Tomichan Matheikal's blog

US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has demanded sanctions against our very own Uncle Roly-Poly for getting the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) passed with visible vitriol and palpable venom. How dare Uncle Sam do this to our hero of heroes, heartthrob of nationalists, encounter specialist?  USCIRF and Uncle Sam have no idea how Uncle Roly-Poly is where he is now. 1.3 billion Indians (our Emperor would put the figure at 7 billion) elected him to power after he had proven his merits over Babur and Aurangzeb, General Dyer and Herr Hitler through mass murders and encounter killings.  And strategies that give Chanakya and Machiavelli a run for their money. Strategies like partition of Kashmir and creation of the Ayodhya Temple.  He will soon give us spiritual orgasm with the creation of one nation with one religion. Aawwww! What an ecstatic country will that be with oneness everywhere! Advaita. Aham Brahmasmi. Tatvam Asi. Osho's orgasm of egolessness. 

In the autumn of 2004, I made my first trek in the Garhwal Himalayas along with a group of students. Hemkund at a height of 4600 metres was our destination. We started our trek from Govind Ghat on a fine morning with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement. It was a two-day trek with a stopover at Ghangaria. We took in the mesmerising charms of the Himalayas as we plodded on the weary way. In the afternoon of the first day, a few hundred metres down Ghangaria, we were stunned by something that was just incredible. A whole mountain of plastic bottles and plastic waste lay in the course of the Laxman Ganga. Starting off from Govind Ghat, Maggie and I Most of the trekkers were pilgrims, people who went to pray at the Gurudwara atop the peak after taking a holy dip in the icy lake. What kind of spirituality is it that failed to teach people a basic respect for the planet? We have so many beautiful slogans which are going to save everything from the rivers to the mountains, the plan

A teacher narrated her woe to me today. There are two girls in her class who belong to a particular religion and wear the headgear that the religion has draped them with. They now wish to participate in a dance that the class is putting up for a function. The girls offered themselves for the dance and the teacher was in a dilemma. She had a bad experience when she asked the girls to remove their headgear for a particular programme in which all participating girls had to wear the same uniform dress. The girls not only refused to do what the teacher asked but also brought their parents the next morning to squabble about their religious rights and privileges. “How do I convince them either to wear the dress required for the dance which implies they remove their headgear or to stay away from the dance?” The teacher asked me. I was helpless. The country has become so viciously communalised that it is impossible to convince people that their religion is not their headgear or some

Book Review Salman Rushdie’s new novel, Quichotte , is too clever to entertain, let alone become a classic. There are too many allusions to contemporary politics and (other) entertainments such as movies and the TV. Quite many of them are likely to remain beyond the comprehension of even knowledgeable readers. A few years from now some of these allusions will be plainly obsolete. Who likes to google every other minute while reading a novel? Rushdie’s Quichotte goes cranky from watching TV shows just as his classical namesake, Quixote, goes mad from reading the chivalric romances of his time. Quichotte’s quest is for Selma R, a talk-show star. The feelings and desires in the shrivelled heart of old man Quichotte are stirred by the charming star of Indian origin. Quichotte is the pseudonym of a medical rep of Indian origin who loses his job right when his crazy romance begins. Quichotte is not real. He is the fictional creation of an Indian-born spy novelist who longs to

Fiction The Prime Minister was addressing the nation on the TV when Carlos walked into the Regional Transport Office. “By the year 2024, all duplicate citizens in the country will be deported,” the PM said with his characteristic aplomb and histrionics. “I lost my driving license,” Carlos said to the man at the enquiry counter. “What should I do?” “You need to apply for a duplicate license,” the man helped. “Do you have a copy of your license?” “Not a hard copy,” Carlos said. “I have this.” He showed the digital license he had downloaded in Digilocker on his mobile phone. “You should meet the MVI [Motor Vehicles Inspector] there.” The man pointed to a cubicle where an elderly man was sitting with a pile of papers in front. Carlos showed his digital license and sought assistance. “This is not a valid license,” the man said taking Carlos’s mobile phone and peering at the screen. “Your license was issued in 2017 when the number system was different. How did you get t

Social media is one of the most entertaining places for people like me who don’t know how to deal with real societies. I love going through the comments appended to well-written articles whose links are given in Facebook and Twitter – the only two social medias I’m fairly active at. The comments massacre the very spirit of the article concerned. I wonder whether any of the commenters actually read the articles. How many bhakts, devotees, pilgrims, retreat-goers, or the like, have actually read the scriptures for which they fight tooth and nail on real as well as virtual platforms? Do people read anymore? But, be sure, they write. And they write copiously. Social media is full of copious writers. Does that make it an unsocial place really? I won’t answer that affirmatively. If you restrict your friends’ circles to a few, you get the kind of societies you like. I hope so. But I have accepted friendship requests indiscriminately just because it’s all virtual and I don’t mind

“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