Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Symbols “Are you a good Muslim?” A student asked Ziauddin Sardar. Ziauddin Sardar is a writer born in Pakistan and living in England. He is a multi-faceted personality who has made a mark as a scholar, cultural critic, and an intellectual who specialises in Muslim thought. [Now don’t ask me whether Muslims think. Some of them do, I assure you.] The above question was hurled at Sardar when he visited a madrasa in Pakistan in 1985. Let me quote a part of that conversation from his book Desperately Seeking Paradise. [The quotes are not verbatim.] Student: Are you a good Muslim? Sardar: I am a Muslim. Good or not, I don’t know. Student: If you are a Muslim, why don’t you grow your beard? Sardar: A beard is not a necessary mark of a Muslim. Student: The beard is an essential part of the Prophet’s Sunnah. Those who disregard the Sunnah are not good Muslims. Sardar: Do you use a camel for your travels? Do you ride on a camel’s back? Student: What do you mean? Sardar: The

One of the shortest but classical works of fiction on the futility of revolution is George Orwell’s Animal Farm [1945]. The animals on the farm revolt against the oppressive human master and seek to establish an egalitarian society where all animals are equal. The revolution is driven by very noble ideals which have the potential to create a paradise on the farm. But sooner than later, the ideals give way to venality and the new rulers among the animals become far worse than the erstwhile human master. The human master only exploited the animals for labour. Now the animal masters are utterly vicious. They enjoy the highest forms of luxury at the cost of the other animals which are treated as worse than slaves. There is not only inequality but also injustice, cruelty, violence, government’s surveillance on the citizens, and plain butchery. It was the aftermath of the Russian Revolution that inspired Animal Farm . The Russian Revolution sought to replace the dictatorial Tsar with a

In a park in Darjeeling Maggie and I were two among scores of people who got up at 3.30 am to go and watch sunrise when the rain was lashing the windowpanes of our room in a hotel in Darjeeling. It was the summer of 2010. We had spent three days in Gangtok already. Gangtok was a cheerful sunrise while Darjeeling was like a gloomy sunset, Maggie would say poetically later as we sat in the leisurely toy train that moved from Darjeeling to Kurseong.   Our tour of Darjeeling was to start with the sunrise seen from Tiger Hill and our hotel had arranged a taxi to take us to Tiger Hill at 4 am. The sunrise would be at 4.45, we were told. But it started pouring right after midnight, a kind of rain that didn’t sound quite characteristic of a hill station. When the reception rang us at 3.30, I asked how anyone would see a sunrise in that weather. “Your taxi will be ready at 4.” The answer was terse and the call was over. Most people of Darjeeling were equally terse and morose, as we would le

T hese are hectic days for me. The Board Exams are around the corner and that means feverish revisions, completing project works, model exams, and paper valuations. So my reading has become the first casualty. A Man Called Ove , the book I started reading last month remains half-read on my table. It’s a delightful book about a 59-year-old man who belongs to the species that “checks the status of all things by giving them a good kick.” I discovered something of me in him and hence began to hate him as much as love him. Something of my old self, I should correct myself. I am not a quarter as grumpy as Ove now though I tend to share his view, occasionally at least, that most people are banal if not idiotic. Return I will with a renewed passion as soon as I complete preparing the next model question paper, check the project works, and then check the model answer sheets. The next book waiting is a 1000-page mammoth of a book which I bought just because I once knew the author personally

Freedom of the press is dying in Modi’s India rather quickly. The World Press Freedom Index ranks India very low at 142 out of 180 countries. The rank deteriorated consistently from the time Modi became the Prime Minister. The Press Council of India, a state-owned body, accepts that there is unwarranted censorship of the media in the country. There are various types of “intimidation” of journalists and news agencies. Both human rights and press freedom have crumbled in India faster than in any other country. “Freedom of expression is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace,” The Nobel Peace Prize Committee said while awarding the prize last year to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov “for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia.” The Committee went on to say that these two are “representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.” India has

When you have conquered certain heights you can’t descend any more. You spread your wings and fly. Richard Bach said something similar in one of his two famous books. He was speaking metaphorically about the quality of your life, of your thinking, of your attitudes. But when you are on the mountains, that axiomatic saying holds good literally too. When you conquer one peak, the next higher peak beckons you bewitchingly. You want to climb that too. And the next one too. And it goes on. The mountains urge you to go higher and higher. I spent the most worthwhile period of my life on the mountains of Shillong. Fifteen years. They should have been the happiest years of my life. I loved the mountains. I still do. But Shillong turned out to be the bitterest part of my life. That’s one of the ironies of life. When you’re only conquering peaks, the same ones, ad infinitum, from home to workplace and back, from home to water source and back with buckets of water in both hands, from home out

From David Troeger There is a Malayalam story in which the protagonist tells another character, “You know, the female turtles are the most unfortunate creatures on earth. They are denied the delights of motherhood. They can’t lay their eggs in the ocean where they live most of their lives. They rush to the beach to lay the eggs and rush back to save themselves from men. The eggs hatch under nature’s care. The mother won’t ever see her little ones. She can’t love them, can’t fondle them, won’t even see them. They are the saddest mothers among all creatures.” There are seven different species of sea turtles now. They are all endangered species and three of them are critically so. All of them are born on some beach where their mothers lay the eggs only to depart instantly in horror of the human species for whom turtle soup is a delicacy, turtle shells become decorative items, and turtle eggs are “absolutely delicious” low calorie meals. Nature’s temperature hatches the turtle’s eggs