Tomichan Matheikal's blog

It was years since I had met Siddhartha.  When I heard that he was sitting under a peepal awaiting enlightenment, I was curious.  I embarked on the metro train that would take me near to Kapil Vastu Estate. Kapil Vastu Estate was a huge complex developed by Siddhartha’s father, Shuddhodhana Gautama, one of the most successful industrialists of neoliberal Hindustan.  “Profit is the dharma of the trader,” was Shuddhodhana’s motto.  He had graduated from the London School of Economics before doing MBA from Harvard University.  Siddhartha and I were classmates.  Not that my father could afford to send me to the same public school as Siddhartha.  Since my father was Shuddhodhana’s personal assistant and a close confidante, the business magnate decided to put me in the same school as his own son.  Probably, it was his way of monitoring his son indirectly.  Siddhartha showed little interest in academics or co-curricular or extra-curricular activities.  He came and went back by

Pope Francis Pope Francis has declared that the Big Bang theory and his religion are not in conflict with each other.  The Bible is fiction.  The Bible is scripture.  It is not meant to teach science.  As Galileo put it beautifully, “The Bible teaches how to go to heaven, science teaches how the heavens go.” Even the religious fundamentalists are interested in how the heavens go rather than how to go to heaven.  Even they know that there is no heaven.   All that religions have been doing so far is to manipulate.  So that they have power.  Power.  No exceptions.  Exceptions became extinct.  Or evolved.  And gained power.  Or are begging/fighting for power.   When power rules, humanity dies.  Because power belongs to the animals. ‘ Might is right’ is the law of the jungle. Religion originated as a quest.  A search for the beyond.  What could not be understood was labelled as god or demon.  Do we need that sort of search anymore?  Don’t we have a bett

Book Review “Our country was going crazy.  How was it possible that we were now garlanding murderers?”  (174)*  Malala Yousafzai’s autobiographical book , I am Malala , is the story of how her beloved Swat Valley was overtaken by a bunch of murderers who considered themselves religious reformists.  It is also the story of the Talibanisation of Pakistan in general and the failure of the Pakistani government in dealing with the problem. The book is an eloquent illustration of two conflicting attitudes towards religion: one which tries to understand it rationally and use it for improving the society and the other which wields it as a weapon for oppressing people with the objective of keeping them under its all-pervasive power. As a very young girl Malala started questioning certain aspects of her religion.  Denial of education as well as many other rights to girls and subjugation of women in general were things that she found highly discriminatory and unjust.  She was f