Movies may not be a portrait of reality but, I hope and believe that it is at-least a silhouette. I watch a lot of movies and try to learn and infer about life from them. After seeing lot of portrayals of love in movies, a thought came to my mind. In many movies (I mean […]
An Organization of Chessmen
In one of those free and relaxed moments, this question came to my mind: If the different roles in a business were to be mapped to pieces of Chess, who would make up the different pieces? A few of the relations were intuitive, and the others were obvious on giving some thought. King (♔) “Customer is […]
Demystifying Luck
Luck is what we wish for, and lucky is what we wish to be. From ancient times, men have tried using specific stones, names, numbers, and even tattoos that they believed would bring them good fortune. These days, universally applicable charms that attract luck and guard against misfortunes, available for sale online or over the […]
Right to Express – Sense over Sensitivity
Hardly a month goes without news of protests by groups claiming that their religious sentiments were hurt by a cartoon, film, or other works of art and literature. I think it is perfectly okay. Everybody has the right to be offended and to protest (peacefully and democratically). But the trouble starts when they start demanding […]
A Bout of Illness
For the last 10 days or so, I have not been in the best of health. There are thoughts that are not likely to come to us in a state of perfect physical well-being, in which we tend to think of this body as a tool that will always be available at our service. But […]
The Myth Called Gender Equality
To say that women are equal to men, is like saying a doctor is equal to an engineer. Yes, both are graduates and professionals, but their functions in the society are different. They should just be proud of what they can and should do, and appreciative of what the other is doing. There is no point in […]
Fringe Cases in Democracy and Tyranny
I happened to read an article that compared ‘ostensibly democratic regimes’ with openly tyrannical ones. The author presses the point that there are “genuine differences between explicitly repressive regimes and ‘ostensibly’ democratic ones” and that the latter are still better than the former. I have no complaints so far, and I also share the author’s dislike […]
What Driving Taught Me
Wise men say that there are lessons for us all around, and that we have to keep our eyes and heart open to receive them. It is often when the mind is calmed through the fixing of attention that we become receptive to knowledge from without as well as wisdom from within. Here are some […]
A diatribe against violence as a solution!
As a result of a few unfortunate incidents that happened recently, there are many among my friends who seem to recommend barbarian punishment as a deterrent to inhuman crimes. I don’t understand how so many Indians, well educated and otherwise sane, can be so completely out of their minds as to think that this would […]
A problem much distorted!
Perhaps the most unfortunate outcome of the much-talked-about Delhi incident is that it has become acceptable to pass sweepingly degrading comments about the character of men in general. I saw many articles on the internet, posts on facebook, and even columns in mainstream newspapers that put the blame for the problem on boys not being […]