It is that time of the year again. Whether we want to or not, whether we mean it or not, whether we have any genuine feelings for a particular individual or not, we feel obliged to send out all manner of overly cheerful and at times, even soppy messages of good cheer as the last …
Author Archives: sureshsubrahmanyan
Games people play
Oh the games people play now, every night and every day nowNever meaning what they say, yeah never saying what they mean Joe South, 1969 Former NDTV news anchor Nidhi Razdan is in the news. Again. Let me rephrase that. Nidhi Razdan is the news. Till a couple of years ago, the personable face of …
No sex please, we’re Customs
Sex toys hit city Customs barrier, end up in godown. The Times of India. Honestly, I am fed up to the back teeth with our newspapers these days. All they ever talk about is the pandemic, border skirmishes, petrol prices, Modi and Putin bear-hugging, Sidhu, Channi and the Captain squaring off in Punjab, and some …
Omigosh! It’s Omicron!
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 …
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 …
Suresh's Corner 