Tomichan Matheikal's blog

An Uttarakhand court has fined Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Rs 11 lakh for fraudulence.  In 2012 the District Food Safety Department had found that many food items such as mustard oil, salt, pineapple jam and honey sold by Patanjali failed quality tests.  In fact, many of these items are not even produced by Ramdev’s Ayurvedic units; they are produced by ordinary commercial enterprises and then given Patanjali labels.  Such is the Baba’s fraudulence.  There are scores of legal cases filed against the godman and his so-called Ayurvedic industry.   The Baba is guilty of manifold crimes ranging from misleading people to evading taxes.  In 2012, when the godman was asked to pay up Rs 120 crore as penalty for various offences, Digvijay Singh remarked, ““I have seen many frauds in my life but Baba Ramdev takes the cake. He may be occupying more space in media now but I do not visualise Ramdev making an impact on our society for long.  Such people do not last long in public life.” Mr S

When you are on the wrong side of fifties you don’t learn anything anymore.  Whatever happens comes with a feeling of déjà vu.  Even PM Modi’s demonetisation did not excite me though I did gloat a little over the predicament it would bring to some of our political leaders and other traders who stashed away hoards of black money.  I knew it would serve little to curb the black money menace in India or corruption in the country’s politics.  We are by and large a dishonest people.  Expediency is our only solid guideline.  The aftermath of the demonetisation has shown that even the PM’s own party men were quick to amass the new 2000-rupee notes.  That’s how India is: incredible indeed! There’s a lot of hardship that people are undergoing especially in the rural areas (where I now live) where cash is the only means of transactions.  Yet very few seem to be complaining because people seem to believe that their hardships are going to reap rich dividends soon.  That’s another joke th

Patriotism is the desire to see your country as one that promotes the welfare of every citizen irrespective of religious, cultural and other differences.  Patriotism has nothing to do with killing people whose eating habits differ from yours.  Patriotism has nothing to do with playing the national anthem in cinema halls or wearing the national flower on your sleeve.  The recent order of the Supreme Court of India to play the national anthem in the movie halls before the beginning of each movie actually belittles the anthem by making it a prelude to mere popular entertainment.  Worse, most people who visit the cinema halls are not likely to be in a mood to display their patriotic sentiments; they are there for entertainment.  There will be some latecomers who will be still searching for their seats.  There will be physically handicapped or elderly people who may not find it easy to stand at attention.  There are many practical problems, in short.  What was the need for issuing

I will be discharged soon from the hospital where I remained confined to my bed for the last ten days with a fractured foot.  One of the precious lessons I learnt during these helpless days is that too many people are losing trust in systems including medical services. Hospitals carry out unnecessary tests and even surgeries merely for profit. This was the opinion of the vast majority of my visitors. Most foods are adulterated. Education is sheer business today. Most people seemed to have little trust in any system. The present wave of patriotism that is sweeping the country also came in for much ridicule. The decision about demonetisation was leaked to people who matter. The foulest souls are preaching the noblest ideals like patriotism and need for self-sacrifice for the sake of the nation. Comparisons are drawn between the suffering citizen and the warring soldier. I imagined my wife as a Rani of Jhansi as she shuttled among her workplace, home, my hospital and merciless ATMs.

Social psychology tells us that friendly relationships and a lot of inevitable gossip can keep a group or organization functioning successfully as long as the number of members does not exceed 150.  Intimacy is impossible when the number of people is large. In such large organizations people will remain strangers to each other to a significant extent. How can strangers be held together for the successful functioning of the group? Myth is the answer. Two total strangers coming from entirely different cultures can be united by a myth to such an extent that they can together fly a jet plane with hundreds of unsuspecting passengers into a skyscraper housing hundreds of innocent people. "Any large-scale human cooperation - whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe - is rooted in common myths that exist only in people's collective imagination," according to historian Yuval Noah Harari. Holy cows bind people more strongly than plain tr

“Yesterday’s gone ... and tomorrow may never be mine,” says a Christian hymn .  Only today, this moment, is mine to act in.  But is it really possible to live in the present moment much as that is the best thing to do.  It is best to live without the hangovers of yesterday and also without the mirages of tomorrow.  Is it really possible, however? One plain truth is that we are a product of our past to a very large extent.  Whatever we may do, it is impossible to erase all of our past.  The past has shaped our attitudes, thinking and our very character so much so it steps in whenever we are trying to find solutions to the current problem.  It is impossible to ignore the past.  The past is an integral part of our very being. Religion never lets the past go Not even in the life next! I spent my youth with certain people who rendered unenviable assistance in making a mess of my life.  They were apparently trying to help me shape my character which, according to them, was p

Fiction Every scoundrel I come across these days preaches patriotism. Or nationalism. A few months back it used to be also called Hindutva or the great Indian Culture. I often wondered why only scoundrels preached patriotism while all gentlemen and ladies went to work to earn their living. Nowadays more people think of becoming patriots.  Earning your living is almost impossible otherwise.  The scoundrels make the rules.  They decide who will have how much money with them. And they know how to look after themselves and their chelas. And also to make us sing the national anthem in the theatre of the absurd. Ignorance is patriotism, my boy.  It's a game.  You make rules.  More rules.  Bind people by rules.  After taking away their cash so that they have no means to fight anything.  Make people beggars.  Then they will lick your feet.  You become a god.  And you decide who are patriots.  And who are traitors. Shoot the traitors.  Call it encounter killing.  You are an exper

Thomas Jefferson who drafted the famous American Declaration of Independence which contains the oft-quoted phrase that “all men are created equal” owned about 200 slaves when he wrote that and never set them free even upon his death .  It doesn’t mean Jefferson was a fraud or even a hypocrite.  Rather it points to certain bizarre truths about social systems and the beliefs which create them.  The Americans during Jefferson’s time did not even consider Negroes as human beings.  Negroes were subhuman, according to the beliefs that upheld the American social system of the time. All social systems are built upon certain beliefs most of which may not stand up to rational analysis.  The ancient Indian caste system or many other social practices such as Sati were not based on any objective truths.  Social systems are created by certain individuals in order to protect their interests by subordinating the interests of others.  It was not mere selfishness either.  More than selfishne

Book Review Colorful Notions: The Roadtrippers 1.0 by Mohit Goyal is a unique novel insofar as it combines masterfully travelogue with fiction.  The novel tells the story of three people in their twenties who give up plush jobs and secure life in order to embark on a three-month long journey across India covering 25 historic destinations.  Their personal stories are intertwined with the journey and present dramatic scenes making the novel a gripping read.  The reader also travels along with them from Delhi to places such as Ladakh, Kanyakumari and the Sundarbans.  Abhay, Shashank and Unnati are the travellers.  Abhay hails from a broken family and there is little love lost between him and his parents.  He longs for relationships.  The massive Shashank is a businessman whose weakness is food.  Unnati is his fiancée and the journey offers her a few occasions to rethink her romantic attachment. The personal stories of the three characters appear at relevant places and ti

“Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.” Professor Higgins tells that to Eliza Doolittle in Bernard Shaw’s play, Pygmalion . “Does speaking well in English add a sparkle to one’s personality?” asks Indispire Edition 145.  I have seen the foulest of souls speak the best of English.  And they came in the name of a religious cult and its sanctimonious morals and mores.  I have seen rustic people with no knowledge of English behave with poise and sagacity.  The opposite is true too.  All generalisations verge on falsehood and the assumption that speaking well in English can make one a sparkling personality is at best a pretty joke.  The theme is listed under “humour” at Indispire and so this post of mine is perhaps out of sync.  Personally, I am a lover of English simply because it i

“Do you think that history professors chat about the reasons for the First World War when they meet for lunch, or that nuclear physicists spend their coffee breaks at scientific conferences talking about quarks?”  Yuval Noah Harari raises the question in his fascinating book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind .  His answer: “Sometimes.  But more often, they gossip about the professor who caught her husband cheating, or the quarrel between the head of the department and the dean, or the rumours that a colleague used his research funds to buy a Lexus.” Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar argues that human language evolved for gossip.  Harari says that “The new linguistic skills that modern Sapiens acquired about seventy millennia ago enabled them to gossip for hours on end.”  There is no human life without plenty of gossiping.  Gossip, among other things, makes the human beings quite different from other animals.  When a monkey sees a lion, it can communicate the pot

Every narcissist loves to leave a mark wherever possible.  Writing is the easiest way to produce marks.  Ink is indelible.  That’s why democracy uses ink to brand every voter.  And now I have a ruler who uses the same ink to brand anyone who takes out her own money from the bank.  Source I have had so many rulers that I am not surprised by anything anymore.  They came from all sorts of places crossing oceans and mountains just for leaving their marks.  They left their marks in the wombs of my women too.  That’s also a kind of writing; a rewriting of history.  The deepest marks are made in history.  The Mughals did it best, I think.  Long, long before them came somebody who wrote in Sanskrit.  They were the best, perhaps.  They wrote the Vedas.  Then they wrote the end of the Vedas and called them Upaniashads though Vedanta was a more logical name.  But the Vedas never ended.  The Vedas continue to live even today while the Upanishads died natural deaths.  Religious ritu

Farmers' Protest in Surat Source: The Indian Express The farmers in PM Modi’s own state poured litres of milk and threw kilograms of food grains on the road two days back in protest against the non-availability of valid currency.  There are protests in other states too against the restrictions put on cooperative banks on which farmers and small traders rely heavily. If we analyse the social media including blogs, we’ll discover that it is the middle class that supports Modi’s tilting at the windmills of black money.  The middle class has its own morality whose hypocrisy was exposed brilliantly by Bernard Shaw in the character of Alfred Doolittle.  The middle class pretends to be moral while it is far more immoral than any other class.  It will discover all the loopholes in any given system and use those loopholes for their most selfish purposes all the while assuming that they are the most patriotic, religious and righteous people in the world. The middle class is t

Ten days are over after the Prime Minister’s overnight reform of demonetisation.  There’s no sign of adequate valid currency reaching the people.  On the contrary, works are held up, workers go without money to buy food, medical treatments are affected, farmers are unable to buy seeds and cultivate their lands, those who have agricultural produce at home cannot sell them because traders don’t have valid money to pay...  How long does the country want this situation to prolong? The Supreme Court has already expressed its apprehensions about possible riots in the country if adequate valid currency is not made available.  The country can’t expect people to die of starvation when they have their hard-earned money lying in the banks. Moreover, do Indians deserve this situation?  80% of Indians live on less than Rs10,000 per month. They don’t have any black money.  But it is they who actually suffer from the current situation.  The innocent are punished.  The really guilty know

Fiction “We can’t postpone the delivery anymore,” Shiv Kumar told his wife. Lakshmi’s labour pain had started long ago.  A week ago, to be precise, the day after the Prime Minister had declared all high denomination currency of the country invalid.  There was only one private hospital in the small town near their home where delivery cases would be entertained.  That hospital flatly refused to admit patients who didn’t carry valid currency. “We can pay by debit card,” pleaded Shiv Kumar. “Sorry, we don’t have that facility yet.  Take your wife to the government hospital.  They will accept invalid currency.” Lakshmi flatly refused to go to a government hospital.  “I won’t have my son born amidst filth and that too paid for by invalid currency.” Son, yes, they knew it was a son and not a daughter they were going to beget.  Lakshmi had conceived after they had undergone the Divya-Putrasanjeevani treatment carried out by Gurudev Baba who had miraculous cures for

Book Review We live in a world in which “fair is foul and foul is fair” much more than in Shakespeare’s time.  Good people often become victims of foul systems or villainous individuals.  What if some good people are also shrewd enough to understand the hazards underlying the system and come forward to help the good but helpless people? This is an interesting question raised by Madhav Mahidhar’s murder mystery, Blood in the Paradise – A tale of an impossible murder .  The book is a straightforward murder mystery, a suspense thriller and a tremendously gripping read.  It is literally unputdownable because the police questionings and the court trials are riveting.  Madhumitha who has an unhappy married life as her husband Vikas Nandan became an alcoholic and womaniser decides to end her life along with those of their little twin daughters.  She survives, however, and the children have not been administered the poison yet.  But the husband dies absorbing the same poison

When the going is tough, exhortations are the cheapest. In the wake of the currency crisis, Baba Ramdev has asked us to starve for a week like the soldiers at the borders .  “ When there is a war, soldiers face many hardships and starve for weeks. Can't we, for welfare of the nation, endure this hardship for a few days?" Ramdev asked. The donation box opened in a church in Kerala A church in Kerala opened up its donation box to the public.  People were allowed to take the change available so that they could meet their urgent needs.  That’s better than doling out exhortations.  What’s religion if it only preaches?  Ramdev is a man who owns a business empire whose assets run into thousands of crores of rupees.  Could he not set some examples by providing medicine and food free to some deserving people instead of merely dishing out an exhortation?  Every good deed spreads more positive vibrations than a million exhortations? My personal experience with the demonet