Tomichan Matheikal's blog

In response to Karan Thapar’s article which appeared in The Hindu a few days back, (which also inspired my last blog: From myths toward mathematics ), an ISRO scientist writes in today’s Hindu : “I am a retired scientist/engineer who worked in one of India’s premier scientific organisations, ISRO, for 38 years.  I believe in Ganesha, and that Shiva exists in Kailash, often riding on his bull.  Can anybody accuse me of having two faces?” I can and I do, dear scientist.  The myths to which Ganesha and Shiva belong and the science which you make use of for probing into the outer space far beyond Mount Kailash are not compatible.  One destroys the other.  Science replaces myths with facts, and myths have always killed scientists literally and metaphorically.  Don’t forget the scientists who were subjected to inquisition and incarceration during the medieval period.  Don’t ignore the crusade that continues even today against science in other names such as jihad. But I won’t ta

Courtesy: The Hindu 11 – 10 = ½ = 0.5 The equation on the blackboard baffled me as I walked into a classroom where I was given an exam duty.  Somebody had rubbed out something, I thought.  My mind started playing its usual game.  Come on, change it, said my mind. This is how I changed it:  11 – 10 = 1 I erased two figures mentally, the denominator 2 and the final decimal part of the equation.  Such a simplistic solution failed to satisfy me especially since I had a lot of free time in the exam room.  Seeing my solution, Sherlock Holmes would have said, “Elementary, Mr Matheikal.” My mind made the following equation: (11 - 10 ) ÷  2 = ½ = 0.5 That was neat, said my mind.  I had added a denominator 2 to the first part of the equation.     11 – 10 = 1 = 0.5 x 2 What I did was to transpose the denominator 2 to the RHS (right hand side) of the equation. One could go on.  How far you go with it depends on your capacity to work with numbers as well

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

The political leaders in Delhi are driving the cars of their citizens underground.  Civic Centre on Minto Road is an imposing tower complex that overlooks both Old and New Delhi.  It houses the Municipal Corporations of Delhi, both Old and New.  If you are an ordinary citizen, even if you are driving the costliest car you can afford, you will be asked to park your precious vehicle underground.  All overground parking space is meant for the politicians and their cronies.  Even SUVs bearing an inscription somewhere on or near its number plate claiming allegiance to some politician will get access to the overground parking space.  All the rest will go snaking down to the pit below. In 1895, H G Wells wrote a novel titled The Time Machine in which the author imagined the future of the capitalist world as divided between the Eloi and the Morlocks, people overground and underground.  The Eloi were the capitalists whose vision was grant enough to send all industries and their worki

Fiction “Which topi did you buy?”  She asked while her fingers flew with supersonic speed on the virtual keypad of the smartphone commenting on the selfies posted by her countless friends on Facebook. “Your favourite brand,” he said indifferently.  He was busy with the selfie videos posted by his other girlfriends on Whatsapp.  He couldn’t remember which her favourite brand was.  It doesn’t matter, he knew.  She was not likely to notice it.  What does the brand name of an artificial skin matter when the bliss experienced by real skins explodes like a neural bomb in the brain making it oblivious to everything else?  He knew girls well enough to understand that their brand choices were only ways of inflating their already overblown egos.  “Hey, look here,” she said.  “Our PM has sent a selfie after casting his vote.” “He is our leader,” he said without looking at what she was playing with.  He was busy with his own selfie messages on Whatsapp.  But he added, “The leade