Suresh Chandrasekaran's Blog, page 70

Phrases and Meanings - II

Everyone who knows me knows that Asimov's words, "Let me make one thing clear. When I ask for criticism, I mean only praise. If you find something wrong in what I have written, you can keep it. I don't want it" resonate with me. So, it is but natural that they will expect this series on Phrases to focus on "I like criticism" sooner or later. Let us relieve them of their tension by making it

Phrases and Meanings - I

I shall make no promises this time - except please do not be intimidated by that '- I' business. This is a self-contained post and no prior knowledge is required (and do not listen to those evil beings that say 'no brains required either') nor would you be left hanging unless you read the subsequent parts like one of those fantasy trilogies. Believe me, I had intended to finish off with "How

Phrases and Meanings

You get along decently making a fool of yourself and then start feeling the sudden urge to write something meaningful (which is probably a way of making a greater fool of yourself than you were doing while you were trying). The problem is that you rack your brains and plumb the (extremely shallow) depths of your mind and find that you have never acquired any meaningful knowledge all your life.

Weighty matters

I can only blame the British for this. I mean, we were going along rather nicely with a sufficient surplus of languages and they had to come in and add one more to the mix. What is worse, the damned language that they saddled us with has converted what were seen as positives into negatives. So, instead of feeling proud of how I look, I need to skulk around and look shame-faced when I am espied

I, the literary critic

When I came into blogging I thought of it as an arena where people could self-publish without having anyone filter out content based on perceived literary merit. Just made for me, considering that I could well have stayed on the dirty end of any such filter. Much later I realized that you could also criticize published books and there would be no-one filtering out your criticism as being

Jacob Hills by Ismita Tandon Dhanker - A Book review

Jacob Hills by Ismita Tandon Dhanker promises to be a story that draws you into the darkness lying behind the bright veneer of an army station. I have normally found that such stories work best when the story opens with a brightness and love for a couple of newbies in the area and, slowly, the story get darker and darker as the newcomers discover layer after layer of grime. Needless to say,

The Krishna Key by Ashwin Sanghi - A Review

Indian fantasy-writing has puzzled me. Most fantasy writers seem intent on providing a scientific or pseudo-scientific rationale for the mythology as though they are still defending themselves against accusations of primitive superstition.



It is not like J.K.Rowling explains that the Avada Kedavara curse kills because the wand is voice-activated to emit a nano-particle beam at the victim to

The trek that wasn't

There I was in Rishikesh feeling that all nature was conspiring to make me feel at home by ensuring that it rained all night. This idea that everything was coming together to ensure that I felt at home was intensified when the next day's journey onwards was one long traffic jam after another - what else can make a Bangalorean feel more at home?



How human it is to think that everything in

A double century

What with the heat in Delhi keeping me for walking and a trek that will demand a lot from my lungs and legs, I feel woefully ill-prepared. So, in the spirit of the times, I shall do a virtual walk through my blogging days and assume that it shall help me in my all too real trek.



I know it is customary to do this 'blogging journey' post on the anniversary of the blog. The issue is confused

Indolent Pleasures

I really do not know where human beings get these crazy notions. The one that has irked me all my life is this idea that somehow a person has to justify his/her existence by doing something. I mean, my own belief is that "I exist therefore I deserve to exist" but this commonsense notion seems to find disfavor with almost everyone. People keep asking me "But what do you do?" and my answer "I