The more observant and eagle-eyed amongst you, dear readers, would be asking yourselves why the innocuous headline to this essay is bookended by single quotation marks. The simple answer to that is because it is a quotation, the provenance of which is shrouded in some doubt. The best explanation I was able to glean from …
Author Archives: sureshsubrahmanyan
Bruised, Battered, Bloody but Unbowed
The on-going cricket Test series between India and Australia, being played Down Under has reached its apogee. The series stands at one all, one match heroically drawn and the deciding Test to be played at Brisbane over the coming weekend. Unlike match-ups between these two proud cricketing nations over several decades, when the Aussies ruled …
A Tale of Two Vaccines
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities. A few days ago, on New Year’s day to be exact, we were greeted with the news that India had launched two vaccines to combat our close friend, Covid19, known generically as the Coronavirus. We have …
Looking back with Limericks
Edward Lear (1812-1888) was an English artist, illustrator, poet and musician. However, he will be best remembered as the man who introduced the world to a new poetic form, to wit, the limerick. A simple definition of a limerick would run thus, ‘a kind of humorous verse of five lines, in which the first, second …
Writer’s Block
‘Sometimes the ideas just come to me. Other times I have to sweat and almost bleed to make ideas come. It’s a mysterious process, but I hope I never find out exactly how it works. I like a mystery, as you may have noticed.’ ~ J.K. Rowling More out of a sense of mulish determination …
Keenan and Shakespeare tread the boards
The interminable wait for the Covid19 vaccine seems almost over, the United Kingdom leading the pack, while other nations are hot on their heels playing catch-up. 90-year-old Margaret Keenan was the first to receive this long-awaited shot in the arm at her local hospital in Coventry on Tuesday, December 8, 2020. Mark this day and …
‘O Sole Mio!
In case there are those amongst you, gentle readers, who are scratching your heads and going, ‘What has the title of this piece got to do with Superstar Rajinikanth?’, tarry awhile and I shall enlighten you. When our Thalaivar, (literally meaning the head honcho but metaphorically, the monarch of all he surveys) decided to formally …
Separating the wheat from the chaff
Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together. Jonathan Swift. The recently introduced farm bills passed by voice-vote in Parliament has expectedly stirred up a …
How does my garden grow?
Gardeners don’t get old. They go to pot. Anonymous. I come from a family that knew next to nothing about gardening. My earliest recollection of a private garden was one that fronted our bungalow in Kuala Lumpur, where my father was stationed with a reputed Indian commercial bank with branches in the Far East. It …
When Lutyens became an adjective
Those amongst you who are glued to a specific set of television news channels or read only a couple of newspapers that lean towards a particular side of the Indian political divide, will have frequently come across the term ‘the Lutyens lobby.’ The expression is usually employed in a distinctly pejorative manner, and on television, …
