Tomichan Matheikal's blog

“Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, / Stains the white radiance of eternity...”  Like the other Romantic poets, P B Shelley was unhappy with the inevitable stains of life. One of the many stains or imperfections is our inability to perceive reality clearly. Reality comes into our consciousness through a lot of filters that have become a part of our very being.  Our past experiences, our prejudices, beliefs, convictions, desires, culture, religion, political affiliation... a whole range of things acts as the filters. For example, take ourselves, human beings.  “What a piece of work is a man,” exclaimed Hamlet in spite of himself.  Shakespeare’s Prince of Denmark saw human being as a paradoxical creature that is noble in reason, infinite in faculties, admirable in form, angelic in action and godlike in apprehension.  Yet the Prince ended up hating many human beings and killing quite a few.  Hamlet’s whole perception and understanding of reality was tainted thoroughly by on

Professor Jie-Hyun Lim, Director of Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture (RICH) at Hanyang University in South Korea thinks that nationalism is “an act of treason.”  He also says it limits the capacity of imagination which is really why it is treason. The only real purpose of nationalism is to gain power , argues the Professor. Mussolini, Hitler, Fransisco Franco of Spain and all other dictators used nationalism in order to consolidate their political power.  All of them divided the country into an in-group and an out-group.  Mussolini used culture to divide people while Hitler relied on race.  For Franco, the out-group consisted of those who did not speak Spanish language, the non-Catholics and the communists.  The in-group was characterised by the members’ loyalty to the nation coupled with a marked hostility towards other nations as well as the out-group irrespective of their nationality. The in-group was used by the leader to consolidate his own power.  Is

Source Christopher McDougall told us the story of the lion and the gazelle in the African jungle.  Both the lion and the gazelle have to outrun the other in order to survive.  Unless the lion runs faster than the gazelle, it will starve to death.  Unless the gazelle outruns the lion, it will become the latter’s food. That is also the policy of capitalism.  The richest one percent of India’s population own 58% of the country’s total wealth, says Oxfam’s latest report .  In plain figures, just 57 Indians own as much wealth as about 875,000,000 other Indians.  India is a jungle of lions and gazelles where the latter may die under the wheels of Land Cruisers driven by the former while they sleep huddled together on the footpaths after the weary day in a sweatshop. There’s much wealth in India.  But the majority of people are poor.  You will find this majority sleeping on the footpaths if you take a walk in the cities at night.  You will see them struggling to earn a livelih

People of my generation are very familiar with the name Arun Shourie.  As editor of the Indian Express , he did a tremendously bold job of questioning Indira Gandhi in the days of the dreaded Emergency.  Later he joined the BJP and became an MP in the Rajya Sabha.  He has written a number of books which are thought-provoking.  The 75 year-old intellectual spoke to Swati Chaturvedi , author of I am a Troll , a book which exposed the BJP’s digital army which abuses and harasses people online for questioning Narendra Modi and the party.  Let me highlight some interesting points from the interview.   In happier times Emergency-like situation in India Mr Shourie thinks that the Prime Minister has created a “decentralised emergency”.  The country is run by mafia groups who terrorise those who criticise Modi or his policies.  Gau rakshaks, for example, are not motivated by “love for the cow” but the need to dominate other people.  Mr Modi’s emergency is worse than Indira G

I dream a lot.  I mean the real dreams that visit us during our sleep.  Most of my dreams are neither sweet nor scary.  I don’t take them seriously either.  I don’t remember them in the morning.  Except very rarely when the dreams seem to be related to some problem I’m grappling with. I had a dream last night too.  In the normal course of events this one too should have met with the fate of the others and vanished from my memory before I woke up in the morning.  But I chose to remember it because I wanted to write this blog. Source Three men robed in white, looking more like the Arabs than Catholic priests, came to me.  The place was not at all clear.  The conversation was.  They said they came to take me away because my time on the earth was over.  I said it was a surprise since I didn’t believe in a life beyond the earth.  “That’s not a problem. You can come with us.”  And I went. I think that’s how it ended.  The end was really not so clear.  I got up as usual, d

Narendra Modi has replaced Mahatma Gandhi with himself in the 2017 wall calendar and table diary brought out by the Khadi Village Industries Commission .  Everything else that the narcissistic prime minister has done so far dwindles into insignificance with this latest feat.  Picture Courtesy: JantaKaReporter The Mahatma and ‘the’ Modi are poles apart.  Where the former sowed love, the latter bred hatred.  The former stood for peace and tolerance while the latter has instigated strife and intolerance on many an occasion.  The Mahatma deserved the appellation conferred on him by none other than Rabindranath Tagore.  The Modi will have to be reborn at least a dozen times even to understand the profundity of that great soul whom he has replaced shamelessly on the calendar and the diary. I’ll be doing a tremendous injustice to the Mahatma if I go on elaborating the differences between him and his replacement.  There is not even a worthwhile contrast between a shining sta

Fiction Arjun was contemplating with considerable amusement on how Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica came to be rejected by its first patron, the Royal Society.  “You are under arrest.”  The steely voice jolted him out of his amusement.  “But why?  What have I done?”  Arjun asked as he extended his arms for receiving the handcuff without realising what he was doing.  Life was always a mechanical thing for him.  When his wife served the meals he ate them.  If she was not there, he wouldn’t eat.  It wouldn’t make any difference.  When he saw the handcuffs, his hands stretched themselves as naturally as the sunflower turns towards the sun. What was the action of mine which attracted this reaction?  He asked himself as he felt the steel of the handcuff scalding his skin. They were silent, the cops, as they led him out of the National Museum where he was looking at a copy of the cover page of The History of Fishes which jettisoned Sir Newton’s Principia .  T