There is a growing trend amongst several prominent personages in our country and around the world to shoot off letters, usually in high dudgeon, to various heads of state. Errors of omission and commission, on the part of Presidents and Prime Ministers are pointed out in pitiless detail, and advice is freely offered on how …
Author Archives: sureshsubrahmanyan
Plane Talk
Turn this crazy bird around / I shouldn’t have got on this flight tonight. Joni Mitchell. ‘Are you veg or non-veg?’ As an opening gambit for a conversation with a perfect stranger, I found this a rather unconventional question. Why would someone you did not know from Adam be asking you about your dietary habits, …
When I struggled to find a billet
I was a poor student. Let me unburden myself of that albatross. Now that I have long since retired and not looking for a job, that admission comes quite easily. Whether it was during my school days and later on in university, I was one of those who just about scraped through his exams, year …
The Dogs of War
I’m suspicious of people who don’t like dogs, but I trust a dog when it doesn’t like a person. Bill Murray. In case you are wondering if I woke up rather late and decided to pen my impressions on the late Frederick Forsyth’s 50-year-old novel The Dogs of War, his hugely successful effort after his …
Colour my world
I have no idea why, but my stray thoughts turned to colours this week. This is what happens when you commit yourself to writing at least one blog a week. You post your piece on a Sunday and put your feet up, telling yourself like Little Jack Horner, ‘What a good boy am I!’ Feeling …
No Bumrah, no matter. Siraj is here.
It is Day 5 of the 5th and final Test between England and India being played at the Oval in London, and I am writing this piece a few hours prior to the start of play. By the time I have finished tapping the last keys on my desktop, the game will be over. To …
Fortune’s Fool
I recall my very first job interview in Calcutta with a well-known British company. For reasons not entirely clear at the time, it was called a managing agency house. Some of these companies had peculiarly English names like Bird & Co., Williamson Magor, MacNeill & Magor (the Magors spread themselves about), J. Thomas, Octavius …
My Back Pages
Ah, but I was so much older then / I’m younger than that now – Bob Dylan. I am not the only one who is complaining that there is no more space in my home to keep books. The bookshelves are bursting at the seams and I have gone and ordered two more books, one …
Getting an earful
The handicap of deafness is not in the ear; it is in the mind. Actress and activist Marlee Matlin, who was deaf from early childhood. Over the past few months, I am being warned and mildly admonished by my better half that I am probably suffering from incipient deafness; ‘Deaf as a doorpost’ being a …
Caravaggio comes to India
During the past few weeks, there has been much excitement in Bangalore around an art exhibition featuring just the one single canvas. This lone canvas was by the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Not to be confused with the other painter and sculptor Michelangelo who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and sculpted …
Suresh's Corner 