Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Nothing ennobles human beings more than the company of their beloved ones in an environment suffused with the splendour of nature.  My latest such experience occurred last summer when Maggie and I visited Shimla.  The verdurous hillsides that rise majestically all around cling to your soul with an unearthly tenacity.  They bewitch you so much that you feel oppressed and liberated simultaneously.  You become the questing knight of  Keats’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci .  You are drowned in transcendental beauty.  You are intoxicated with it. Having spent the day visiting various places of tourist interest, we were dropped back by our driver at the Old Bus Stand from where we wished to walk up the fairly steep ascent to the Mall Road.  The narrow lane is lined on both sides with goods of all sorts ranging from exotic trinkets to day-to-day grocery items.  The mundane and the sublime coexist in an edifying spirit of camaraderie in the markets of hill stations.  A view from the Ma

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

Mythologies of various civilisations present tales of kingdoms that became sterile because of the wickedness of their kings.  Kings or Political Leaders play a vital role in moulding the moral values and principles of their citizens.  No nation can be greater than its leader. Look at what some of our leaders have said about women.  You will then understand why women in India can never feel safe, why crimes against them are sure to rise.  Babulal Gaur is an 85 year-old BJP minister in Madhya Pradesh. Age has not made him wise in any way.  When can rape ever be right?  The people who voted for him deserve an answer.  Do ask. On this Women's Day. The Home Minister of Chhattisgarh, BJP's Ramsewak Paikra, thinks that rapes are accidental rather than intentional.  How many mistakes is he willing to tolerate or condone?  Do ask. On this Women's Day. Here is a solution from Haryana, a state where women are treated like goods and chattels.  Whe

Dear God, I lost faith in you long ago.  You did nothing to reinstate my faith.  You don’t care either way, I guess.  When millions of innocent people have been killed brutally in your name (which may be spelt differently by different people) and you never seemed to bother a bit, why should the loss of faith by someone as insignificant as me bother you? Nevertheless, I’m curious.  Do you really care about anything at all?  I can put aside the earthquakes and tsunamis and other natural calamities in the name of natural laws which you might not like to fiddle with.  I prefer to see you as a law-abiding entity.  Then will arise a question: are you the creator of the cosmos or are you just a part of it? If you are the creator, couldn’t you have done a little better work?  Couldn’t you create creatures capable of a little less evil and a little more goodness?  Why was evil necessary at all?  Or is goodness impossible without evil?  Are you also a blend of both? What about