Television’s feeding frenzy

By the time you read this, the entire country will be agog with what the exit polls are saying with regard to the likely winners and losers of India’s mega general elections, the final results of which will be declared a couple of days later on June 4. This, after waiting for six insanely long …

You have reached your destination

You know your driving is really terrible when your GPS says, ‘After 200 metres, stop and let me out!’ Up until about five years ago, I had employed a permanent driver. As I was fully involved in my marketing consultancy assignments, driving long distances to my clients’ offices in Bangalore under impossible traffic conditions was …

I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter

I marvel at people who, at the drop of a hat, shoot off letters to all and sundry. For the most part, these are addressed to folks they do not know from Adam. Or for that matter, Abdul or Shiva. One has to be ever so mindful. People are so prickly and thin-skinned. ‘What do …

Uncle Sam drops a few bricks

Almost seven decades ago, 68 years to be precise, the wondrous Harry Belafonte, now sadly no longer with us, released a melodious, calypso-tinged song called Brown Skin Girl (stay home and mind baby). We teenagers at the time had no clue that this was a song that lyrically satirised and obliquely commented on American soldiers …

When old boxwallahs pick up the pieces

Ever since I can recall, I have never been much of a political person. For the purposes of this essay, I am not talking about petty office politics (the proverbial gossip at the water cooler) or even more petty family politics, but the national political scene – the biggie. With elections well and truly upon …

    Stone walls do not a prison make

I have a question that has stayed with me for more years than I care to remember. Why is it that whenever a politician, industrialist, film star or some other big wig is taken into custody by the long arm of the law, the arrested individual invariably sports a triumphant smile for the cameras? Not …

Cashless in la-la land

‘He lends out money gratis and brings down the rate of usance here with us in Venice.’ Shylock, Merchant of Venice. Most of us have credit and debit cards these days, tucked away in slits in our bulging wallets and squeezed into our back pockets. Not to mention driving license, Aadhaar card, medical insurance card and …

  Forty winks with my doctor

Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep. Albert Camus. I was at my general physician’s chamber a few days ago for a routine check-up. I had my latest blood reports, ECG, chest and spine X-rays at the ready. He waded through them perfunctorily, as doctors are wont to do, intoning …

The anatomy of an applause

It has been barely three weeks since I returned home from my annual Carnatic music adrenalin rush – a non-stop, round-the-clock festival of musicians of every hue strutting their stuff across the length and breadth of Chennai. I have, in earlier missives, dwelt at length with all the usual trappings, musical and non-musical, that the …