Tomichan Matheikal's blog

If I had the power to do so, I would a dedicate a day to logical thinking.  And make it mandatory for everyone to sit and think logically and coherently. Instructors will be provided for those who need. Simple steps of logical thinking like the Aristotelean syllogisms will be taught. People will be asked to do certain logical exercises. Their logical thinking skills be assessed and rewarded as they deserve. If people begin to think logically, there will be no terrorists killing innocent people for nonexistent celestial creatures. The heroes of the world won't be the natural descendants of Gulliver's Yahoos whose greatest delight lay in amassing some stones which they absurdly believed to be very precious. Expediency will not take the place of morality. Godmen and other frauds will vanish without a trace. The world will be what Jesus wished it to be: the kingdom of heaven. Rational thinking will teach people: the real cause-effect relationships, the difference between poe

Madhuri had reasons to be chagrined: her idol had deserted her.  She had deserted her family, defied her beloved father, to live with her idol, the famous novelist Amitabh Sinha.  Her devotion to the idol was such that she took all the necessary precaution to avoid getting pregnant.  Children would divert her devotion from her idol.  Five years of selfless worship.  Yet he deserted her.  What’s unbearable was that he took as his beloved the woman whom Madhuri hated the most.  Sheila the witch with her two kids one of whom was a moron.  Madhuri had first fallen in love with Amitabh’s novels.  The love grew into admiration and it spread like a contagious disease from the creation to the creator.  “Don’t trust writers and such people,” Madhuri was warned by her father.  “They can’t love anyone except themselves and their works.” Madhuri was sure that Amitabh would love her.  How can a god ignore his most ardent devotee? Such devotion brings devastation when it is spu

One of the catastrophic clusters that accompanied my life for a very long period and caused much unwarranted agony in the unmentionable place is a constellation of well wishers. They appeared from nowhere such as the next seat in a city bus or the chink in the door of your rented residence. They are always armed with a repertoire of advice. They are experts in discovering the faults - both potential and kinetic - in you. They imagine themselves your redeemer; they obviously see you as a pathetic sinner. For a pretty long while I managed to escape them as I lived in a place where people of this sort were rare. But now, it seems, I have landed right in their midst. Those who perceive themselves as having some special link with their god are the biggest pains in the posterior. They come with all kinds of remedies for the ills they discover in you when you know that they are your only aches. One such well wisher counselled my wife the other day that he could see with his divine gift

Paras felt sick again and rushed to the washroom retching. Adarsh had been watching it for quite a few days now. Whenever the Holy Baba's voice rose from the lecture hall, Paras would turn pale and then the retching would begin. Both Paras and Adarsh were inmates of the Baba's Ashram.  Their duty was to look after the accounts. Paras was disconcerted with the fraudulent accounts. Money was being siphoned off to the accounts of two women who took turns to worship the Holy Baba in the night. The women, Paras learnt, had bought palatial houses. They came nowadays to the Ashram in luxurious chauffeur-driven cars. Their houses and cars were all bought with the money donated by naive devotees. Paras wretched again. He was in the bedroom shared by the two of them. This was new: this retching on hearing the sound of the woman's chauffeur-driven car. "Where are you going?" Adarsh asked when Paras started packing his bag, having returned from the washroom. "

It is desirable to have one set of laws for one nation. Moreover, the laws need be updated as time changes. If the Central government wants to bring a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), why do many people feel jittery? Mr Narendra Modi is the first reason. His dislike of certain religious communities makes his actions suspect even if there is little to be scared of. The man has made many hate speeches before the PM's chair mellowed his words. What happened in his state in 2002 is still fresh in the nation's collective memory.  Many churches were attacked in Delhi and around soon after Mr Modi ascended the PM's throne and his reaction was silence. How will anyone expect such a man to protect the interests of all the citizens? The Catholic Church in Kerala has welcomed the initiative, however. That's a good sign. The Church wants to see the proposed UCC before it is enacted to make sure that it's not a BJP Civil Code.  That's a fair demand given BJP's track histor

This is one of the thoughts that amuses me again and again: Suppose we give absolute freedom to people in matters regarding religion. No force of any kind. You go to temple or church or whatever only if you want. There are no priests. No preachers. No godmen or ammas.  No theology. No rituals. You do what your heart tells you to do in the temple or church or whatever. You and your god. Nothing in between. No middleman. Just you before your God. How wonderful that would be! Or Will the temple and the church or whatever remain desolate once there are no power brokers to perform their rituals? Is religion merely another power structure that holds people together for certain worldly benefits and nothing more? At least, will the killings in the name of gods stop? Will people rediscover love or compassion? I'm amused to ponder.

"Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us."  That's part of a prayer that Jesus taught his disciples. Jesus knew the role forgiveness plays in life. Jesus knew that life is a series of sins, committed by us and others on each other. Atlas That's why I don't agree with my friend Sunaina's contention at Indiblogger (Indispire Edition 124 #Forgiveness) that "Forgiveness is not easy to come by." On the contrary, I think the world rests on the shoulders of Atlas who is a personification of forgiveness more than anything else. How would the world continue this far unless we forgave the relentless trespasses on our personal space by others? Teachers who warped our minds and preachers who perverted our souls? Politicians who assault our integrity with the ruthless steadfastness of the bulldozer? Employers' heartless exploitation? The endless craving of our gods for blood? We forgive even if history may not forget. Our forgive