Tomichan Matheikal's blog

  Human beings are killing the planet. In less than the last one century, we have belched out an unpardonable amount of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere. The following graph from NASA’s website makes the picture abundantly clear. “It is undeniable that human activities have warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land and that widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred,” says NASA. Graph from NASA The earth’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.18 degrees Celsius since the late 19 th century and human activities are the cause. The warmest years in the history of the planet were 2016 to 2020. Our oceans have absorbed a substantial part of this heat. Consequently the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are decreasing in mass. Greenland lost an average of 279 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2019. Antarctica’s loss was 148 billion tons per year. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world i

  F ive states are going to the polls next month and four of them are being ruled by the saffron party. Will saffron continue to cast its dark shadows there? If the voters go by reason rather than by religious sentiments, the BJP will not have a cat in hell’s chance of winning. But do voters ever go by reason, especially in a state like UP? Already hate speeches are flowing like venomous rivers in that state. And most of the speakers are ‘holy’ people! Let us not forget that the massive victory of the BJP in the 2014 general elections was preceded by a murderous communal riot in UP’s Muzaffarpur. Now the BJP is trying to do the same thing all over again. There have been open calls for genocide against Muslims from BJP leaders and others like sadhus. Repressive measures are being taken against minority institutions like those of the Missionaries of Charity. A lot of Christian churches and schools were attacked recently in many North Indian states. When you have nothing to show for

Illustration from Mathrubhumi The latest short story of celebrated Malayalam writer Zachariah raises some vital questions about the role of writers as well as religionists in contemporary India. Titled ‘Devotional Poet’, the story appeared in Mathrubhumi [Jan 30-Feb 05]. The protagonist is a young man who ekes a living by singing devotional songs. But his livelihood is suddenly brought to an end by contemporary religious zealots who ask him, “Aren’t you ashamed to sit and sing songs while our religion is under attack?” His soothing devotion is replaced by a frenzy pretending to be devotion. “Can you hear?” a friend asks the poet. “There is music in the war cry of the religionists. It is the rhyme of maddened devotion.” Maddened devotion replaces genuine devotion in Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. The devotional poet gets an opportunity to perform in Delhi, “the spiritual academia of Indians now.” Shouldn’t the protagonist learn a new lesson from this great academia? The question

  “Do you know who my Jesus is? He is money. Jesus is money. Do you want money? Send your bank account number to …” Frenzied people take out their smartphones and… Brother Raunaq Mathew holds them in thrall. He is one of the many new gen religious cult leaders in Kerala today. There are many like him now. Their only motive is making money. Make money by the Holy Spirit or by the unholy apps. I am astounded by the number of followers that these frauds gather even in Kerala. Kerala claims to be the land of enlightened people; Prabuddha Keralam is what it calls itself. But I find the people here as beguiled as those anywhere else in India. Long ago Swami Vivekananda [whom Prime Minister Modi once called Vivek Munda] called Kerala a lunatic asylum because of the inhuman casteism that prevailed in the state. Kerala was rather quick to cure itself of that lunacy. But soon other lunacies replaced it. The latest is a bunch of Christian cults. Pastor M A Varughese is an icon amon

  If India had a one-child policy like China, I would never have existed. If my parents had a two-children policy, I wouldn’t have existed either. I was their third child. The nirvana of non-existence was not to be mine. I always imagine nirvana as non-existence. The Buddha too meant that, I’m quite sure. What else can ‘non-self’ and ‘emptiness’ mean? If nirvana is indeed the end of all desires and feelings and illusions, as the Buddha saw it, then it has to be as good an existence as a stone’s. Which is as good as non-existence. When you don’t know that you exist, do you exist? Ask the stone and wait for the response. [That is one route to nirvana, I assure you.] If nirvana is non-existence (the end of the self), then it logically follows that non-existence is the ideal form of existence. The next best is the stone’s existence. No desires, feelings and illusions. Animals must rank one step higher than human beings since they have no illusions though they have desires and feeling

  T his book is a novelised version of the 1989-movie by the same name. It tells the story of an unconventional English teacher, John Keating, and a few of his 16-year-old students at Welton Academy Prep School. The plot is set in 1959 when elite schools followed certain rigid codes very religiously. Welton (which is Hellton for the students of this novel) is erected on the “four pillars” of Tradition, Honour, Discipline and Excellence. All the teachers except Mr Keating belong to the usual conventional rut. Keating inspires his students to follow their hearts. Carpe Diem, he tells them, Seize the day, “… because we’re food for worms, lads!” “Because we’re only going to experience a limited number of springs, summers, and falls.” There’s much to be done before our bodies turn cold in their inevitable tombs. Triumph as individuals instead of following the herd. That’s one of the things we need to do, Keating tells his students. As an English teacher, Keating insists on his student

  Book Review Title: Shikhandi Author: Devdutt Pattanaik Publisher: Zubaan and Penguin India, 2014 Pages: 179, Rs 299 G ender is a social construct unlike sex which is a biological status. Until recently, the human world was divided neatly into the male and female. Every child born was assigned one of these genders on the basis of its genitals. The child might grow up to be something else eventually. We have lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders. These were all considered as aberrations. And, obviously, unwanted. Why these, even female children were not quite wanted in many families. But the Indian mythology has far too many characters who apparently question the validity of the traditional male-female duality. Devdutt Pattanaik’s book presents these ‘queer’ characters. They are queer in both senses: (1) transcending the male-female duality; and (2) strange or odd. Those who are familiar with Indian mythology will also be familiar with most of these characters and t