Tomichan Matheikal's blog

It is a blessing to be able to smile after you have crossed over into that period of life which people would rather refer to with the help of some euphemism than plainly as ‘old age.’  When friends of the same age group counsel you condescendingly that “age is a matter of the mind,” you are free to smile.  Smile at the condescension.  Or you can smile at the hypocrisy.  Or self-delusion, if you wish to look at it that way.  You are free to smile when people choose to call it positive thinking.  And you can smile all the way as you drive to some Art of Living prayer session which will teach you avant-garde terminology for the senility that inevitably catches up with you. The realisation that life is all the sound and fury that transpires between the wail that marks your arrival on the scene and the gasp that pushes you out can be an ideal source of smile.  The lessons that your near and dear ones tried to teach you in the countless scenes of the drama of life may deserve pretty

You are dying, Columbus. I wish your corpse would carry to your grave the sins you committed against whole races of people, my people, and all the other people, whom you held to ransom in the name of a god and a king and his queen. What were you but a thief, a murderer and a rapist? You came armed with a sword in one hand and the Bible in the other. Our women were naive to welcome you with gifts of parrots and bales of cotton; They showered their hospitality on you and made spears for your men on your demand. And you killed them with those spears after raping them. Did your god smile when you poured the baptismal water on our infants who grew up to be plunderers of the earth like you? We were clay in your hands and you moulded us in your image. We despise us in your image. PS: America is celebrating Oct 12 as Columbus Day.

Finally India’s intellectuals are waking up, it seems.  “The tide of intolerance has risen to such a level that individuals do not have the freedom to eat what they like or to love a person of their choice,” said Sara Joseph, eminent Malayalam novelist, who has decided to return her Sahitya Adkademi award following the example set by Nayantara Sahgal.  Hindi poet Ashok Vajpeyi had already returned his award.  Urdu novelist Rahman Abbas followed suit.  Sashi Despande stepped down from the Akademi’s General Council. Former Akademi secretary and poet K. Satchidanandan has announced his decision to resign his membership in all committees of the Akademi.  Subhash Chandran, Malayalam novelist and Akademi award winner, has told a TV channel that he is going to return his award.  Short story writer P.K. Parakkadavu, member of the Sahitya Akademi General Council, said he is resigning his membership in the council with immediate effect. Literary critic K.S. Ravikumar, member of the General C

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’