Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Fascism is an act of contempt.  Albert Camus made a detailed analysis of that contempt in his book, The Rebel .  Conversely, said Camus, “every form of contempt, if it enters politics, prepares the way for, or establishes, fascism.” Those of us who are not victims of selective amnesia may remember certain mock-slogans such as Hum paanch, humara pachees which won the sloganeer tremendous popularity in the country.  If from Mein Kampf the road led straight to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, the mock slogans of the country’s most eloquent orator have brought us to Dadri.  Leaving aside a Nayantara Sahgal and an Ashok Vajpeyi, the intellectuals in the country are lulled into stupor by the eloquent contempt.  Have we reached that stage where –  as in Camus’s analysis of fascism – one leader, one people translates into one master, millions of slaves ?  Finally when the orator broke his silence on the issue he took recourse to the counsel given by the President who is a soft-spo

‘Do you think your leg is a part of yourself?’  The Judge asked the convict. ‘Yes.’  The convict was confident. ‘What about the bacteria in your intestines...?’  The convict’s eyes bulged.  He seemed to know nothing about bacteria, and that too in his stomach. ‘There won’t be no digestion of what you eat without them bacteria in your gut,’ the Judge explained condescendingly before proceeding to the next question with his usual solemnity.  ‘What about the stream from which you take your drinking water?  Is the stream a part of yourself?’ The convict blinked. ‘Is your cow a part of you?  Is the land on which your cow grazes a part of you?  Are you a part of the landscape and all that it holds, a part of Nature, a part of the universe, one with the streams and rocks, trees and grass, buffaloes and grasshoppers?  What makes you think a cow is more a part of the universe than a Muslim?’ The convict’s eyes, which were lifeless until then, glared at the last word

Mr Ram Jethmalani is disillusioned with Mr Narendra Modi.  “I thought God had sent him as his ‘Aulia’ [representative] for India’s salvation... How I became the victim of fraud,” said the eminent lawyer who was in Bihar asking the people there to defeat the BJP in the imminent elections.  And he is a BJP MP in the Rajya Sabha! “Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion,” said Arthur Koestler whose faith in communism met with a tragic end because of Stalin, a leader who had made tall promises to his country.  Mr Jethmalani may not possess the insightfulness of Koestler to understand that “As long as chaos dominates the world, God is an anachronism; and every compromise with one’s own conscience is perfidy. When the accursed inner voice speaks to you, hold your hands over your ears…” [ Darkness at Noon , Koestler’s illustrious novel].  Hence a few blustering dialogues in Bihar will ease the pain in his heart which will soon be ready for compromises.  Our politicians ha

One of the many creatures that Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classical Little Prince encounters on the earth is a fox.  The creature approaches the Prince with a weird request.  “Please tame me,” pleaded the fox.  The Prince did not know the meaning of ‘tame’.  “It means to establish ties,” explained the fox.  Without the ties, the boy would be just another boy for the fox just as the fox would be just another fox for the boy who don’t need each other in any way.  “But if you tame me,” continues the fox, “then we shall need each other.  To me, you will be unique in all the world.  To you, I shall be unique in all the world.” Little Prince and the Fox When you establish the “ties” the person or thing becomes unique to you, the Prince understands.  He remembers the rose which he used to look after on his own planet.  He watered it, he made a special glass enclosure for its safety, he killed caterpillars for its sake.  The Prince refers to the rose with the personal pronoun ‘she’

Mahatma Gandhi has not been rendered obsolete yet.  Hence his birth anniversary is sure to get some attention.  The Congress Party is sure to remember him.  The ruling BJP may pay lip service unless it can conjure up the lexicon that can create a new discourse on the palimpsest of the country’s history and thus absorb Gandhi into its crowded pantheon. Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin and a member of the RSS, said in his defence during the trial that what he could not stomach was Gandhi’s “infallibility” to which the Congress had capitulated helplessly.  Godse went on to describe that infallibility as “eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision.” And Godse was right!  Gandhi was on a relentless pursuit of the truth.  The more he pursued it, the more convinced he became of the correctness of his approach.  Hence he imposed his will on many people.  Didn’t every prophet, every messiah, impose his will on his followers? Gandhi was a messiah.  He was a

In a recent article in the Economic and Political Weekly , the authors argue that vegetarianism in India is more a cultural and political phenomenon than a conscious choice that stems from any concern for the well-being of animals. The article starts with the basic premise that “in India, vegetarianism, and particularly the advocacy of the same, is seen as the product of conservative, often right-wing, beliefs and attitudes.”  However, there is a sizeable section of the country’s population that does not want to be seen as conservative and much less right-wing.  The world is becoming increasingly globalised and people’s choices and preferences are guided by what is perceived as chic beyond the narrow confines of one’s national and/or religious culture.  Dining out in a multinational eatery like KFC or McDonald’s is not merely a matter of the palate or the belly, but a statement of one’s social and economic status.  Indians belonging to the upper economic classes do not want to

Book Review Title: Kaleidoscopic Lives Author: Roji Abraham Publisher: Quills Ink, 2015 Pages: 168 Even the most ordinary person next door carries at least one story within him/her.  Roji Abraham’s debut collection of short stories present some very ordinary people who are embodiments of interesting narratives.  The stories are simple but captivating. They are narrated in a lucid and straightforward style.  Yet most of them convey some subtle nuance of human life in a gentle but teasing manner. A few of the stories such as ‘Chocolate Uncle’ and ‘Pilla the Thief’ convey some simple lessons about life without being preachy at all.  A few others such as ‘Shahab’ and ‘The Cab Driver’s Story’ inspire and motivate the reader to do something noble in life.  Once again, the author manages to do that without being preachy.  The protagonists of these stories strike the reader as real persons taken from one’s neighbourhood and that’s precisely where the charm of these stor