Tomichan Matheikal's blog

'I don't like meeting people,' I explained when a friend asked why I showed little interest in meeting him after a long period. People are clichés wherever you go.  They keep repeating themselves.  The repetition may take slightly different avatars.  Some do it in the name of the Christ, some others in Krishna's. Or Allah's. Or some Baba or other fraud. Fraud is a perpetual cliche from which mankind has no salvation, my friend said. Your problem is that you looked for salvation from them. Silly romantic dreamer! He laughed. So I am a fraud too? I asked. Living in an illusion! Aren't all people doing just that?  Living in one illusion or another? In perceived paradises?  Maybe paradise of wealth, power, positions, Babadom, kingdom of heaven... Clichés.  What else? Solitude is my cliché, I said. You are a cliché trying to run away from other clichés, he said.

“There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.”  ―  J.K. Rowling ,  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Examine history and we will be amazed by enormity of the evil that man has inflicted upon his fellow creatures mostly in the name of gods and creeds.  A lot of good people perished being labelled as heretics and witches.  Thousands of innocent people have died and continue to do so to please the gods of fanatics and radicals. The Pope has apologised for his Church's inhuman attitude towards homosexuals.  Pope John Paul II had made quite a number of apologies .  Most religions will have infinite sins to atone for if they are willing to undertake an honest introspection. And yet religion is about goodness, compassion, and what not?  That's what we have been told at least. The plain truth is that religion, like most other man-made institutions, is about power. If you have power, what you do is right and good!  Rather, it's not

'I hate plastic flowers,' said Raj. 'But they smell better than the original flowers,' said Mohan, the host. 'No smell at all.' Mohan brought a canister and sprayed perfume on the flowers. Plastic perfume suffused the air. Then the priest came and blessed the perfume. And everything was OK. Gods and their priests make everything OK. Plastic.

Sangeeta was heartbroken.  She peered into the coffee mug as if the dregs in it contained the perfect metaphor for her life. "What happened, honey?" asked Rakesh.  "You've suddenly gone moody." They were on their first date.  Sitting in the ethereal air of Cafe Coffee Day, they admired each other before the mutual assessment took off as naturally as the dessert followed the meal.  Facebook had brought them together and Whatsapp had sealed the bond firmly. "Blue is NOT your favourite colour!" She asked as if her world had broken apart. "No. Not at all. But what does that matter?" "I thought blue was your favourite colour. I always wanted to marry a man whose favourite colour was blue." "Oh, honey, but who told you blue was my favourite colour?" "Your first profile pic on fb had a blue tee." "Oh, yeah?" "I always thought blue was your favourite colour." "What does the c

"God!" I exclaimed just as he appeared before me as if from nowhere.  I didn't know who he was.  His demeanour carried such grace and aura that the exclamation was my spontaneous response. "Do I look like a fraud?" He asked. I didn't say fraud, I clarified. I said God. I know, he smiled.  God, fraud... He played with the words for a while. You look like a god, I said. I don't want to.  He looked slightly helpless.  People will demand miracles. Nothing more.  The priests, godmen and the like will eliminate the real god and then recreate him in their own image.  With the waxen images shaped by them, they will conquer little kingdoms.  Kingdoms with fences around. Then they will teach their followers to shoot and kill those behind other fences, clutching at slightly different waxen images.  Worst of all, they will distort all that I shall ever utter. I felt pity for him.  Can I help you?  I asked. Deliver me from myself.  He said that looking

The income tax department has discovered black money amounting to Rs 2300 crore in godman Asaram Bapu's   palaces.  The godman's followers have a lot of shady deals carried out in the name of religion and charity. The government should investigate all the religious trusts and organisations.  Most of them, if not all, will be found to be serious financial offenders. On the other hand, the people of India should ask themselves how long they will allow themselves to be defrauded by such satanic godmen and ammas. One simple truth is that there are thousands of people who are accomplices of the sanctimonious frauds merely because religion has become the easiest way to make illegal wealth in India.  It is very easy to get away with it too. If the Modi government is serious about bringing achche din to the country, it should start with cleaning up the most pernicious places: the religious trusts.

“You are so capable of loving.  Yet why do you fight and kill men?”  Briseis asked. “Fighting is not my choice,” said Achilles having planted a passionate kiss on the ruby lips below Brisei’s lilac eyes.  Her eyes resembled those of a gazelle, serene and pure.  “I inherited it from my father and his father and all the ancestors.  One cannot wish away one’s ancestral inheritance.” “I wish you could,” said Briseis wistfully.  She had lost her husband, father, mother and three brothers in the war led by Achilles’ people.  She was delivered to Achilles for the nocturnal pleasures of the day’s warrior. Achilles looked at her as the soldier dragged her along and threw her on Achilles’ bed in the tent.  The gaze and the grace of the gazelle charmed Achilles instantly.  He sat beside her on the bed and wiped away the blood from her ruby lips.  But the lips still shone like ruby.  He smelled her hair. “You a royal?” he asked. She refused to reply.  He took his towel, sque