‘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 …
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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 …
Home entertainment. Should less be more?
Those of us who are interested in the infinite variety that life has to offer, ‘a man (or woman) of many parts’ we are occasionally described as, are more to be pitied than envied. It is true that, sitting in front of my state-of-the-art television set (which cost me more than an arm and a …
Cunk and the fine art of stupidity
If one were to ask 50 people at random in India if they knew who Diane Morgan is, one will almost certainly draw a blank. I myself had no clue about this anonymous Diane till I began to research her. And why was I researching this virtually unknown lady, who is clearly something of a …
The Music Season. What else is new?
The much-anticipated music season has just kicked off in Chennai. As the season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ in the words of John Keats, ripens into a mélange of melody and soulfulness, the days will pass and it will all be over before you can warble in Sankarabharanam, Svara Raga Sudha Rasayuta Bhakti. Which, of …
Bottoms up!
I do not wish to seem fashionably blasé or anything and, crucially important as these issues are, abrogation of Article 370 with the Supreme Court putting its rubber seal of approval on it, and the Hitchcockian suspense surrounding the appointment of Chief Ministers to the three Hindi heartland states bagged by the BJP in the …
Splitting hairs over small beer
Absent friends, may they stay that way. Christopher Hitchens. I ran into an old friend the other day. Acquaintance might be a more accurate word as I had not met him for the best part of twenty-five years, so we had to pick up the pieces gingerly after the usual round of ‘Good God, surely …
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
There is a tendency amongst many of us hack writers to attribute any slick proverb to Shakespeare. The Bard of Avon came up with so many smart lines befitting any occasion, that one can be excused for giving him the credit for aphorisms he did not even write. My proverb of choice for this essay …
Anyone for Vanuatu or the Grenadines?
I recently spent an enjoyable holiday in Sri Lanka with my extended family. The weather was hot and humid but we were put up at a comfortable hotel in a seaside resort in Kosgoda. Seafood aplenty, washed down with lots of beer and generally lying about like beached whales under umbrellas and getting our quota …
Suresh's Corner 