Just over a week ago, at around one in the morning, while I slept fitfully, I suddenly sensed that strange ague that comes only to those who are about to come down with something not very pleasant. Sleep-fogged as I was, I initially did not give it much thought and tried to go back to …
Author Archives: sureshsubrahmanyan
Neville Cardus. In His Own Write.
There ought to be some other means of reckoning quality in this the best and loveliest of games; the scoreboard is an ass. Neville Cardus. The celebrated Trinidadian Marxist historian, cricket lover and writer, C.L.R. James, famously paraphrased Rudyard Kipling in saying, ‘What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?’ in his seminal …
Mad Men
I started my professional career during the early ’70s when I entered the rarefied world of advertising. To put it more precisely and succinctly, I successfully applied for, in response to a newspaper advertisement, and was recruited by a reputed advertising agency in Calcutta. As more than 50 years have elapsed since that first, hesitant …
Vax Populi!
India has been on a vaccination drive to tackle the rampant Coronavirus for several weeks now. In terms of numbers achieved of those who have got the first jab, never mind the second, we still seem to have barely scratched the surface. The more our healthcare workers keep injecting from the two brands of vaccine …
The magic of the cinema
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 …
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 …
