Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Words lost their souls and turned into ghosts             that haunted the pulpits and public places. The King is a great orator who conjures up             paradises of soulless words and gimmicks. Verbal ghosts are hungry for blood             that was shed in the dark alleys of bygone days. They travel on witches’ brooms between             Rama’s Treta yuga and the Mahatma’s Kali yuga, Their forked tongues spitting poison             presumed as nectar by fortune-seekers,             the sexless witches impotent to make love. They make war, They make places of worship, Where the gods are always hungry,             creatures of infinite hunger,             they swallow love and truth; They are gods of words,             words turned ghosts,                         ghosts that haunt a nation.

It was a cold morning on 30 Jan 1948.  Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare met together once again in Retiring Room number 6 at Old Delhi Railway Station. Godse had failed in his two earlier attempts to kill Gandhi.  He did not want to fail again.  “Third time success,” he said half jokingly to his friends. “There will be heavy police guard for Gandhi especially because of the murder attempt just ten days back,” said Godse.  Godse suggested they should buy an old camera which needed a tripod and a black hood.  He would pose as a photographer and conceal the pistol inside the base of the camera. “Nobody uses that sort of a camera nowadays,” said Apte.  He dismissed it as “a bad idea.” “Disguise yourself as a Muslim woman wearing a burqa,” suggested Karkare.  “There are many Muslim women who attend Gandhi’s prayers.  After all, he is their saviour, isn’t he?”  He spat out his hatred.   “No,” said Godse having put on the burqa that was brought in. 

The real question is not whether the original Preamble to the Indian Constitution contained the words ‘secularist’ and ‘socialist’ but what the present India really wants to be.  It is not a matter of words as much as about intentions and motives. A flashback from history Delhi, June 1947 Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of the British Raj, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and a few others are giving the final touches to the governments of independent India and Pakistan.  “You be the first Governor-General of independent India,” says Nehru to Mountbatten who is visibly dismayed. It is a gesture of gratitude and appreciation from the magnanimous people of India to a person who has been working heart and soul for the past four months keeping in mind the welfare of both the countries that are being created. Jinnah has already declared himself the Governor-General of Pakistan. “