Tomichan Matheikal's blog

A question paper of the Haryana Civil Services (Judicial Branch) examination was up for sale .   The price: one crore rupees. The issue raises a lot of questions.   First of all, how does a candidate retrieve that amount assuming that he passes the exam and gets the job?   Obviously, he will have to be utterly corrupt.   Corruption is nothing new in India and no eyebrows will be raised at the mention of it.   But when people in the judiciary become so corrupt, what justice can we expect?   The innocent will go to jail because they may not have the money to pay for justice while the criminals will reign supreme.   This is a very serious matter.   Secondly, why should one pay one crore rupees just for a question paper?   Remember it’s not for a job that the money will have to be paid but for a question paper securing which need not ensure a job.   If a person can afford to pay such a fabulous sum for a question paper, does he really require that job?   Why not deposit tha

Book Review The world today resembles the macabre settings in the gothic novels: horror, death and a little romance. Unlike in those novels, however, there is no resolution of the problems.   Life today is, as Arundhati Roy’s novel under review says, “a rehearsal for a performance that never eventually materializes.”   It is impossible to make a neat narrative with the traditional elements of beginning, crisis, climax and resolution.   The world is full of debris left by the horror and death.   A writer is condemned to gather the fragments lying shattered all over and put them together to make as meaningful a picture as possible.   This is what Roy’s novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , does.   The novel tells the story of many people – too many people, in fact – one of whom is a transgender Anjum who “lived in a graveyard like a tree” after a tragedy that befell her during the 2002 Gujarat riots.   Though Anjum is a Muslim she was not killed by the rioters becau

Fiction I had warned him.   “Facebook is not a place for a person like you.”   That’s what I had told him.   Could I make it clearer than that?   Especially to the best mathematics teacher in the school?   Mathematics doesn’t teach you the equations of human affairs.   Facebook does.   Facebook can , at least, provided you know where to draw the line between trust and friendship.   Between genuineness and deceit. Stupid! You are too good for Facebook. Could I tell him that?   You tell me.   How do we deal with somebody who is a successful mathematics teacher with a loving wife and two loving children when he chooses to go active in Facebook when he cannot even get his water supply properly because he does not know how to communicate with the government officers in the Panchayat office who don’t know how to calculate hundred minus hundred though they know what a two hundred rupee bribe is? Some people fall on this earth by mistake.   He belongs to that category.