Suresh Chandrasekaran's Blog, page 22

GOAT?

I once had a credit card sold to me on a 'lifetime free' basis. A year down the line, the bill for annual charges for the card came in. Indignantly, I mail the chaps about why I was getting a bill when the card was supposed to be free for a lifetime. Promptly came the reply that the card was free for the lifetime...of the card, which was one year. Since then, anyone who mentions lifetime anything

What you want to hear

The one truth about conversing with people is that you very seldom hear what you want to hear. Not only when you are eavesdropping (Eavesdroppers never hear anything good of themselves is true but it is mainly the powerful who hear anything bad that people have not already told to their face). That's probably because people feel uncomfortable about saying anything complimentary to others but find

Old Fables New Morals - Hercules and the Wagoner (revisited)

You know, you can hardly say anything these days without a bunch of people eagerly waiting to scream about how you got it all wrong, even before you finish saying it. And me, I am cursed with a set of friends whose sole purpose in life seems to be to tell me the worst about myself. (Yeah, yeah, I know all that guff about a good friend being critical so that you better yourself. But, pray tell me,

Status Quoism

If you are like me, you would have had that story popping up all over the place on Social media. The one about the fisherman and the business executive. Where the corporate honcho tells the fisherman to stop idling and go dashing about, hither and yon, collecting money. So that, eventually, he can relax and enjoy life fishing. To which the fisherman says, "So what exactly am I doing now?"Now, me,

Generalisations

Even the Buddha, today, would probably find his enlightenment in the shadow of social media, I suppose. (Yeah, I mean a prince can leave his palace, wife and all even now but leaving social media may be a sacrifice too far as a lot of people who try to take sanyas from it have found out. Like the Prince who did leave behind his royalty, though not his wife and kids, but finds the attraction of

Comparison (Again?)

There is this story, a Birbal or Tenali Raman story depending on which side of the Vindhyas you live in, about the chap being asked to make a line small without touching it. And the lad draws a bigger line by the side, in comparison to which the original line is smaller. That, essentially, taught me the value of comparisons. (Should have taught me lateral thinking? What's that? THINKING is

No place for introverts?

You know, there is such a lot about the world that I never could understand. (A pity, for it keeps me blathering continuously on this blog? If you are that bothered why don't you go over to that Facebook ad there for shaving creams?) Whenever something gets discussed, there is an officious nincompoop who proclaims, "Them are the rules." The point that WHY 'them' should BE the rules clearly does

What you do not have

You know, life runs on what you do not have and not on what you do. (Maybe I have said this before but then I am at an age where I am EXPECTED to repeat myself.) You know that thing called 'motivation' which is about the ONLY thing in behavioral sciences which the corporate world cares about? What else is it but about dangling the carrot of what you do not have in front of you so that you run in

I don't know

Is it only me or is it everyone who finds that "I don't know" is the toughest thing to say? Oh, I mean, yes, if someone asked you to explain the different String theories, 'I don't know' comes tripping off your tongue like greased lightning. Probably laced with that 'What sort of idiot expects people to know such things?' tone. Unless, of course, you are a theoretical physicist.No, I do not mean

The Good Guys

It must the books I am reading, of late, I am sure, this obsession with the statement, "We are the good guys here." I cannot blame the authors, I suppose, because that's probably the phrase their characters would legitimately use. But I would be hard put to imagine a more inane statement than that.I mean, really, does that sentence really convince anyone? Does anyone really expect even a villain