Posted on June 21st, 2008 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
Some people, in fact, most people delight themselves by employing confounding jargon from time to time. Legal-ese and business-ese rhyme with disease and not without reason!
In a funny turn of events, British authorities have been warned against using words like synergies, stakeholders and sustainable communities because such terms confuse people. (To be honest, I don’t [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Miscellaneous
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
I came to know recently that our Chief Minister has passed a law in the Tamil Nadu Assembly which declares January 14 as the Tamil New Year’s Day from 2009. While this is absolutely, totally, completely whatever-ly ridiculous, it gives rise to an interesting confusion.
Surely, some of our paguththarivu pagalavans will follow the Chief Minister’s [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Tamil
Posted on April 3rd, 2008 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
(or Is it just me?)
A couple of days ago, I received an email from an advertising student with the subject line “Free Pizza”. She wanted to conduct an advertising research focus group and was offering pizzas as a way to thank participants for their time.
I don’t know if you feel the same way about this, [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Personal
Posted on March 15th, 2008 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
To most people outside Sicily, the word mafia is almost synonymous with the place. So it is no doubt that a tourist guide, fed up with answering common questions about the mafia has come up with a 55-page pocket book to help himself and the tourists.
A Sicilian tour guide who got fed up with [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Miscellaneous
Posted on March 13th, 2008 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
Jug Suraiya writes in The Times of India that it was the criminalization of drugs that killed British teenager Scarlett Keeling in Goa, and then puts forth an almost passionate plea to legalize drugs. He bases his arguments on two contentions (or facts). First, that drugs are less of a health hazard than cigarettes or [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, News
Posted on March 2nd, 2008 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
Over the past few days, I chanced to watch some of Cho’s dramas on Google Video. It doesn’t require a long time fan like me to inform you that Cho’s dramas are a tour de force. My personal favorite is Mohammad bin Tughlaq, which I have watched many times over on screen and as a [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Tamil
Posted on February 25th, 2008 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
(I have been intending to write about this for quite some time now, but yesterday’s episode proved the catalyst.)
Over the past few weeks, I have become a huge fan of Vijay TV’s Neeya Naana. The talk show pits two groups of people against each other to discuss and argue about inane, inconclusive topics like “Are [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Media, Miscellaneous
Posted on February 14th, 2008 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
The republication this week by some European newspapers of the controversial cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist (that caused considerable trouble a couple of years ago) reeks of intolerance, disrespect and sheer contempt for the feelings of other people. And for these newspapers to hide behind the comfortable veil of “freedom of speech” is [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, News
Posted on December 6th, 2007 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
CNN IBN reports that the Supreme Court of India has allowed women to ply the bartending profession. Shocking!
The “discerning reader” would be quick to label this writer as a male-chauvinist and someone mired in old, stupid ideas that stereotype the role of men and women in society. Welcome to the club!
As someone who looks down [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, News
Posted on October 31st, 2007 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
Adrianne Yamaki, a 32-year-old management consultant in New York, travels constantly and logs 80-hour work weeks. To eke out more minutes for herself, she routinely farms out the administrative chores of her life - making travel arrangements, hair appointments, restaurant reservations and buying show tickets - to a personal-assistant service, in India.
The Bangalore butler is [...]
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Filed under: Business, Culture & Society
Posted on October 30th, 2007 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
In this interesting article on Forbes.com is a compilation of America’s top 20 sedentary cities. Before reading the article, I had assumed that by sedentary, the article would mean a laid-back attitude. Rather, the data points are percentage of population that is overweight or obese, number of hours spent in front of the idiot box [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society
Posted on October 17th, 2007 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
… the latest debate is about a law that will enable schools to give birth control pills to 6th graders. What the hell! They are not even in their teens! To comment about it from a moral standpoint would be foolish, because the issue is beyond all that. But will not such a law encourage [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, News
Posted on September 12th, 2007 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
This happened in class yesterday. A new person had joined, and he was introducing himself. He was from Nigeria. When he said that, one lady popped up this question: “So, tell me one good thing about Nigeria. Because whatever we hear about your country is all bad.”
The reply went as follows: “Well, I’ll tell you [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Miscellaneous
Posted on December 29th, 2006 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
The basic courtesies make sport not only pleasurable but possible. Without courtesies, however lame, however insincere, there is no sport. If sport wasn’t only a game, it wouldn’t be sport. We don’t pay good money to see two gangs of men who hate each other try to rip each other’s heads off; we pay to [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Football, Sport
Posted on December 27th, 2006 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
That Queen Elizabeth would podcast her Christmas message became a popular news story. However, the message itself was excellent. It combined the wisdom and the fears of a conservative family woman who has seen the world transform rapidly, mostly for the worse — terrorism, insecurity, the disintegration of the family. A short, but good read [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, News, People
Posted on November 22nd, 2006 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
Going to Germany on business some time soon? There is a whole lot of things you might have to consider apart from the work. Writing in The Business Line, Mohan Murti has oodles of advice for you, most of which sound funny, yet grave!
The homeowner (or renter) is responsible for sweeping the sidewalk and street [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Miscellaneous
Posted on July 18th, 2006 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita (Ch. 4, V. 8 ):
paritranaya sadhunam
vinasaya ca duskrtam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya
sambhavami yuge yuge
In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium.
In the glorious traditions of Adi Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhvacharya, Raja Rammohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Media, People
Posted on July 2nd, 2006 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
One of most shocking news items that the media has been hyping up this past week has been the Sabarimala episode, where it has lately been “discovered” that a woman entered the sanctum sanctorum, thus causing a loss of divinity in Lord Ayyappa’s most sacred abode. I’m jotting down some observations on this.
1. The Kannada [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Media
Posted on June 22nd, 2006 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
[This is a long post, I warn you. It is a faithful reproduction of an essay by J.B. Priestley. If you are a feminist or a women's lib type, you may stop reading right here.]
A large number of men, for the most part elderly men, are secretly terrified by the new type of woman, the [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society
Posted on June 19th, 2006 by Vijay Krishna Narayanan
Last week, one of my cousins (so close, that he is more a brother than a cousin) got married. This is probably the first marriage in the family which I have observed from close quarters. There are many who say that cinema and sport best reflect the culture of a people. I pity them, for [...]
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Filed under: Culture & Society, Personal
