Tomichan Matheikal's blog

  “Good children do their homework on time; their writing is neat; they keep their bedroom tidy; they are often a little shy; they want to help their parents; they use their brakes while cycling down a hill.” [ The School of Life: An Emotional Education by Alain de Botton et al] The world wants good children. Moulding good children is apparently the only purpose of the very existence of parents and schools. This is one of the gravest injustices done to children. The excessive need for compliance shown by the good child, the eagerness to please others, and the unquenchable thirst for appreciation are signs of a subdued existence. The good child is a bud that won’t bloom. It is a nestling that won’t fly, at least not far enough. The good child is a bland breeze that carries no tang. The good child chooses such compliance maybe out of love for a depressed parent who makes it clear that she couldn’t cope with more problems. The good child may be trying to soothe a violent parent.

  Is your life driven by your past or more by your future? Psychologist Alfred Adler argued that our goals and ideals (which lie in the future) motivate our actions much more than our childhood and other past experiences. Some of our goals and ideals may be far-fetched. Yet these future possibilities guide us more strongly than all our past experiences.   Life is never an easy process. It is a protracted pain with occasional bouts of joys and excitements. We accept all the pain as natural and inevitable. It is like a long train journey in India. The dust and filth in the train as well as outside, the noises and delays and tasteless food and umpteen other unpleasant things are accepted as normal part of the journey. But the tender coconut that comes when the Warangal sun is boiling your innards is a memorable delight. The sight of the rear end of the train as a bend in the rails is being negotiated may animate the child in you. We have a natural affinity with joyful experiences thou

  The greatest blessing one can have in old age is a sense of fulfilment. And that won’t appear out of the blue when you retire from your job. Life is never easy for anyone though many people are lucky to be born in circumstances that support healthy growth and development while quite many others have to endure much agony to get stray ecstasies. A lot of things that happen to us – right from our parents – are beyond our control or choice. We are born not because we want to be. A lot of people come in and go out of our lives irrespective of our likes and dislikes and not without leaving deep imprints in our psyche. Teachers, for example. Religious people like priests who may shape or distort our entire perspectives irreversibly. As we grow up, we will definitely come across a lot of unsavoury people and situations. They all affect our personalities. Yet in the end, what we are is our own responsibility in spite of all the knocks and kicks we receive all along. Finding fulfilment in

  “Whom did you lose first, yourself or me?” Draupadi asked Yudhishthira when the latter lost her as a stake in a gamble. Yudhishthira had lost himself first, in fact. He was not his own master when he staked his (as well as his four brothers’) wife. Even if he had not lost that game and even if he was the sole husband of that woman, was he her owner who could stake her like a material possession? Is the wife a property of the husband? Is a ruler the owner of what he rules over? Most rulers behave as if they are the owners and masters of their territories and people. That is one of the most common delusions of those who wield power over others. All of us nurture some delusions even if we don’t have any power over other people. Perhaps human life is impossible without some delusions. Duryodhana, the man who started the game that eventually led to an epic war, was actually envious of his cousins, the Pandavas. “An enemy, however tiny, whose might grows on is like an anthill that ev

  Of the last 25 years in India, 13 years belonged to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Vajpayee and Modi were the Prime Ministers. Modi still continues in power. Still the party keeps blaming others - some of whom died five centuries ago - for the country's woes. Like Nietzsche's gods, we will die laughing if this party continues to govern us like this. [When somebody like Yogi Adityanath comes to Kerala and expresses his anguish over women's safety in the state , the joke is a real killer.] Modi has been in power for seven years now. He ascended the throne in Indraprastha with a lot of promises most of which would have made Modi himself laugh to his death if he had the ability to laugh. At least, as Shashi Tharoor said, Modi won't vote for himself if he listens to his own speeches made in the 2014 campaigns.  Modi promised us achhe din [happy days] and gave us the worst days ever.  Within months of coming to power in 2014, Modi sought to sell India's land to the corpora