Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The burnt-out parts of crackers and fireworks Lay scattered in the yard and road and wherever the eye could reach. The festival is over. The intoxication lingered a while. And that died out too. Naturally. Leaving an aftertaste somewhere in the hollows within, Sweet and bitter, bitterness competing with sweetness. The sound and fury of the fireworks on the ground and in the heaven Repeated the same old tales, wise or idiotic – who knows?  Who cares? Dazzling lights strutted and fretted Their hour upon the stage Leaving distorted and gaping fragments behind. The fragments will be swept into the dustbins of Swachh Bharat Maybe the next time the Great Actor drives us to the broom store Or maybe they will be carried away by the winds of time That blow relentlessly And mercilessly Erasing the markings we make on dust.

When the voice of truth rises from the minarets, The Buddha smiles, And the broken chain of history reconnects. The lines are from the poem, The Relics of Butkara , written by Malala’s father and quoted by her in her autobiography, I am Malala .  I’m still reading the book and found this passage about Butkara, her birthplace, interesting. “Our Butkara ruins were a magical place to play hide and seek,” she writes.  They were relics from the days when Buddhism was practised by the people of the place.  In other words, Malala’s forefathers must have been Buddhists.  The people who are now Muslims have a Buddhist ancestry.  It is that reconnection that Malala’s father speaks about in his poem.  “Islam came to our valley (Swat) in the eleventh century when Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni invaded from Afghanistan and became our ruler, but in ancient times Swat was a Buddhist kingdom,” writes Malala.  “The Buddhists had arrived here in the second century and their kings ruled th

Light amid darkness Some light Stars Dark holes Priests Politicians Patriarchs Crackers and NaMo bombs Namo Bombs replacing Lalu bombs Replacing Yadav bombs Gandhi bombs hahaha Why not a new light Wish you a new light THIS DIWALI HAPPY DIWALI

Book Review “Innovation and originality were frowned upon and mediocrity was a virtue.”  That is one of the first lessons that the author of this book learnt about Indian Civil Services.  The author joined the civil services at a young age and if the book is any indication he did not deviate into the “risk” of surpassing mediocrity. Though the book is subtitled “an autobiography,” it is more a political history of contemporary India.  The first few chapters throw some light into the personality of the author, but the light remains too scanty for the reader to gauge the personality and its formative factors.  What the reader gets is a hasty tour through Bharatpur (the author’s birthplace) and the Mayo College, Ajmer, as well as the Scindia School, Gwalior.  The author is evidently proud of his alma maters as well as his college, St Stephen’s, Delhi.    The rest of the book is about the author’s experiences with the various political leaders of the country start

Kidnapped by the Taliban is a recently published book written by Dr Dilip Joseph, along with a co-author, about his experiences with the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Dr Joseph is an American physician of Indian origin.  His dream was to offer his medical services for the welfare of humanity.  In 2009 he joined the Colorado-based non-profit community and economic development organisation, Morning Star Development. On 5 Dec 2012, Dr Joseph and two colleagues, en route from a medical clinic in an Afghan village to Kabul, found themselves face-to-face with four men carrying AK-47s. Forced at gunpoint into the back of a truck and driven to a remote location, the men were sure their hours were counted. The doctors were rescued on the fifth day by the American Navy SEAL Team Six, the elite group of soldiers that took down al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.  The book narrates the experiences with the Taliban terrorists.  Dr Joseph learnt how much America values its citizens.  The

Source “Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”  Jesus said that [ Mathew 13:12 ].  Jesus was speaking about certain inner qualities, particularly the ability to perceive and understand.  “ T he top one percent of the wealthiest people on the planet own nearly fifty percent of the world's assets while the bottom fifty percent of the global population combined own less than one percent of the world's wealth,” says John Queally quoting latest statistics.  Jesus lived in a time when human societies were organised around religion and the values and principles considered important by religion.  We are living in a time when the societies revolve round economy and economic considerations.  But what Jesus said holds good even today.  Those who have are getting more in our world too: the rich are getting richer.  And the poor are being eliminated. When Capitalism began its

Keith Chen, associate professor of economics at Yale University, wanted to test Adam Smith’s confident and classical assertion that man is the only animal that engaged in commerce and monetary exchange.  “Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that, ” Smith had written. For his experiment, Chen chose a group of 7 capuchins.  The capuchin is a species of small monkeys with a very small brain.  They spend most of their active life engaged in two activities: food and sex.  Hence, thought Chen, they are quite similar to human beings.  In fact, the capuchins are so greedy for food that they can overeat, and then throw up what they had eaten in order to eat more.  What will happen if such creatures are taught to make use of money? Chen and Venkat Lakshminarayanan worked with the 7 capuchins kept at a lab set up by Laurie Santos, a psychologist.  First of all, the capuchins were taugh