari’s book, Sapiens: a brief history of humankind , was a best seller when it was originally published in Hebrew in Israel.  The English version is released in hardbound form.  I’m waiting for the paperback edition and will definitely get hold of one as soon as it is available.  Why?  Harari’s ideas are revolutionary, radical and tickling.  Let me focus on one of the main themes. How did man come to dominate the earth though there were many other more powerful animals on the earth?  As I gather from an article which introduced me to Harari’s book, man created stories which in turn created an immense sense of cooperation among people.  Let us understand that better.  The other animals don’t create stories.  Man creates stories about many things like gods, nations, money, human rights, etc.  These are all imaginary entities given reality to by man’s stories.  What does the thousand rupee note actually mean without the support of the story created by people a