Tomichan Matheikal's blog

When Ram and Lakshman sat down to play snakes and ladders, Manthara told them, “For every ladder you climb, remember there’s a snake waiting to swallow you.” Some snakes will swallow you even before you climb any ladder, Ram realised years later.  If you are a potential climber, snakes are more eager to swallow you because they know swallowing is difficult once you have actually climbed.  My ladders were removed even before I reached them, thought Rama.  First Kaikeyi, then Ravana, and then the very people of Ayodhya, they all took away the ladder just as I approached it.  I took revenge on Ravana, but did I regain my Sita?  So what use was it all?  I ascended the throne of Ayodhya.  For what?  To see Sita walk into the flames? You lacked the courage to stand up to people, said Lakshman.  You were more concerned with your image, the facade of the Maryada Purushottam.  Lakshman was chagrined when his role model and hero consigned his wife, the most chaste woman, to the f

“Give us our daily bread...” is a prayer I used to recite a number of times every day until I gave up religion in the mid-1980s.  It was when I gave up reciting the prayer that it became meaningful for me in any way.  Until then I just had to go the dining room at the stroke of the bell and my daily bread would be waiting having taken various avatars like idli or cooked rice or the pan-Indian chapatti with their necessary and delicious accompaniments.  When I took up my first teaching job in Shillong where I stayed all alone in a rented house made of tin and wood, the only cooking I knew was to boil things like rice, vegetables and eggs.  I survived pretty well on the fat-free diet and slimmed down rapidly without spending a single paisa in any calorie-burning centre or on any treadmill.  The daily bread for breakfast came from the nearest baker who eventually advised me to cut down on bread and extend the boiled diet to breakfast too.  “A little bit of rice in the morning is ten t

What am I?  A thistledown that rises on the wings of the breeze only to be beaten down to the earth by the mildest drizzle?  You push me around too much.  I want to stick to something somewhere for good. My mother thought it fit to dump me in the forest after her dalliance with Vishwamitra was over.  My first longing for Ghar Vapsi rose amidst buzzing of bees and the tickling gurgles of the Malini.  I longed to be in the lap of my mother sucking love at her breasts, being looked on with fond admiration by my father.  But they both had their gods as convenient excuses.  Mother was performing a duty assigned to her by her gods.  I was a by-product that could be discarded.  Noboy understood my yearning for a Ghar Vapsi.  Vishwamitra, my dad, dumped me on grounds of asceticism.  What does asceticism mean shorn of love?  If a man can dump his own flesh and blood in the shape of an innocent little baby, what is the value of his asceticism?  The question made me long for another kind

  If Mother Teresa had indeed converted a lot of Indians, as alleged by Mohan Bhagwat, would India have been a better place?   Would there be less hatred and violence, more tolerance and compassion? One thing is clear at least.  Mohan Bhagwat and his organisation along with the affiliates of that organisation have not learnt anything more than the hatred that spills out of every page of their holy scriptures, We, Our nationhood Defined written in 1939.  Read any writing by people associated with Bhagwat’s organisation and you will feel hatred boiling inside your veins and seeping into the marrow of your bones with the fury of concentrated sulphuric acid. For example, let me take a page out of Pracharak Jiwan , autobiography of Krishna Gopal Rastogi, senior RSS pracharak.  See how Rastogi describes an incident that happened when he was leading an armed group of his supporters to attack the Muslims in Kaliar (a town situated between Roorkee and Haridwar). Available at onl

Fable Frog was trying to catch Fly for his breakfast when Snake came crawling through the grass.  Hunger is what drives Frog, Fly and Snake.  Escaping from the other’s hunger is the art of living.  Frog leaped away from Snake.  He had not been careful enough, however. It was a blind leap.  Frog had no time to practise what his grandmother had taught him: “Look before you leap.”  Frog was descending rapidly into darkness.  But he could soon hear the croaks of other frogs.  He hit water.  He had reached the bottom of a well. Soon all the frogs in the well gathered around him.  From the tiny tots to the grandpas and grandmas, all the frogs croaked away in wonder until one frog who looked like a leader said, “You are the Avatar of God.  You have descended from Heaven to save us.”  All the frogs in the well fell prostrate in front of Frog. Frog was not a fraud, however.  “I’m not any avatar of any god.  I was trying to save myself from Snake but did not have the time to lo

Delhi has a heart and the popular phrase Dilwale Dilliwale may not be a gross exaggeration.  Yesterday I attended a Partners’ Meet organised by World Vision India.  My being a sponsor of a child through the NGO is one of the many paradoxes that constitute me.  I’m not religious at all.  I’m a staunch critic of religions.  I know that religion has been a cause of strife and wars throughout the documented history of mankind.  Yet, quite a few years ago, when I decided to do something meaningful for at least one child in the country I chose World Vision which proudly proclaims itself as a Christian organisation.  The reason was simple: I wanted an NGO that will put my monthly contribution to good use.  It was after sufficient research that I chose World Vision. A song from World Vision's children Until yesterday I was under the false impression that most of World Vision’s sponsors and donors were Christians.  The capacious Sathya Sai Baba Auditorium was nearly filled wi

“The construction of a temple, Buddhist or Hindu, was an important political act, indeed as much an act of war as it was an act of peace,” says John Keay in his book, India: a History .  Religion has always been inextricably intertwined with politics.  Christianity would probably have been wiped out from the face of the earth unless it had succeeded in enlisting Emperor Constantine’s devotion.  One of the first things Constantine did after embracing his new Faith was to construct a huge church in Constantinople, his new capital.  He also constructed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the place where Jesus’ tomb was/is believed to have been. All powerful kings and emperors built enormous churches, temples or other places of worship.  Most of the fabulous temples in India were constructed by powerful rulers in the ancient days.  The purpose was not so much worship of god(s) as proclamation or exhibition of worldly power.  Heavenly gods and earthly kings have joined hands for var