Tomichan Matheikal's blog

“Why be good if there is no God?” A young man who is familiar with my religious views asked me yesterday. “What has goodness got to do with god?” I asked. “Aren’t you diminishing yourself when you are being good merely for god’s sake?” I explained that goodness is our duty to ourselves as well as the humanity. “When we are good, we create a better world. Creating that better world is our duty.” “Duty given by whom?” The young man persisted. “By our intelligence. Intelligence tells us that good is better than bad for all. For all creatures and the planet and the cosmos.” “Who decides what is good and what is evil?” “We decide. You and I. Goodness promotes the welfare of other creatures. The problem with our gods is that they tend to promote the welfare of particular communities.” “Perhaps certain people misuse the gods for such purposes. Gods themselves cannot be so parochial.” I smiled. “I didn’t understand,” the young man said. “What?” “The meaning of that s

One of the many posters that appeared in my village asking people to support the Church Act In spite of its recent capitulation to the venal central government, the Supreme Court of India has upheld women’s right to enter places of worship like Sabarimala. But certain religious fundamentalists in Kerala are determined not to let women anywhere near the presiding deity on that hilltop. Ayyappan, the deity, is a bachelor whose chastity is so fragile that it will be shattered by the mere presence of worshipping women, according to these fundamentalists.   Umpteen questions can be raised against this and other infantile views of religious fundamentalists. None of the fundamentalist views stands to reason. Yet these views get popular support. One obvious reason is that most believers, not merely the fundamentalists, feel insecure about changing age-old beliefs and customs, however absurd and puerile they may be. It was quite heartening to see the Christians of the state of Ker

The parrot had lived in a cage for a very, very long time. Finally, one day, the master decided to set it free. “Go. The sky is your limit,” said the master as he opened the cage. The parrot was baffled. It didn’t know what to do. The master took the parrot out and liberated it into the air. The parrot flapped its wings and realised it could fly. It flew away. The parrot returned in a while to the cage. “This cage is my country,” it said. “I love my country. My country is the greatest, the best. My county’s culture is very, very ancient. All sciences and arts have their roots in my country.” The master who was a Harvard Business School graduate was happy. He knew how to convert any situation into a new business opportunity. Soon all parrots in the neighbourhood became nationalists that repeated the same slogans.

In Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classical book, The Little Prince , a fox shares a secret with the eponymous prince in return for a favour from the prince. “And now here is my secret,” says the fox, “a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye .” The favour that the fox wanted from the prince was to be tamed. “Tame me,” the fox requested. The prince didn’t know what taming was. Taming means “to establish ties,” explains the fox. It is relationships that make any entity unique. There are flowers and flowers, for example. But all those flowers mean nothing to you unless you establish a “tie” with one or more of them. “ It is the time you wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important ,” the fox counsels. The fox doesn’t like the system he has to follow. He has to hunt chickens of human beings, and human beings hunt him. That is the fact. He would like to reinterpret that fact. He would like to create

Fiction The unrivalled Prime Minister metamorphosed into a king over the years in a kind of Darwinian mutation. Many years ago, when he became the Prime Minister, the citizens of his country were interested in such democratic processes as elections. Those were days of bewitching slogans. Sabka saath sabka vikas. Swachh Bharat. Make in India. The slogans were as endless as they were enchanting. The Prime Minister was a wizard of slogans. Abracadabra, he would say on something like Mann ki Baath, and miracles would materialise from nowhere like Ambanis or Adanis. The mutton in a Khan’s refrigerator would change miraculously into beef after the said Khan was lynched in public by a mob that called themselves gau-rakshaks. Lynching became the national entertainment. Kaun banega crorepati and Bigg Boss lost their TRP rating to wayside lynching. Khan banega shikar became a new nationalist slogan. Khans thought it was their kismet. At least until, inshallah, some bloody bin-Laden

“I’m losing interest in writing,” I told Kittu. Kittu is my cat. He loves to sit in my lap when I relax on a chair on the veranda in the evenings. “There’s no rule or order that you should write, is there?” Kittu asked. “Writing is my way of adding meaning to life.” Kittu snickered. “I’m contemplating the meaning of my lying in your lap.” “Your lying in my lap makes my life beautiful,” I said. “Beautiful,” Kittu seemed to ponder that word. “Not meaningful?” He asked. “I’m not Keats,” I said. “What did Keats do?” “ Beauty is truth, truth beauty , he said.” “Was he a poet?” “Of course. You know what he said after that?” Kittu purred. “ That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know . That’s what he said.” “He’s right, I think,” Kittu said after a brief silence. “Really?” “My lying in your lap is beautiful, you said. Doesn’t that beauty add some meaning to your life?” “Modesty is not your virtue, eh?” “As humble as you please, not modest. Mo

I am educated enough to talk myself out of any work. Why write when there are more writers today than readers? I ask myself when I feel lethargic to write. Or I’ll invent other excuses. Like: you’ve grown old, man, you’re out of touch with new trends. Sometimes I feel like Santiago of The Old Man and the Sea : “Bed is my friend. Just bed…. Bed will be a great thing.” One of the movie maestros of Kerala, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, complained the other day that the digital camera has made almost everyone a movie director. He lamented the death of movie as an art. Sometimes I feel like Adoor and lament the death of standard in blogging. Have we created an art out of mediocrity? I think we have. Look at the best sellers today. But that’s no excuse for avoiding your duty. You have to do your job whatever the outcome. Didn’t Krishna say something like that to Arjuna? According to the religion I inherited at birth, lethargy is one of the seven deadly sins. Diligence is prescribed as its