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Moral Dilemmas in a metaphorical Black Hole

Dr Jose Maliekal SDB   Dr Jose Maliekal SDB is a thinker, professor of philosophy, social activist and a Catholic priest. He has written a book, Standstill Utopias , based on his doctoral thesis. His observations on reality tend to be keen and profound. Hence his views on my writings are of much significance to me personally. He has been magnanimous with his review of my novel, Black Hole   and I am thrilled to present the review below.  ***** Literature is an introduction to where and how we live and the challenges that face our time and society. In many ways, literature is an introduction to who we are, or ought to be, as people. It helps us to be ‘critical insiders” to borrow a leaf from U.R. Ananthamurthy, a doyen of Indian literature (Kunal Ray, The Purpose of Literature , https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-purpose-of-literature/article36167231.ece ). Being a critical insider would mean not being a spectator to all what is going on around us. As human beings, we are just

Too Hot to Live

"Rising heat in the 21st century is likely to push millions of people and entire regions out of their comfort zones," warned The National Geographic magazine a few months back. The earth is witnessing phenomenal rises in atmospheric temperatures.  The summer of 2003 scorched the planet. France experienced a temperature of 40 degree Celsius for eight consecutive days. 15,000 people died in that country because of the heat wave. It was Europe's hottest summer in 500 years and it took a toll of 70,000 lives in that continent.  The last six years have been the warmest ever recorded globally. It is not just about temperature. There are other disastrous consequences like hurricanes, drought, rising sea levels and sporadic wildfires.  The heat affects the people's psyche too. Exhaustion due to heat can make people highly temperamental. It has been found that hotter weather leads to more violence and crime. It lowers children's creativity. Overall productivity shrinks tre

Hamlet in Lucknow

  Hamlet is on a stroll in Lucknow. It is his leisure time. He has come quite a distance from Kalidas Marg where he has been undergoing specialised training from none other than Yogi Adityanath himself. Claudius and Gertrude had sent him over when all their attempts to teach him the quintessential deviousness and venality of practical life failed. “There’s nothing like the East for this,” Kipling told Claudius when the latter complained about Hamlet’s refusal to understand politics. It was Kipling who suggested Yogi Adityanath in particular. “No one can do better than him the art and craft of putting on sanctity and putting out sanity. They call it rajneeti.” Dead bodies of human beings were floating in the Ganga when Hamlet landed in the land of yogis and sadhus. And once upon a time fakirs too. I mean land of fakirs once upon a time. Not dead bodies. Well, I’m not so sure anymore. Dead bodies, yogis, fakirs… Prime Minister Modi was stuck in Delhi unable to go on his habitua

Learner to the last

I was immensely fascinated by an interview published in a recent edition of a Malayalam weekly. ‘I’m a little grain of sand in this world’ is the title of the interview. And that is spoken by the interviewee who is M K Sanu, well-known Malayalam writer, orator, social activist and a retired professor. Right in the beginning of the interview, the 95-year-old man says that he is a contented person. The humility in the titular quote and the sense of contentment that was palpable in the man’s words kept me glued to the interview to the last word. Here I wish to focus on that contentment which is something I would love to acquire as I’m moving rapidly towards the last stage of a person’s psychological development in Erikson’s theory. Psychologist Erik Erikson would certainly approve of Prof Sanu who, at the age of 95, can confidently claim that he is contented with what he has done in his life. Sanu thinks that what really made his life worthwhile is the service he did for fellow human

The Enemies of Religion

  The enemies of religion are not non-believers; on the contrary, it is the believers themselves. Any social organisation or institution is destined to degenerate and even perish eventually when its foundations shift towards hatred of certain people. Religions are social institutions. When their leaders begin to preach hatred, they are sowing the seeds of degeneration within their own institutions. Initially it may appear that they are gaining power over people of other religions by making them appear as enemies. In the long run, however, hatred won’t achieve anything good. If you are observing what is happening in the social media these days, it must have become clear to you by now that certain believers of every major religion in India (in many other countries too) are spewing poison against believers of other religions. Hindus, Muslims and Christians – all are doing it. These people are the real enemies of their own respective religions. They are killing the very spirit of the

Woes of God’s own country

  Trucks carrying stones from quarries near my house   Kerala has been experiencing unprecedented natural calamities in the last few years. Floods, landslides, cyclones and extremes of weather wreak immense havoc again and again. These are the prices that the state is paying for the mindless greed of certain sections of people. Kerala is not what it was until a few years ago. When I was a school student in 1960s and 70s, there used to be heavy rains in the monsoon season as well as the retreating monsoon. That means heavy rains for almost half the year. But these rains did not carry away houses. Hills didn’t come tumbling down in the form of massive landslides. Cyclones didn’t uproot trees. The rains poured down and the waters flowed naturally into the numerous streams and rivers whose swelling was a marvel for us children and not causes of disasters. Those were days when people had not exploited the nature brutally. There was a symbiotic relationship between man and nature. Farmer

The Liars’ Gospel

  Book Review Title: The Liars’ Gospel Author: Naomi Alderman Publisher: Viking (2012), Penguin (2013) Pages: 264 This novel is a concerted effort to exonerate the Jews from the crucifixion of Jesus. It consists of four ‘gospels’ just as there are four of them in the Bible. Here, the story is narrated by Mary (mother of Jesus), Judas (the betrayer), Caiaphas (the high priest), and Barabbas (a rebel). Caiaphas emerges as the real hero and Barabbas is the villain while Jesus appears as little more than a lunatic. Right at the outset Jesus is portrayed as a worthless young man who never does anything useful. He is just good for nothing. He sits gazing into the air and speaking to himself. His parents are sick of him because he is so useless. Even when people start seeing Jesus as a teacher, the point that “he was out of his mind” is driven hard into the reader’s psyche repeatedly. Mary finds Jesus so repulsive that she wonders: “is this my son? How did this man come from