Author Archive for Sundararaman Viswanathan

Embarrassment is the proudest virtue of a loser! – Sundararaman Viswanathan “At least to my knowledge.” “In my humble opinion.” “If I am not wrong.” “Hope you don’t mind.” Every day, we are faced with a typical situation where in we hide behind these phrases. Why is that so? Are we trying to be polite? [...]

“Contemporary racism is not conscious, and is not always accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways.” Jack Dovidio Recently, when I saw and read about hate crimes and racist attacks, my heart went out to the college kids who bore the brunt of attacks. It must have been traumatic for the [...]

I happened to watch this movie “Gone Baby Gone” recently. The story line is about a kidnapping which is shrouded in mystery. A private detective, the protagonist, who is hired to help out the investigation, finds out that the kidnapper is none other than the just-retired, honorable sheriff who had lost his child in a [...]

If at all you want to develop political will, go to the kids, learn from them! I have come across two kinds of people. First kind are the ones who want to get something done and they get it done no matter what (read as beg, borrow or steal). The second kind are those who [...]

Is Barack Obama the Robin Hood of our times? Look at this man, stuck in a world of capitalists, but doing his best to get the wealth distributed. Sustainability is his mantra! Not because he is pitching for clean energy via wind turbines, solar panels only but also, for asking the corporate to be responsible [...]

Underdogs never go under! Especially, every recession (economic, social and environmental) brings out some “underdogs” and catapults them into the league of “top dogs”! Rajasthan Royals started off as the underdogs and went on to win the Indian Premier League (IPL 2008 season). 2008 culminated with two significant achievements from the underdogs’ camp. India’s successful [...]

When I got married, my uncle gave me only this advice: The sea of suspicion has no shores! The gravity of the statement did not hit me until recently when, again, I was moved by the common thread that connected a few disparate incidents! The common thread was “suspicion”. I set out on a journey [...]

Games Indians play – Why are we the way we are is a good book which has hit the stands in recent times. The author V. Raghunathan has used game theory and behavioral economics to explain the Indianness of Indians. In this book, Raghunathan explains and rationalizes why we Indians are individually smart but collectively dumb. [...]

I am sure you would have heard the phrase “It’s different!” at least a gazillion times. During the premier of a latest movie, a director was explaining how different the movie was from all other movies ever made. At least to my knowledge this is what every director has had to say for every movie [...]

Reality shows are in vogue on Indian Television. Any channel that you flip will always have an unknown stranger performing a song or a dance. It was one such evening; my wife and I were watching TV. There was a teenage girl singing her “heart out”. At the end of the contest, the child walked [...]

When I started writing, my initial posts were much welcomed. Encouraged by the feedback I vowed to write more – and immediately my brother warned “Don’t start writing too frequently, quantity will dilute the quality.”  I read an interesting quote the other day, which goes like “Great things in life come in small packages.” Boutique [...]

People who are married would be the ones who I think could appreciate this piece. Others just read on and pick up as much as you can. I have lots of friends and their friends and their friends… who are married. Have heard enough stories, seen lives/relationships falling apart and getting together stronger than before. [...]

Recession! Not quite what we expected huh! The dream run, the bull run, ball of a time… and countless other descriptions of the times gone by all sound distant now, a far cry! People losing jobs, inability to pay up the credit, no taxes, no revenue to the government, no money in the market, no [...]

“You preserve only what you love, you love only what you understand, you understand what you are taught.” – Baba Pioum I read this at an aquarium in Kuala Lumpur. Given that most of the creatures are facing extinction in the order of magnificence they exude, I felt aquarium was probably the most appropriate place [...]