It’s a bird, it’s a plane. No, it’s the super-spreader, Omicron! I had vowed to myself, several months ago, that I will not write another word on Covid, the virus that has been the blight of our lives this past couple of years. I have had to go back on my word. Literally. The fact …
Author Archives: sureshsubrahmanyan
The Great Indian Debate
The art of debating was actively encouraged when most of us were still in our early teens. In its barest essentials, the way we defined a debate as practised in schools and college campuses was roughly on the following lines. The House proposed a motion, as in ‘This House believes that bullying in schools should …
Farming the strike
A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus. E.B. White. The government has finally decided to repeal the contentious farm laws. After close to a year of backing and forthing, accompanied by plenty of bickering and frothing at the mouth, threats, dharnas, morchas and eyeball to …
‘Clicket, rovery clicket!’*
*The title of this piece provides an Oriental twist to the memorable calypso, ‘Cricket, lovely cricket’ by Lord Beginner, celebrating the West Indies’ first ever Test victory over England in 1950 at Lord’s. The game of cricket and its pundits are spread out like a rash. They are everywhere. Well, perhaps not in North Korea …
Feelin’ groovy
Death is pretty final….I am collecting vinyl. R.E.M. 78 rpm, what is that? 45 rpm, haven’t a clue. 33 rpm, give me a break. 16 rpm, is this a physics question paper? Something to do with turbine speeds? And it’s nothing to do with one of those Latin American countries that boast of 45 revolutions …
Deepavali and Diwali. India’s ‘son et lumière.’
Preface: This is not my usual weekly blog, which is generally slated for Sundays. It being Deepavali (or Diwali), I am reproducing, out of turn, a piece I wrote on this festival a few years ago. Some of you may have read it (you are free to re-read it or skip it), many of you probably …
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The secret ingredient
One of the earliest advertisements I can recall, and this was much before I took up advertising as a profession, was for Signal toothpaste. The tag line for the brand was, ‘the red stripes contain hexachlorophene,’ which promised to take care of bad breath. Many of us rushed to the nearest provision store (Amazon was …
Sidhuism – a blissful state of mindlessness
A prefatory note: I wrote this piece exactly three years ago on the shenanigans of the incorrigible cricketer-turned-politician, Navjot Singh Sidhu. For reasons unfathomable, I failed to include it in any of the three collections I published in book form. This column that slipped the net, as it were, was more in the nature of …
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Billionaire Boys Club
Let’s hear it for India’s top gun industrialist. Mukesh Ambani’s personal net worth has crossed $100 billion. He joins Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet and a handful of other worthies who have worked their way up to the top of the wealth ladder. The list, recently put out by the …
Betty bought a bit of batter
The term ‘batsman’ has been amended to the gender-neutral term ‘batter’ in the Laws of Cricket to stress the importance of the women’s game, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) announced recently. As an avid cricket aficionado, I have been in recent times turning my mind over to the subject of cricketing nomenclature. In particular, I …
Suresh's Corner 