Tomichan Matheikal's blog

One of Dostoevsky’s compelling novels is The Idiot whose protagonist is Prince Myshkin who is perceived by people as an idiot. On the one hand, Myshkin is an ideal human being with his truthfulness, humility, meekness and altruism. On the other, he is incompatible with the real world of basic self-interest and animal passions. Myshkin, like most saints, is admirable from a distance. But emulating his example will destroy our lives. Saintliness is good in church-alcoves. In the world of real human beings, it is inadvisable. People will hate you if you are so good. And they will drive you mad. Or they will destroy you, even kill you. In the beginning of the novel, Myshkin comes to Russia from a sanatorium in Switzerland where he was under treatment of sorts. At the end of the novel, he is driven back to the same sanatorium as a mentally broken person. His encounters with the complex human world wreck him mentally. You can’t be too good and be human at the same time. Human beings a

Image from Pinterest No one can go through life without getting hurt in the heart many times. That hurts are an integral part of human life is a cliche. We get hurt and we hurt others. That’s how life is. Parents hurt children and children hurt parents. Teachers hurt students and students hurt teachers. Not just hurt, we damage others many times. We carry damages perpetrated on us by others. Time doesn’t heal all those wounds. Some wounds never heal. They bleed again and again at the slightest knock. Unintended knock, usually. It is easy to exhort others to forgive and forget. Forgiving is easier than forgetting, I think. That’s my personal experience. I can forgive because I accept that human nature is essentially fallible. We are born to make mistakes. We are made in such a way that we hurt others; we damage others. Unwittingly, most of the time. Once I accept that universal truth, it’s easy for me to forgive others. I also wish that the others forgive me in the same way. “Forg

Rajiv Chowk is not quite the metro rail station that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi would approve of, notwithstanding the splendour of its architectural complexity. The underground station has quite a few tunnels and escalators carrying thousands of commuters at any given time to their respective platforms on the Yellow and Blue lines. “The metro is Delhi’s lifeline,” I tell Gandhiji who is visibly impressed by the sparkling cleanliness and systematic orderliness of the entire station. There is something un-Indian about the place. But the jostling is very Indian, Gandhi realises. “Is the country – or the world, for that matter – any the better for such sophisticated instruments of locomotion?” Gandhi asks me. “How do these instruments advance man’s spiritual progress? Do they not in the last resort hamper it?” “We are building more and more temples, and splendid ones too, for our spiritual progress,” I point out. “We are becoming a spiritual nation, a Hindu Rashtra, a Rama Rajya.”

Image from disneyclips Philosopher Nietzsche was of the opinion that what makes unhappy marriages is lack of friendship rather than lack of love. As a man who has celebrated the silver jubilee of his wedding, I raise my hat in deference to the philosopher. What has sustained my married life is the friendship that has existed between the two of us. Even the other day, someone asked Maggie whether ours was a love marriage. We give that impression, the inquirer explained. We have faced this question umpteen times by now. Even my students raise that question when they get an opportunity. When husband and wife see themselves as friends, the demands made by traditional roles of husband and wife vanish. I don’t have to be the domineering man of the house in a traditional Indian family and Maggie doesn’t have to be India’s ideal submissive wife. We are rather like Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet. Piglet sidles up from behind calling, ‘Pooh!’ ‘Yes, Piglet!’ ‘Nothing.’ Piglet takes Pooh’s p

Writer Arthur Koestler chose death when he thought that his productive life was over. He was suffering from Parkinson’s disease as well as leukaemia. He was a member of an organisation called Exit which supported people’s “right to die with dignity.” Koestler was 77 when he gulped down an overdose of barbiturate tablets. He didn’t want to continue the agony of his existence. I defend his decision to end his life with dignity. But I don’t accept what his wife Cynthia did. She was in her 50s when she chose to die along with her husband. She loved him so much. That was the reason. Was it necessary to end her life just because her beloved man was dying? I don’t want to judge her. Maybe, she would find life unbearable without her man. She could have given it a try, I think. I defend euthanasia with my whole heart in cases like Koestler’s. But not in those like Cynthia’s. When one is suffering from a terminal illness and it is certain that there is no chance of recovery at all, one s

The Principal of a CBSE school in Kerala attended a motivation course. Consequently, he decided to give more autonomy to the staff. That was one of the lessons he had learnt during the course. ‘Now you decide what to do in your classroom and other places of your influence,’ Principal now tells a teacher. ‘Will I be paid more?’ The teacher wants to know. ‘Money is not what matters,’ Principal says. ‘What matters is your contentment.’ He tells the teacher about Maslow’s pyramid and the importance of self-actualisation. ‘Will I be paid more?’ The teacher repeats his query. Principal takes out a book on motivation theory and asks the teacher to read it. ‘Will I be paid more if I read this?’ Dogmatism is the tendency to assert one’s prejudices or beliefs as undeniably true without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others. Dogmatism is very faithful to one’s beliefs or prejudices. Canine loyalty. The dogmatist will go on insisting that his religion, culture, lang

Capitalism without discontentment is like Christianity without hell, if I may paraphrase Frank Borman. Discontentment is an integral part of the capitalist system because the system is stuck at the lowest levels of human aspirations. Psychologist Abraham Maslow arranged human aspirations in a pyramid-shaped continuum, ranging from the inferior needs which are largely focused on the body to the higher needs of the psyche, culminating in what one may call the soul. Most of us are familiar with Maslow’s pyramid. Nevertheless, let me present it below if only to remind us of certain details.  You will easily notice that capitalism is stuck at the lowest of Maslow’s hierarchy of aspirations. The most successful businesses of capitalism cater to our physical and simpler psychological needs. Oil and gas, mining, constructions, textile, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, electronics, telecommunications, insurance, banking… none of these touches those aspirations of ours that bring us deeper happ