Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Book Review “The truth is, sir, that men do what their power permits them to do. We are no different from the Pharaohs or the Mongols: the difference is only that when we kill people we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause.  It is this pretence of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history.” Captain Chillingworth of the ship Ibis utters those words in Amitav Ghosh’s novel, Sea of Poppies .  The novel is about power and how different people wield it over others as much as it is about the powerless who are destined to suffer the oppressions.  The novel presents a part of the India in the 1830s.  The British have become very powerful in India and they control the trade too.   As Benjamin Burnham, one of the traders in the novel, says, trade indicates the “march of human freedom.”  Even slave trade is part of that glorious march.  According to Burnham, the white man gave freedom to the African slaves from “the rule of some dark tyra

I’m not a fan of grammar books.  In fact, they confuse me no end with all those technical terms such as inchoative verbs and protasis.  As a teacher of English, I’ve always advised my students to hone their linguistic skills by listening, speaking, reading and writing.  We can learn another language just as we learnt our mother tongue: by using the language rather than learning its grammar.  However, I have had to teach grammar sometimes as part of the academic courses.  I’ve tried my best to make the grammar teaching sound as light and interesting as possible by avoiding jargon as far as possible and focusing on exercises that are relevant to the students’ day-to-day life.  Traditional grammar teaching would be the most boring part of language learning for most students.  And yet, having said all this, I must add that some knowledge of basic grammar always helps us to master the language. During my recent visit to Delhi, one of my ex-colleagues presented me a set of gram

Three years ago, Aaron James published a book titled Assholes: A Theory according to which “A person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people.”  In simple words, an asshole is a person who takes every advantage, thinks himself superior to all others, and is immune to criticism.  Most of our politicians belong to that category, in case you are looking for examples.  Now James has come up with a new book: Assholes: A Theory of Donald Trump . Aaron James is not a popular writer who seeks to entertain the readers with hackneyed humour.  He is a professor of philosophy.  The first book in which he explains his theory of assholes is an erudite work drawing heavily on philosophers such as Plato, Kant, Rousseau and Hobbes.    Politics creates assholes necessarily.  Politics is about po