Tomichan Matheikal's blog

On 25 Nov 1949, the day before the Constituent Assembly wound up its proceedings, Dr B R Ambedkar made a speech summing up the work of the Assembly and thanking all the people associated with it.  He ended his speech with three warnings. The second warning was about the dangers of unthinking submission to charismatic authority.  Quoting John Stuart Mill, Ambedkar cautioned Indians not “to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions.” “In India,” went on Ambedkar, “Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world.  Bhakti in religion may be the road to the salvation of a soul.  But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.” Today the two major rival political parties in India are laying siege to

Almost twenty years ago I attended a week-long retreat at a religious centre in Kerala.  A few circumstances in my life had conspired together to throw my inner life into absolute chaos.  When you are going through a protracted ordeal, you are quite sure to attract a lot of well-wishers.  Though many of these well-wishers are actually people who derive a secret delight by peeping into your agony, a few of them are genuinely interested in putting into practise all their pastoral skills.  A universal verdict was passed by all those who claimed to have diagnosed the condition of my soul: that I should attend a retreat. A Catholic retreat usually consists of a series of sermons or religious lectures interspersed with prayer services culminating in the purgation of one’s sins through the confession.  Like the drowning man clutching at the floating straw, I embraced the retreat as fanatically as I could. The preacher, the retreat guru, was informed by some of my well-wishers much

Michael’s nights were haunted by the woods.  The woods were vanishing from real lands.  They were encroached upon by people who knew how to bribe elected leaders.  Thus residential apartments and health resorts replaced the woods.  Godmen and Ammas replaced the tree nymphs and the elves.  The woods were lovely, dark and deep.  Michael had no promises to keep or miles to go before he could sleep.  In fact, sleep had deserted him.  Nymphs and elves haunted his nocturnal wakefulness.  The woods beckoned him. Not all the forests were swallowed by human greed.  Michael lived at the edge of the greed.  His village was yet to be sold to builders and developers.  It would be sold soon, however.  An Adventure Park would replace the village.  Michael drank the last bit of the distilled brew left in the bottle, mounted his cycle and went off whistling all the way to where the builders and bulldozers had not reached yet.  The moon was shining brightly in the midnight sky boosting t