Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Platitudes and positive thoughts are like palliative drugs: they make us feel comfortable in a world full of evil and negativity.  Beyond the comforts of a drug, they provide little else.  Otherwise our world would have been a paradise by now because there is never a dearth of platitudes and positive thoughts thanks to the increasing number of religious activities, cults, gurus, and what not. The naked truth is that life is drenched in evil in spite of all the gurus and cults, motivational therapies and mass spiritual exercises.  Why? Social psychologist Philip Zimbardo proved experimentally that social situations affect individual personalities and stimulate behavioural patterns.  In simple words, we behave in certain ways because the society demands us to behave thus.  With little provocation, formerly good people will discard their values entirely, he showed.  It is easier to make people do bad things than good.  We are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side,” h

Joseph S Nye, American political scientist, mooted the concept of ‘soft power’ as a means of gaining ascendancy in the world.  Military and economy give a country its hard power.  Soft power is its ability to persuade other countries to want what it wants them to want. Mr Modi is getting the support of many countries against Pakistan using persuasive tactics as well as realpolitik.  He is relying more on soft power and rightly so.  No one but perverted minds would want a war especially between India and Pakistan because such a war is most likely to escalate into a world war. Soft power can be effective only when it rests solidly on the foundation of substantial hard power.  It is also related to culture and ideology.  The Western civilisation spread rapidly across the world because it was firmly established on a secure hard power foundation.  America was a practical El Dorado. Russia’s communism crumpled when its hard power hit the dust.  Soft power becomes impotent wit

Yahweh by Michelangelo Recently I stumbled upon a quote from Robert G Ingersoll’s book, Some Mistakes of Moses .  The quote which puts the Jewish God on a dissection table is reproduced below: It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch. There are people who believe in such a heartless, mirthless, starkly absurd God too.  It is then that I fell on the contemplation whether most gods aren’t similar one way or

A view from my veranda this morning It’s a beautiful Monday morning.  The beginning of another working week.  I stood outside my house looking at the eastern sky where the morning sun was struggling to shine through the clouds.   Clouds make the sun more beautiful, more desirable.  What is the sky without both the sun and the clouds?  What is life without both joys and sorrows?  Without the  positive and the negative? It’s Monday morning and I should like to start the week with all the cheer I can muster.  The morning sky, however, warns me that cheer alone cannot make up life.  What would Shakespeare’s Othello be without Iago?  Imagine Milton’s Paradise Lost without Satan. Who doesn’t want to be positive, cheerful and good?  The problem is life won’t ever give those things alone.  There’s no light without darkness. I welcome this beautiful Monday morning with its sun and the clouds. I take Nietzsche along with me as I walk into the cloudy morning.  H

Fiction “A centipede is crawling across a road with a velocity of one foot per minute.    There are vehicles plying on the road at the rate of one per five minutes.    The vehicles are of various widths like bikes, cars and buses. What is the probability of the centipede crossing the road alive?” “Nil,” said Rohan without even thinking for a moment. Radhakrishna, the mathematics teacher, was stupefied.    He had expected the brilliant student to sit and apply some formulas.    What is mathematics without formulas?  Radhakrishna had given the problem to Rohan in order to keep him quiet in the class.    Rohan was an ADHD student according to the counsellor of the school.    He needed a lot of attention.    ADHD means that, hai na?    Attention Deficit?    So the loving and caring mathematics teacher gave him all the attention he could.    He gave him all the problems that his knowledge of mathematics could create.    He was particularly fond of algebra and Rohan turned

Fantasy Atheist died and found himself before God.  God smiled at him more affectionately than any human being had ever done while he was on the earth. “I never imagined you existed outside human illusions and delusions.”  Atheist said with his usual candour having overcome his surprise. “On the earth,” God said slowly as if he was pondering over each word he uttered, “I don’t exist much except in human illusions and delusions.” “Oh!”  God’s reply was another surprise for Atheist. “Do you think if I actually existed on the earth as I really am there would be so much evil perpetrated in my name?” “Evil,” said Atheist. “And that too in your name.  That is exactly what me lose faith in you.” “I know. Because you had no faith in me, you were a good human being.  What if you had also started fighting in my name?” “Where am I?”  Atheist looked around. God laughed.  “In the presence of God.” “Heaven?” “Call  it what you wish.  Names matter littl

As part of the increasing give and take exchanges taking place these days between India and Pakistan, the latter has demanded that the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro be returned to it .   Dancing Girl Dancing Girl is a bronze statuette excavated from the Mohenjo-Daro site before India and Pakistan became two separate nations.  It is just 10.5 centimetres high and is about 5000 years old.  The pubescent girl is stark naked except for a whole array of bangles and a necklace.  The posture looks like that of a dancer though she might have been confidently making a statement to her audience.  She holds her chin up and looks smug.  In short, she is a total contrast to what today’s Pakistan expects of a young girl. Let us visit her briefly at the National Museum in New Delhi to ask her what she thinks of her threatened extradition. “Oh, I think it would be horrible,” says DG losing all the panache that has graced her face for millennia.  “What will they do to me there?  Wil