Words are Weariness

lt is a sin to call the street cars of Melbourne as mere 'trams'. That is too drab a name. Their dignity of motion comes from a feminine grace unlike the muscular robustness of a metro train.   Easy to get in and easy to get out, always parking at a distance close to a landmark, they fill you with a contentment that no other form of commuting would. The vistas of urban life open up before you through tall windows as they pass by in gentle pace. You hear the faint hiss from the crowd brimming into the awning of the roadside pub, women in impossible stilettoes and coloured hair , street muscians straining to capture attention, an Elvis Presly look-alike performing to a crowd inside an old pop-records shop, a young lad coming forth into the balcony and cruelly throwing down a cat,  what came of the cat afterwards..... I would call them 'Street-cars-named-desire', but that is too unwieldy and therefore I will reluctantly settle from 'trams'. The success of r...

My mama was wondering if my liking for the written word has anything to do with my genes. We do not have even a minor man or woman of letters in our family, while there were quite a few biblophiles including this very uncle of mine. My father and his brothers were basically good mechanics. My grandfather put two of his sons to study law, my father and his eldest brother. My father did not practice law even for a day and took to Radio mechanism after being mesmerised by the lone Radio receiver in Madras that was put up in the sands of the Marina beach by the Municipal corporation of Madras. His other two brothers started a motor workshop after studying up to intermediate. My father got books from 'The Hollywood Institute of Radio Engineering”, Los Angeles and learnt it all by himself. Even the lone lawyer amongst the brothers must have practiced economy more than he did law as he joined the family business of tinkering and turning after a few years. They had all the state...

It was a dismal outing for the Indian team once again. The 1 st one day international at Melbourne   had a start that belied the end result. India had Australia in some kind of a bind after knocking down 2 of their top order batsmen at the end of 11 overs with just 35 on board when rain stopped play. Australian weather is as fickle as their   Met . Department is precise.   Even one week ahead of the match they had predicted rains on the evening of the day-and-night match.   The forecast   was for bouts of rain between 4:30 and 6:00 and  thick black clouds had enveloped the sky above the MCG right after 4p.m.   There were three bouts of rain and the 50 over match was shortened to 32 per side. When the game started at 6:18 pm, the sky was clear blue with shreds of white strewn carelessly across. The first two overs bowled by part-timers Kohli and Raina   belied what was to follow.   The specialist bowlers   Ashwin and Jadeja were car...

Why do Indian cricketers make 'faithful husbands' ? Because they perform well only at home!!   courtsey :  The Dawn , Pakistani daily.

It is 'midsumma' in Melbourne. It is so hot here that it could give Chennai an inferiority complex. It makes me feel nostalgic , however. It is very much like the scorching heat during the summer holidays of my childhood back in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu when the you could see through the beams of light of an approaching car, whatever moisture in the soil at the time of sunset rise in faint streams of vapour against the black background of the tarred road. Even after sundown, the heat is oppressive owing to radiation from the surrounding concrete. The residential units are not designed to handle this aberration in the weather this time of the year. Sooner, summer will give way to cooler times. There is no air conditioner in most homes though room heaters are invariably present. Day light extends past 9 p.m. The women wear shorts or skirts with hemlines exposing much of their legs like polished wood. Melbourne was founded as recently as 1835. One enterpr...

If you have attended team building / leadership exercises that corporate training departments conduct frequently, you would have come across the 'Lost at Sea exercise' . The trainer normally splits the participants into two or more teams. You are asked to come up with your own answers individually first and then discuss it within your group to reason and re-order them. The idea is to show how much your original solution changes once more people put their heads around the problem and additional voices are heard. You require a similar list of ranked items for surviving the first week when you land in a distant country on a work permit with your wife in tow. With all the rush till the last minute running around for all the approvals, signing Service Agreements, returning library books , taking back up and depositing your laptop, collecting forex, winding down your own domestic establishment, you will not be able to prevent your travel department from booking a flight tha...

f you had studied economics as an undergraduate you would have certainly come across ' 'Gresham's law'. A reigning queen of England of the victorian times distressed as she was that her subjects were using debased and mutilated coins, ordered fresh supply from the mint. But shw saw no change in the preference of her subjects. A nobleman and financier in her court by the name Lord Gresham proferred an explanation thus “Bad coins drive good coins out of circulation”. People simply hoarded the newly minted coins and used only the debased ones. This observation of Lord Gresham came to be known as ' Gresham's Law'. Most 'Laws of economics' , being merely codified common sense, find applicability in other areas. For example, often during water-cooler conversations in IT companies, you will get to hear Project Managers distressing over not being able to find right-skilled associates for their Project. This is in spite of thousands being recruited...