Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Bihar let down Mr Modi.  No other Prime Minister of the country had ever committed him-/herself as wholeheartedly to the elections in any state as Mr Modi had in Bihar this time.  BJP’s defeat in Bihar is Mr Modi’s defeat, however much his supporters might argue otherwise.  Source The whole agenda of development that Mr Modi had promised to the nation, the only objective for which the people of India elected him to the most powerful post in the country, was rubbished by Dadri and Bahari and other such affairs which caught the fancy of the entire Sangh Parivar while Mr Modi was making a world tour except when he mouthed some utopian slogans about development once in a while.    The people of India are not concerned about rewriting the country’s history or converting the country into a theocratic nation.  They have understood that the world has moved on well into the 21 st century where real science and technology matter much more than the rocket technology of Ravana or

Diwali is a festival that is sustained by multiple legends.  The people of Ayodhya lined up with lamps in their hands to welcome back Rama and Sita who had destroyed the evil named Ravana.  The return of the Pandavas after their exile used to add sheen to the Diwali diyas.  Krishna’s victory over Narakasura is commemorated in certain parts of India during Diwali.  The emergence of Lakshmi from the cosmic ocean which was churned by both the gods and the demons may shine in some of the Diwali lights.  The bulk of the universe consists of dark matter.  The 100 billion galaxies each of which may have about 100 billion stars have not dispelled much of the darkness.  Is darkness the essence of the universe?  Is light a diversion granted to the cosmos like the fireflies that come and go in the wildernesses?  If light was more abundant than darkness, perhaps Diwali would not have been celebrated.  Diwali is a reminder about the preponderance of darkness.  About the need to light

33 short stories of mine, most of which were written in the last couple of years, have been published in the form of a book, both printed and digital versions. As I wrote earlier , these stories emerged from the dilemmas and conflicts I faced when certain drastic changes took place where I was working until a few months back.  The changes started with sanctimonious pretensions and ended with a whole school being bulldozed into sheer vacuum.  Right in the capital of the world’s largest democracy.  The whole process was a dark drama which had occasional moments of hilarious farce and profound grotesqueness.  It was an ideal place for a writer to be at.  Human nature reveals itself without masks when survival is threatened.  Drama unfolds one after another.  People walk about with heads buckled down under depression.  People rebel and get thrown out.  Criminal charges are fabricated against those whose rebellion is a serious threat to the wielders of real power.  Life becomes a batt

One BJP minister beefs about his chief minister of the same party in Karnataka and goes to the extent of threatening to behead him if he ate beef “and play football with his severed head.”  We have so many beef-heads in the country who have bizarre notions about games and their tribe is increasing especially since the cow migrated from its usual habitats on the city streets to the new lullabies with which our present leaders are trying to put the whole nation to an intoxicated sleep.  The lullabies are, however, beginning to sound like beef-hearts – at least to some of us. The BJP chief minister of Karnataka does not eat beef.  He was merely defending the people’s right to eat whatever they liked.  But the BJP does not believe in such magnanimity.  It is a party beefed up by religious and cultural ideologies.  Religion has its god-given truths which no beef-head can transmute into beef-hearts.  A plain truth is that beef is no delicacy.  It is hard and extremely fibrous.