Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Source: Here Let us go then, you and I, When the evening threatens with phantoms of nightmares rising amid the gongs and chants in the Baba’s kingdom. Let us go, through certain half-deserted corridors, The muttering retreats of restless souls in search of what they know not. Netajis and Lalajis meet to conspire, Having donned the mask to suit the affair, Baba ensconced himself on god’s throne, His women standing around with smiles on ready-to-serve masks. The chanting rose in the huge pavilion Like ghosts in search of their places of rest While the gongs resounded in the vacuum  of yearning chanting hearts Baba stood up having signed the latest deal With Netajis and Lalajis And the women’s masks smiled The eyes met furtively. And I have known the eyes already, known them all – The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase. Baba dictates formulas to chanters and gongers Netaji to chelas Lalaji to bankers Women to Bab

Image Courtesy: theodysseyonline Human beings make a difference even to the planet.  According to geologists, human beings have altered the fate of the planet.  The earth has now entered a new geological epoch which they call Anthropocene.  The 12000 year-old Holocene has come to an end. Human activities have altered the very nature of the planet.  It is no more the mountains and their glaciers, or the oceans and the cyclones, that determine the fate of terrestrial life.  Man has reasons to be proud of himself: it is he who shapes the destiny of the earth. Should he be ashamed of himself, rather? Human activities have increased the acidity in the oceans which in turn will make the marine creatures to evolve and develop shells to withstand the man-made poison in the saline waters.  Geologists predict that future limestone will come from the shells of these marine creatures. Nitrogen content in the atmosphere has been affected.  River deltas have shrunk.  The very

Presenting Anthony Gottlieb’s new book, The Dream of Enlightenment , The New Yorker today raises the question whether we are “ really so modern .”  Modernity is not about science and technology, argues the writer.  “Rather, it is a subjective condition, a feeling or an intuition that we are in some profound sense different from the people who lived before us.”  He goes on to show that we are no different from the people who lived, say, a hundred years ago.  We may have accumulated a lot of new technology and its gifts. But our attitudes haven’t changed.  Aristotle who was born 2400 years ago was more sophisticated in thinking than most people living today.  If Aristotle were to visit us today, he would find us as savage as the people of his days.  He wouldn’t accept our attacking certain people with missiles and bombs in the name of gods and ideologies as a sign of modernity.  He would find it impossible to imagine that certain sections of people are kept away from the mainstr

Kadakampally Surendran, Kerala's Devaswom Board minister, has raised a very serious allegation against the RSS in the state. According to a Facebook post of the minister, the RSS is perpetrating certain illegal activities in some temples.  The minister claims that RSS is plotting to convert the temples into storehouses for arms and ammunition. It is a very serious allegation.  Both the RSS and the minister's party [CPM] are at loggerheads with each other.  Both have attacked each other violently leading to many deaths in the past. If the RSS is converting temples into arms stores, the situation needs immediate action. In the last two years the right wing in the country has become more violent than ever.  There have been attacks on many people belonging to minority communities in different parts of the country.  Even the Dalits are not spared by certain activists. Kerala is a state with a high non-Hindu population. Communal riots can become conflagrations quickly.  Hen

Courtesy: The Indian Express Thanks to the media, a Dana Majhi or a Salamani Behera makes a brief appearance in the history of the country.  Who are they?  We will ask that question tomorrow.  We will forget them.  Because they don’t belong in history.  It was merely a freak chance that put them there.  Dana Majhi entered by carrying the dead body of his wife on his shoulders for a distance of over 10 km.  With his teenage daughter walking beside suppressing her grief.  The picture would shake the conscience of anyone who has a conscience.  Salamani Behera was an 80 year-old woman whose dead body was broken at the hip in order to fold it into two so that it could be packed and carried on a bamboo pole.  How much is a human being worth in this country whose Prime Minister is hopping on and off airplanes in order to carry the greatness of his nation far and wide? History always belonged to the rulers and their minions.  Pick up any history book and we will read about ki

Long ago, when I was young and more foolish than most of my contemporaries who were worldly wise, my godfather told me that I was a narcissist.  I possessed all the characteristics of a person suffering from the narcissistic personality disorder, he said.  Then he read out the list of my personality disorders from a diary. 1.      You have an exaggerated sense of self-importance. 2.      You expect to be recognised as superior even though you have achieved nothing worthwhile 3.      You exaggerate whatever little you manage to achieve. 4.      You are often in your own dream world, fantasies about... Then he stopped and looked at me.  “Am I correct this far?” he asked.  I nodded my head like a penitent at the confessional. “... fantasies about success, power, intellectual brilliance...”  He paused and stared into my eyes again.  “Are you with me?” “Bound to you with a chain,” I wished to say.  But I was trained to listen quietly when  the ‘personal scrutiny’ w

The politicians of Haryana are vying with one another, irrespective of their party allegiances, to claim the credit for Sakshi Malik’s Olympic medal .  That’s the major advantage of being a winner.  When you laugh, the world laughs with you; when you cry, the world sneaks away in search of the next winner.  Politicians, being the direct descendants of bloodsucking leeches, will be the first ones to do that.  The chelas will follow loyally. And the whole world will applaud them along with the winner. Never be a loser.  That’s the lesson, in short.  Otherwise, like L K Advani or Murli Manohar Joshi you get thrown out of the bandwagon even if you were its charioteer in your heyday.  The world is as eager to forget the loser as it is to applaud the winner.  Personally, winning or losing matters little to me.  I am a born loser.  There is no period in my life which I see as a winning phase.  There was always a winner eager to snatch my trophies.  I grew used to the process