Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The relative of the Hathras victim gather her ashes Watch the video here Let us go then, you and I. We’ll walk through certain half-deserted streets where some neglected truths lie awaiting redemption. We are not redeemers, you and I. We’re just observers. Observers of so-called redeemers. You and I have endured these redeemers for the past six years. We have endured their deafening, hollow slogans. We have endured the poison they spewed into our air in the name of gods and holy cows. We have endured hatred, lynching, raping, and flagrant fraudulence that masquerades as nationalism. We have endured endless, tedious arguments of a billion insidious intents. Isn’t it time now to take a break and ask the overwhelming question? Oh, do not ask what that question is. Let us go and make our visit. Men in saffron come and go talking about Ram Lalla’s palatial abode coming up in Ayodhya. Yonder in Hathras is a young girl being raped by god’s defenders, the yogi’s men by caste. You know wh

  Imagine living in a country whose ruler gives a moving lecture on the importance of atmanirbharta (self-reliance) and then dashes off to the neighbouring country to sign a deal on a statue that will cost the nation Rs3000 crore. When there is a conspicuous contradiction between one’s words and deeds, the person obviously suffers from a lack of integrity. In mathematics, integers are whole numbers and fractions are fragments. There are a lot of fragmented people in the world today. If the leaders are conspicuously fragmented, the followers cannot be whole. No disciple can be greater than the master. Wholeness is essential, however, for any individual’s psychological, and hence physical, health. This wholeness is a harmony among one’s thoughts, words, and deeds. If you put on the garb of an ascetic and change your name to Yogi but behave like a criminal, obviously you have no idea of what you are, forget integrity. Present India’s national curse is the fragmentation of our lea

  Book Review Title: The Evening and the Morning Author: Ken Follett Publisher: Viking, 2020 Pages: 915 Ken Follett is a master when it comes to narrating tales about the medieval period. His Kingsbridge trilogy went on to sell millions of copies in various languages. The Evening and the Morning is a prequel to the trilogy. It tells the story of some very fascinating characters who lived at the turn of the second millennium CE. The plot is set in Kings Bridge (as Deng’s Ferry came to be known in that period with the replacement of the ferry by a bridge) and surrounding places in the period of 997-1097. Ragna, a Norman noblewoman, falls in love with Wilf, a British aristocrat without knowing that he was already married. Those were days when the British men could just “set aside” an existing wife in order to take a new one and thus Ragna becomes Wilf’s legal wife. Those were days when priests had wives and children though not always openly. Even bishops and cardinals had con

  Human beings like to imagine themselves as the centre of the universe. Our religions and gods render their generous assistance in this process. For example, all the major Semitic religions imagine that God created everything for the sake of the human species. Man is the crown of the entire creation and everything in the universe, including women and the stars, is subservient to man. Other religions do not fare much better in this regard. Hinduism not only places men above women but also some men above others in an elaborate and intricate hierarchy. Such systems have led some people to think too highly of themselves. Thinking too highly of yourself is pride in a negative sense. Pride can be positive too. We should be proud of ourselves, our goodness, our integrity, our identity, and all other good things that we have or we are. That pride helps us to be good and also to become better day by day. Ironically, that pride is the kind of humility that Ernest Hemingway wanted us to le

  I’m entering the last quarter of Ken Follett’s massive novel, The Evening and the Morning which is set in the cusp of the tenth and eleventh centuries: a whole millennium back. The novel is a prequel to the author’s popular and equally bulky novel, The Pillars of the Earth [which I read 12 years ago with unflagging interest]. Follet can bring alive the medieval period like no one else. We get clear glimpses into the way of life of those times, dark times. The Church and the State together wielded tremendous powers over people and exploited the people ruthlessly. Many of Follett’s novels clearly show the venality that lies at the very core of people in power, whether in politics or in religion. I have often been repulsed by our contemporary leaders – both in politics and religion – who are absolutely uncouth and subhuman. Beneath the elegant attires they wear, whatever the colours be, they are sheer savages who feed on the carrion of human ignorance, vulnerability, folly, and h

The Gayatri Mantra is a highly revered prayer in the Rig Veda. It has the potential to inspire one profoundly. But it can also acquire sinister meanings or connotations depending on how and where it is used. That is true of most religious symbols. The Gayatri Mantra appears like a motif in Arundhati Roy’s novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , three times. Anjum, the protagonist who is a hijra as well as a Muslim (doubly unwanted), finds the child Zainab orphaned during the 2002 Gujarat riots and takes her to a barber, gets her hair cut off like a boy’s, dresses her like a boy, and teaches her the Gayatri Mantra as a talisman against future communal assault “in case Gujarat comes to Delhi”. Delhi is where Anjum takes Zainab to. Anjum has made her home in a cemetery in Delhi. After all, cemetery is where the Muslims in Modi’s India are supposed to belong. Pakistan ya kabristan is a slogan shouted again and again in the novel in which Gujarat does come to Delhi. The next time w

  Samuel Beckett by Javad Alizadeh Literature is meant to show what life is as understood by the writer. Life is a complex affair which has no intrinsic meaning. Meaning is created by each one of us. The meaning each one of us gives to it depends on our psychological and intellectual make-up, our experiences, inclinations, attitudes – a whole range of things. Writers too have their own unique individualities consisting of this range of things which prompt them to see life in certain ways rather than others. The meaning seen by Shakespeare is not the meaning seen by Samuel Beckett. Yet both Shakespeare and Beckett continue to find fans even today. Both inspire people to perceive the meaning of life in their own particular ways. Joseph Conrad’s novels show us that society is as corrupting as it is necessary. Society inevitably gives us material interests which in turn corrupt our very souls. But solitude is not the solution; it results in destruction of the self. Idealism is not a so