Suresh Chandrasekaran's Blog, page 20

Making people laugh

You know how much I have lamented the fact that people seem disinclined to laughing, going by how little they care for humor books. (Mine? Yeah, sure, of course that is why I am lamenting. When is the last that YOU lamented about something that did not affect you directly? There!) I mean, there is hardly any argument that a humorist to beat PG Wodehouse was never born but let us have you tell me

The route to success?

A friend had shared a piece with me which talked about how reading classics was needed to acquire a patina of sophistication - especially knowing Greek and Latin to read the then classics in their original language. Also that the sophistication was required to move in the circles of the high and mighty, thereby leading to your own success. Oh, yes, the piece WAS talking about practically

Crucified by the truth?

By now you must be wondering why I persist in calling people 'friends' when the only reason they come to me at all seems to be to pull me down. It is not exactly masochism, it's just that it is easier to type 'friends' than 'acquaintances', even with spellcheck helping you with the spelling. (You have guessed that this post is again about a friend who has popped in of a purpose to point out

Purpose

This purpose of life idea, as you all know by now, has always defeated me. I mean, like, from a very young age, I have been screamed at for not having any ambition. And ambition, as far as I understand, is to set and work towards a goal. And how the heck do you even set a goal without purpose? It's not like you can say eating idlis is your goal without making a purpose out of it - like saying I

Acquiring a taste

You know, I never have understood this 'acquiring a taste' business. I know that these Amazons and Flipkarts seem to be selling anything and, in festive times, selling at a discount so enthusiastically that they deluge you with messages all day long. But can you place on order for, say, 'a taste for Sushi', say? How does one go about acquiring a taste for something which the cognoscenti choose to

Honestly Real?

You know, some words are really strange. Like, take this word 'honestly' for example. Or its first cousin, 'really'. Nice words that you expect to be oozing with genuineness. But, unfortunately, when it comes to real life usage, you seldom come across any other words which are so surrounded by the fog of disbelief as these two.No? Tell me, when you hear someone say, "I honestly wanted to come to

Logic is fallacy

"Here he comes! This is the guy I was talking about."I don't know how you guys feel if, when you walk in to join a group, someone says this. Me, I feel that I should have stayed back home curled with a book. Daniel walking into that den of lions would probably have been less scared."The guy who has a problem with every way decisions get made?""Hey, wait! That's not true," I bleated."Tell me guys,

The Art of Pleasing (Bosses) - Disagreeing

There you go, again! You take one look at the title about disagreeing with bosses and you say, "I know! You are going to give a one word advice - 'Don't'." Really? You think I am going to fill up a whole blog post with 'Don't' like I were back at school and my teacher had given me imposition? (Huh! Do school-kids these days still have to write things like 'I will not be late to class' hundred

The Art of Pleasing (Bosses)

There is a problem with blog titles. You know, the moment you see this "Art of Pleasing Bosses", there is a crowd which sneers at 'ass-licking' advice. Idiots, who do not seem to understand that the 'Art of Pleasing' - bosses or others - is the key to what one calls man-management. Call it 'How to become a great man-manager' and they come rushing in respectfully; call it 'Art of pleasing' and

The truth about certainty

I came across something interesting in a book I was reading recently. In the book there was, apparently, a priestly class which could detect whether a person was lying or telling the truth. Sort of infallible human lie-detectors. The story is, among others, about one of them who realizes that what they actually detect is certainty, not necessarily truth.At first sight, there did not seem much