Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Garfield comics My Blogger dashboard shows that there have been eight searches for ‘optimism’ in my blog posts during the last few days. Out of curiosity, I did a search myself and was amused to find pessimism topping the suggested links. The second was a post on cynicism. The posts more directly related to optimism followed and they were few and far between. I haven’t been quite optimistic, it looks like. I remember one of the first classes taken for the staff by a lady who belonged to a religious cult which had taken over my school in Delhi. At one moment, I quipped in response to a remark she made, “I’m falling in love with your class.” Pat came her response, “Sarcasm, I can take it.” I wasn’t being sarcastic at least that time. She was a good teacher in the sense she had all the skills required to drive home points effectively so much so my admiration for her rose as days went by. Eventually, however, she proved to be a witch in angel’s garb. She succeeded in getting

The leader makes a world of a difference in any organisation or nation. It is the leader who gives direction to the organisation or nation by formulating policies and strategies. The people go where the leader takes them, leaving aside a few who will always have their own vision and opinions stemming from that vision. Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 with a resounding victory. The majority his party enjoyed in the Lok Sabha could have been used to transform India into one of the best nations in the world: best in every way – economically, politically and morally. Instead the 5-year Modi reign has left India a caricature of what was promised in the powerful rhetoric of Modi which won him the popular votes. Let us take just a few examples. Modi promised to create 2 crore new jobs per year. The fact is that more jobs were lost in the country during Modi’s rule. In the first four years of Modi’s reign, a meagre 18 lakh jobs were created and most of these jobs belong t

My cat who is wiser than me When I was a boy I used to think that anyone who hit the age of 30 was middle-aged and anyone whose hairline showed shades of grey was antique. Maybe that’s why I refused to grow up. When I hit 30 I continued to behave as if I was 18 and now that I have no black hair left on my pate I behave as if I was 30.   My school closed today for the summer break. My students met me personally to wish me “Happy Holiday” and some of them threatened to visit me at my residence during the break. I felt like 18 once again. What people call maturity is something I never learnt. I think I was incapable of learning it. I think the child in me is hyperactive. I love to play with my cat like a little boy until the cat gets bored of the game. I feel sad when he is bored. Even the cat thinks I’m too silly at times. I cannot grow up, I’m pretty sure. I have always been immature, quite silly by the world’s normal standards. Do people change really as they grow

We are used to people taking credit for works done by others. Their tribe is larger than what one may normally expect. They generally belong to the rank and file of any social group. One won’t normally expect a leader of any worth to do that. All great leaders give due credit to what their followers do. They are generous with appreciation so that more work will get done without unnecessary hassles.   Credit-seeking is the business of the inefficient people. Those who cannot achieve anything great but want to appear great nevertheless take credit for the achievements of other people. When a person who is occupying a very eminent position in any society creates a huge suspense and huger hype about his silly credit-taking, it becomes farcically hilarious. Just imagine the Prime Minister of a country like India which has a population equal to that of the entire Europe and North America put together creating a hype and suspense about an announcement he wants to make to the nation

I have never been a parent. But having been a teacher for more than three decades, I have had ample opportunities to interact with young students and their parents. One of the things I can say confidently is that by observing a student, I can make certain predictions about his or her parents which turn out to be pretty accurate when I personally meet the parents. Children are what they are largely because their parents have made them that. The personality of every child is moulded in the first few years of its life and parents do that shaping. Teachers, the society and other entities add quite much to that personality, no doubt. But what these latter entities do is only to add certain dimensions to the edifice already constructed by the parents. In other words, parents play a very important role in the formation of a child’s personality. I’m fully convinced now, having observed hundreds if not thousands of young students and their parents, that the first thing every child

The last week and a half kept me so engaged that I couldn’t even find time for writing. Rather, the outstation duty enervated me so much that I couldn’t even care to switch on the laptop. When I got time today, being Sunday, I turned to my laptop. Quickheal antivirus was very prompt to warn me that my software had gone outdated. Just a week is enough for things to become outdated in our world where everyone is in a hurry. Will I become obsolete or redundant if I stop writing? The question hit me with a pang. The hit counter of my blog showed readers coming though I was not writing anything for a week. However, no one except a good friend from Delhi bothered to ask why I was not writing. That friend was kind enough to text me that she “returned from the [blog] page slightly disappointed…” Curiously, I got an unexpectedly large number of friend requests on Facebook during the week so much so I remarked in an FB update that “When I stopped writing I started getting a lot of f

“Is nothing sacred?” Salman Rushdie raised this question in one of his essays with that title. He started off saying that he “grew up kissing books and bread.” Food and knowledge are arguably the most sacred things: one nourishes your body and the other your soul. I would add writing to that list. I began writing in my youth in order to get people’s attention. I was an inveterate attention seeker. As I grew up, I realised the futility of public attention. In fact, Shillong, the place where I took my toddler steps as a writer, gave me so much unsavoury attention that I began to hate both the attention and the place. But the urge to write never left me. Blogging became my passion eventually and I used the medium seriously to express my views on various topics ranging from literature to politics and psychology to religion. I have rather strong views on whatever affects the welfare of the species. Many of my views refuse to fall in line with conventions and social niceties. Wh