Tomichan Matheikal's blog

When Babur was conquering more territory in India, one of his formidable opponents was the Rajput king Rana Sangha of Mewar.  The news of the defeat of one of his battalions by Rana Sangha was accompanied by a soothsayer’s prediction of disaster and the desertion of the Indian mercenaries.  Babur’s soldiers were thoroughly demoralised.  A new strategy was required.  Thus came in religion.  “This is not just a war for territory,” declared the divinely inspired Babur.  “This is a jihad against infidels.”  With no other weapon than a few words, Babur converted a greedy and violent war into a holy jihad.  “Cowardice became apostasy while death assumed the welcome guise of martyrdom,” writes John Keay in his book, India: A History .  Keay goes on to quote from Babur-nama (Babur’s personal memoir-cum-diary), “The plan was perfect, it worked admirably...”  His soldiers took an oath on the Quran to fight till they fell.  What’s more, Babur enacted certain religious rituals too: abjuring al

If your life ever becomes a mess and goes out of your control, one of the few options you are left with is to leave the environment. Leaving the familiar territory and taking a leap into the apparent darkness that lies ahead calls for something more than frustration.  It requires boldness.  Boldness to face new challenges when you are already beaten down by old ones! The year was 2001 and the place was Shillong.  I was 41 years old and working as a lecturer in a reputed college in the town.  There was a curious mixture of factors that had thrown my personal life into utter chaos. Immaturity, inability to deal with the society, inadequate understanding of myself, some futile illusory quests... The list was pretty long, long enough to bog me down utterly. When you are down and out, Newton’s law on momentum and acceleration attaches itself to you with unflinching fidelity and your downward cruise becomes irreversible.  The society is more than happy to add its bit by giv

I say 90 per cent of Indian are idiots.  You people don’t have brains in your heads.... It is so easy to take you for a ride.  You mad people will start fighting amongst yourself (sic), not realizing that some agent provocateur is behind a mischievous gesture of disrespect to a place of worship. Today 80 per cent Hindus are communal and 80 per cent Muslims are communal.  This is the harsh truth, bitter truth that I am telling you.  In 150 years, you have gone backwards instead of moving forward because the English kept injecting poison. Justice Katju Justice Markandey Katju, retired judge of the Supreme Court of India, said those words in a seminar organised by the South Asia Media Commission on 8 Dec 2012 in Delhi.  Now he tells us in his blog that Mahatma Gandhi was “an agent of the British.” He lists three reasons. 1.      By injecting religion into politics, Gandhi helped the British policy of ‘divide and rule.’ 2.      Gandhi’s satyagraha diverted the revoluti

Book Review Title: Story of Tublu Author: Jahid Akhtar Publisher: Lifi Publications, New Delhi, 2015 Pages: xii + 204           Price: Rs200 Every individual carries at least one story within him/her: his/her own story.  Life is a series of inevitable ups and downs which can be formulated into a beautiful tale with a little imagination and some effort. Jahid Akhtar succeeds in weaving one such tale in his debut novel, Story of Tublu . It is not an autobiographical novel, of course.  It reads like a story that could have happened really.  Every line reads as if it is taken from actual life.  Every character is like someone we may actually meet in real life.  The author does not take recourse to any literary embellishments or sophisticated techniques to narrate his story.  It’s a straightforward narrative that comes in the simplest language possible and tells the story of some children who eventually grow up into young adults going through the inevitable ups and d