Suresh Chandrasekaran's Blog, page 52
July 20, 2015
Dependence?
Paradhinam prana sankatam Loose translation: Dependence on others is distressing to the soul This is one thing that put paid to my budding career as a Wodehousian character - you know, the sort of guy who leads a carefree life cadging funds from his friends and family. There I was, merrily planning for a life in which I neither toiled nor spun but gently flitted from friend to friend,
July 12, 2015
This is intelligence?
EpporuL yAr yAr vAy kEtpinum apporuL mey poruL kAnbadaRivu - Tirukkural Loosely translation : True intelligence discerns facts based on what is said and not based on who is saying it. Have you seen this thing about these sayings and quotes? They seem to be designed to make life difficult for you. You go to them, thinking that they will help you to make life easier for yourself, and
July 5, 2015
Learning teaches humility
Vidhya dadati vinayam - Hitopadesa Loose translation: Learning bestows humility Huh! This is truly one for the books. What would be the point in putting in all those hours of work into learning something if you cannot even lord it over others who do not know as much as you do? Imagine being a doctor and not being able to say, "Am I the doctor or are you?" If you had to be humble, you might
June 28, 2015
Work Hard, Play Hard
Ever since I heard that, if I did not 'Work Hard, Play hard', I was not really living, I have been having nightmares from which I wake up in cold sweat and shiver for the rest of the night. Avoiding the need to work hard has always been my lifetime ambition. Just the idea of working makes me feel fatigued. In fact, I rather think that 'work hard' is a redundancy - working IS hard for me, anyway
June 21, 2015
Old words; New meanings
The problem with language is that the damn thing just does not remain still. Just as you finish mucking around with the dictionary and the thesaurus, and start feeling smug about having found the meaning of a word, you find that someone has messed with it and it means altogether something else now. If it is just your neighborhood auntie, who thinks that 'homely' means someone who is good
June 14, 2015
Beliefs
The number of things normal human beings are expected to do, which I do not do, simply amazes me. For example, I believe that the process of maturing involves collecting beliefs - like a child collecting marbles - till you reach a state of acceptable maturity. Nobody told me! So, I ended up being inadequately equipped with beliefs to function like a normal human being. To be accurate, it is
June 7, 2015
Self Image
You know, this thing of self-image is a lot more than just the face you see in the mirror. (You know? Surprising!) Even when it comes to the face alone, you can, in the mirror, see a face that a gorilla would embrace as a long-lost relative, and think that Bollywood missed out on a great option when you chose not to try and become a romantic hero. (That's me? Not at all! George Clooney envies
May 31, 2015
The numbers game
I must be humorous. Really! At least, officially! This blog of mine has been listed as one of the "Top 13 Humor blogs in India". Well, last year Blogadda had listed it in the top five humor blogs (That badge by the side? THIS is what that is all about), and therefore to say that I must STILL be officially humorous is more to the point. So what if I can count the LOLs and ROFLs in my blog on
May 24, 2015
Open Letters
As in most things in life, I had a very mistaken impression about these 'Open Letters'. (Yeah! I know - You think I am the world's leading exponent of misunderstanding everything. But, then, I do not persist in hugging those impressions to my chest nor do I refuse to let go of them, no matter what evidence I see to the contrary). You see, whenever I saw that someone wrote an 'Open Letter' to
May 17, 2015
Words of Importance - Learning Curve
I am sure you must have experienced this. There are those times when a word keeps jumping up at you. You hear it from one friend and, then, it pops up in an email, screams from a news article and thumbs its nose at you from a hoarding. Well, recently, it seemed as though some divine commandment had gone out to everyone - "Thou shalt slip in the phrase 'learning curve' if you happen to be in the
