Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The Dancing Girl of Mohenjodaro looks only about 15 years old. But there she stands, apparently in front of many people including elders, “looking perfectly confident of herself and the world,” in the words of British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler. John Marshall, the archaeologist who announced the discovery of the statuette in 1926, was struck by the “half-impudent posture” of the young girl. He just couldn’t believe that the statuette belonged to the period of 2300-1750 BCE. Was she really dancing? No one is sure. “She was good at what she did and she knew it,” says archaeologist Gregory Possehl. Today, some 4000 years after that Dancing Girl was carved in bronze by an artist living in Mohenjodaro, the status of women in society deserves a probe. I would like to look at it just from two angles. One is the Sabarimala issue that rocked Kerala three years ago. According to tradition, women in the menstruating age-group are not allowed to visit the Sabarimala temple since the pres

Ayinoor Vasu A man who fought for justice is arrested and thrown into solitary confinement for seven years. There are many others also accused of the same crime along with him and given the same punishment. A few of these others die in jail out of grief caused by loneliness. They were tortured in the jail for being Naxalites. It is not the torture that kills them, however. What kills them is their impossibility to communicate their sorrows to someone who cares to listen. A few others of the same group are driven mad by loneliness. By their being not able to communicate their feelings to someone who cares to listen.   But our hero survives. He survives because he makes a friend in the solitary confinement. A squirrel. A squirrel that comes near the window of his cell becomes his friend. He started by sharing his food with the little creature. While the squirrel ate the food, he spoke to it. Eventually the squirrel became a listener. Became a friend. The man is Ayinoor Vasu, a human

The first real sin committed in the Bible is fratricide. Abel is killed by Cain. The very first sin which Christianity celebrates as “the original sin” (What’s original about it? James Joyce wondered) is not a sin but an assertion of hegemony. The biblical God just wanted to ensure that He ( not She; women were as good as cattle for the Jewish man who created the Genesis myth) was the Boss in Paradise. The biblical Paradise is a place where every creature is a servile subject of God. The “original sin” was a challenge hurled at that hegemony. The shrewd Jew who created that myth was ensuring that the entire Jewish race would forever remain servile to the religious hierarchy. The guy must have been a misogynist too. He put the primary blame for the “original sin” on Eve rather than Adam.   So, Eve eats the apple and then seduces Adam. The result is Cain. This guy Cain goes on to kill his brother Abel just because God, with whom Cain has nothing to do really, is happier with Abel’

My first colleagues in Jaiaw - I'm there too! Jacques is the eponymous character in Denis Diderot’s novel whose full title is Jacques the Fatalist and his Master . As the title indicates, Jacques is a fatalist who believes that whatever happens to us, good or evil, has been written up above on a great scroll that is unrolled bit by bit. Jaiaw is a small part of the hill town of Shillong, capital of Meghalaya. Jacques and Jaiaw have nothing in common except what I am forging here in this post. Fatalism is quite a fatal thing. If everything is already written by some omniscient and omnipotent power that is sitting up there like a grand ringmaster of a circus being staged below here, then we have as much freedom as a beast in the circus ring. We’d be doing just what the master wants us to do, what he has trained us to do, and little more. But Jacques is not such a passive character who lets his destiny unfold bit by bit. He takes decisions. He is as independent as he possibly can

Dostoevsky Prince Myshkin is one of the many unforgettable characters created by Dostoevsky. He is the eponymous protagonist of the novel, The Idiot . He is all goodness. Innocent to the degree of being naïve, he is a misfit in society. He is not aware of the manners and elegances of aristocracy though he claims to be a prince. People laugh at him because he appears to be an idiot to them. He laughs with them at himself. Prince Myshkin has no ego hassles. His psyche is not tainted by ordinary human vices such as envy and greed, selfishness and hatred. He can go to a party uninvited just because he wishes to attend the party and meet people. At worst, he will be ejected. People will laugh at him, no doubt. But he doesn’t mind all those consequences. Even when someone slaps him, all that he does in return is to tell the assailant that he should be ashamed of himself. He never indulges in gossips and small talk. He’d rather discuss religion or philosophy. Can such goodness survive i

During one of her usual aimless wanderings in the Wonderland, Alice came across Humpty Dumpty sitting under a tree looking uncharacteristically desolate. “Oh, my dear Humpty Dumpty,” Alice said, “why do you look so depressed? Are you trying to be as fashionable as today’s children who think depression is sign of being elite?” “Look at those monkeys,” HD said pointing at the tree behind him. “They took away all my hats while I was resting here in the shade for a while.” “Hats! What are you doing with hats?” “Trying to eke out a living by selling them. Nursery rhyme heroes have no validity today, you know.” HD explained to Alice that nursery rhyme heroes like him had been replaced by certain people called Godse and Savarkar. So he took to selling hats and he wasn’t doing too badly in a country where quite many people talk through their hats. Now these monkeys have taken away his hats, all of them. “What will these unevolved apes do with hats?” HD concluded his woes. Alice put

Plato imagined a philosopher king for his Republic. The ideal state, according to the philosopher, ensures the maximum possible happiness for all its citizens. All citizens. Not a particular community. Such a state can only be brought into being by a ruler who is also a philosopher. “Until philosophers are kings,” Plato wrote, “or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy … cities will never have rest from their evils.” Some 19 centuries after Plato, Thomas More imagined an ideal country called Utopia which would have no king at all. Why would one individual – or a few individuals like in today’s parliamentary system – set up himself above all other citizens? More was highly displeased with what his King, Henry VIII, did with his political power. Henry was a selfish and ruthless man who used his power as a king for self-aggrandisement. Too many citizens lost their lives so that Henry could enjoy the best of everything including women. More was also