Suresh Chandrasekaran's Blog, page 23

Entertainment

When the whole world is agonizing about Me-Too, I wax eloquent on my kitchen debacles. Comes the time when Covid wracks the world, and everyone is an instant doctor or virus-researcher, I prate of how I first learned to swim (or drown, which is the more appropriate term for what I do in water.) This singular tendency to be 'frivolous' has earned me a lot of 'fans', who see me as a cross between a

Identical opposites?

 People have been telling me that the way to a better world is in trying to find commonalities among various people rather than in concentrating on the differences. Easy for them to say, really. I mean, come on, do you really think that this idiot who does not agree with me on the deliciousness of an idli-chutney can really have anything in common with me? But I have never been one to shy away

The fuel of social progress

"Can you guys tell me which is the most important fuel of social progress?"That was thrown into a gathering of friends, thank god! With me alone, I KNEW that any question would only be a prelude to dissecting my shortcomings. As it was, all I had to do was keep silent and I would escape unscathed.There was a silence for a bit and then people started talking all at once."Innovation. It's...""

Time and Tide

"Time and Tide wait for none", they scream. By and large, they mean only that 'Time is Money' and any time which is not spent in the pursuit of earning money, or equipping yourself to earn more money, is wasted. Why, even Billy, the immortal Bard of Avon, says "There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." There ye go. Where we only considered time as

Relativities

Relatives? Nah! Read the title properly, willya? Relativities, it says. Einstein and all that? You must be new to this blog if you really think that I have the brains to talk of the theory of relativity.Though, come to think of it, the theory of relativity could well be a breeze compared to what I am about to rant against. I mean, this Einstein chappie, he sort of had mathematical formulae to

This Celebrity thing

I have never understood this thing about celebrity. ("It would only be a wonder if you understood anything", you say? If you spent less time making snide remarks and more time explaining things then, maybe, I'd understand more). I mean, yeah, these are people who are popular for some reason or the other but...I mean, there is this fable about a queen looking for a bride for her son, but adamant

Random ranting

I believe that it is customary to look back on life on some special dates. Birthdays, anniversaries of other sorts, on your death bed...dates like that. Me, I suddenly feel the need to look back on my blogging and writing on some arbitrary day. One would think that April 10th, which was the date in 2009 when I started this blog, or 14th Feb, which is the day in 2012 when I revived my blog, may be

Of Bucket lists and such

When first I heard of Bucket lists, I had no clue what they were, of course. ('Of course, you didn't. When have you ever known anything,' you say? Moronic of you, really. If I already knew of something, how could it be the FIRST time I heard of that thing?) As usual, some kindly friend (whenever a friend actually thinks I can understand anything, I call him 'kindly') explained what it was all

Of self-belief and over-confidence

The biggest problem with these 'virtues' and 'vices' is that not all of them are conveniently opposites of each other. You know, like 'love' and 'hate'. You can recognize when you feel love and when you feel hate. And, if you are in the mood to be particularly virtuous, you know what you ought to do and what you ought not to do. Is it too much to ask that all things conveniently align themselves

Living up to Images

We seem to think that it is only actors and celebrities who have to live up to the images we have of them. That the rest of us hoi polloi are, at least, free of the pressure of having to do so. That, as with a lot of things we take for granted, is far from true.The problem is that humanity seems geared to understand things in terms of simplistic images. It is too difficult to assess anything,