When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them ‘no, I went to films.’ Quentin Tarantino. As far as one can remember, the cinema has always held us in thrall, young and old alike. The air-conditioned auditorium, the large screen, clutching popcorn and soda pop or ice cream soda as we …
Author Archives: sureshsubrahmanyan
That’s Entertainment!
I was reflecting ruefully on things that will keep me entertained over the coming months. Why ruefully, I hear you ask. The thing is, domestic big-ticket cricket is winding its weary way down in India. We have rejoiced in our boys’ stirring performances in Australia (excluding the 36 all out aberration) and we have put …
The Bathtub in cinema
Splish splash, I was taking a bath / Long about a Saturday night, yeah / A rub dub, just relaxing in the tub / Thinking everything was alright. Bobby Darin (1958). This piece is about the bathtub. Or more properly, The Bathtub. To put it more plainly, it’s about how we have been fed, over …
Tom, Dick and Harry
In a recent case heard in the Delhi High Court, a single-judge bench consisting of the estimable Justice Prathiba M. Singh ruled, inter alia, that the use of phrases like ‘any Tom, Dick and Harry’ constitutes slang and goes against court procedures in the conduct of its weighty affairs. To pretty much put the lid …
An unusual call from the I.T.O.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my terrace garden, minding my own business, getting a bit of wintry sun on my back with a dash of Vitamin D thrown in for good measure, when my mobile phone went off shrilly. I must add that I was at the time reading Pelham ‘Plum’ Wodehouse’s …
Ten things to do before I snuff it
As a general rule, people who enter their late sixties or early seventies begin to entertain intimations of mortality. This does not necessarily presage a mindset devoted to gloom, doom and despondency. Unless, of course, one is an unfortunate victim of some crippling affliction. Such is not my saturnine state of mind. I am, by …
Godspell
A place of worship, correction, let’s call a spade a temple, located somewhere in the heartlands of south India. Ramu, a mendicant, sits in a long line of beggars outside the temple walls with a pock-marked, pitted aluminium begging bowl, seeking alms from the daily flow of worshippers who throng this holy abode of the …
A Toolkit for Mr. Tikait
Until very recently, my idea of a toolkit was a somewhat rusty old metal box in my late father-in-law’s workshop consisting of a variety of implements like hammer, chisel, pliers, screws, rawlplugs, drill bits, industrial glue, sandpaper, lengths of wire and a few sundry items, names of which I cannot readily recall. He was very …
Making a clean breast of things
Convicted Criminal: As God is my judge I am innocent.Judge Norman Birkett: He isn’t, I am and you’re not! After all the ongoing brouhaha over the never-ending farmers’ agitation in the capital, followed by even more heated debates and discussions on the Union Budget, to say nothing of the all-pervading Covid19 situation which kind of …
An open letter to the Union Finance Minister
Ms. Nirmala SitharamanUnion Finance MinisterCabinet SecretariatRaisina HillNew Delhi. January 27, 2021. Dear Ms. Sitharaman, On the first of February, you will rise to present the Union Budget to the nation from the Lok Sabha – an event, I venture to suggest, that captures more attention than most programmes barring the Prime Minister’s periodic updates to …
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Suresh's Corner 