Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Lover, Prince, Dictator Love makes the world of a difference to the way we see others, even animals. Kittu walked into my life a few months ago. He was a little kitten at that time. He appeared in the rubber farm behind my house on a morning. I thought he had wandered into my farm by mistake and ignored it. When I returned from school in the evening and went to the farm for filling some grow bags with soil for planting some spinach saplings, the kitten sleeping in the shade of the rubber trees touched a soft corner in my heart. I guessed that someone had abandoned him in the farm at night. He looked famished and baffled. “Come,” I said as I took up the first bag I had filled with soil. He had been watching me gingerly all the while and I had thrown a few furtive glances at him which had not escaped his attention.   He arrests my movement! As soon as I said ‘come’ he got up and followed me. I asked Maggie to give him some food which he ate ravenously. Maggie was amu

I don’t feel like writing these days. No, it’s not the writer’s block. It’s a kind of disgust I’m beginning to feel towards what’s happening in my country. Honest people are being arrested and put behind the bars. Or they are harassed in different ways like raids or political repression. Goodness has no place in this country anymore, it looks like. An Empire of Evil has established itself firmly and unassailably. Such things have happened in the past too in many countries. But what is alarming in India is the majority support to the Empire of Evil. Quite a lot of people are convinced that this is the right way of governing the country. They think that certain sections of the population deserve to be eliminated. They are convinced that the end justifies the means.   Worse, they think that it’s not at all evil; they are convinced that this is a holy war, a crusade, on ‘evils’ such as secularism and freedom of expression. They justify everything from the marauding hikes of pe

Image from Scoopwhoop In Dostoevsky’s novel, The Karamazov Brothers , Ivan Karamazov tells the story of Jesus returning to the 16 th century Spain where the Catholic Church ruled the roost with the cruel diktats of Inquisitors. Jesus heals the wounds of the people while the Inquisitors seek to eliminate the perceived enemies of their religion. He is arrested soon, however, by the Grand Inquisitor’s guards. The Cardinal who is the Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus to leave the earth since it is the Satan that guides the Church and not the teachings of Jesus. People wouldn’t be able to put Jesus’ teachings into practice. People need their daily bread, occasional miracles and a readymade conscience. These are what Satan had offered to Jesus during his temptations described in the Bible . Satan was right and the Church has been performing the work of Satan ever since it took over the Roman Empire, not because the Church is evil but because it seeks the best and most secure order for m

My first colleauges in the profession When I took up my first teaching job in Shillong, it was more because I needed a job than because I wanted to be a teacher. I had already attempted a career in hoteliering and failed. My first days at St Joseph’s School in Shillong didn’t turn out to be very promising either. The people were good but I wasn’t quite sure whether I was on the right turf. The people were too good, in fact. The headmistress was a nun who went out of her way to make me feel comfortable at the school. She even took the trouble of finding me an accommodation. The colleagues were the unassuming Khasi tribal people whose geniality was very disarming. St Joseph’s was a convent school and my students were all girls which made the job all too easy. I don’t think I was good at the job initially though I had some experience in it earlier as a tutor at an institution in Ernakulam where I did my graduation. The truth is that I didn’t like the job really. My first T

India's Sin There are sins of commission and sins of omission, my catechism teacher taught me when I was young. Theft and murder are sins you commit. There are infinite sins of commission from feeling jealous of your neighbour’s possessions to worshipping a god other than the one your religion gave you. I was more fascinated by the sins of omission. When you omit doing the good that you should do, that’s a sin too: the sin of omission. A grave sin. Our world would have been a much better place if we all did what we could do. We can do so many good things and yet we don’t do them just because we are afraid. Afraid of our boss at the workplace. Afraid of our religion and its god[s]. Afraid of the dominant political ideology. Cowardice is the gravest vice. Fear withholds us from achieving what we want to achieve. Bullies rule today’s world merely because most of us are cowards who don’t dare to stand up to bullying. Contrast today’s political leaders with those of a ge

Fiction Dr Zachariah slowed the car. Someone was waving a hand standing on the road. The man looked wounded. It was dangerous to stop the car because it was almost midnight and the endless rain continued to pour down reducing visibility considerably. Moreover, he was exhausted after a very long day at hospital which culminated with a surgery. Nevertheless he stopped his car and lowered the glass a little. Both the doctor and the wounded man on the road were stunned for a moment as they recognised each other. “Doctor, please help me, I’m injured badly.” The man pleaded. “Hmm, hop in.” Dr Zach opened the door and the man crept in with some difficulty. “Dry yourself,” said the doctor giving him a towel which he pulled out from somewhere in the car. “What happened?” “I was attacked,” he said. “A masked gang. Must be the commies.” The man who was known as Raghav ji was a local leader of the BJP. Fights between the BJP and the Left parties were not uncommon in the

The school reopens tomorrow after the Onam holidays. There was no Onam, however. The historic deluge that washed Kerala mercilessly stole the joy out of Onam. There were no grand celebrations. People were busy returning home from their relief camps, cleaning up their houses and seeking where and how to begin anew. Even now thousands of people are living in relief camps because they have nowhere to go; their houses have been washed away entirely or they are not habitable. While it has been heartening to see the way the people of Kerala cooperated with one another to bring life back to normalcy, it was extremely painful to watch the way certain sections fished in the troubled waters. The attitude of Prime Minister Modi and his supporters has alienated the people of Kerala almost entirely from the dominant political narrative. The financial aid given by Modi to the state is a pittance against what is required. Mr Modi rubbed salt into the wound of insult by saying no to countries th