All Entries Tagged With: "The world around us!"

Adolf Hitler once said “By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a person see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise. Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” Public ignorance is certainly bliss for politicians and businessmen. Media [...]

It was barely a week after I wrote a blog on the tendency of some Tamilians in Tamilnadu  to commit self  immolation I read that a youngster  committed the act in a fit of emotion over the developments in Sri Lanka. I believe the matter is no longer to be brushed aside with derision. It   [...]

The film Slumdog Millionaire has aroused strong emotions in both India and the U.S. Let me start with India. Amitabh started it all with his blog in which he despaired at the film showing the dark underbelly of India, a tradition  that goes back to Satyajit Ray. The star said that in contrast to this [...]

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 [...]

I need to vent…for those who know me, they know that I am big into raising money for charity, volunteer work, donating blood and anything else that I can possibly do to make the world a better place. I live here, my kids are growing up here and I’d like for the world to be [...]

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 [...]

The Wikipedia definition of a recessionista: A recessionista is someone who seeks out fashionable items of clothing and food, which are also low-cost. I am a recessionista who cares about food as much as fashion. I don’t think food and fashion are mutually exclusive. You are what you eat, and what you are determines what [...]

On 17th March, 1994, two fifteen-year-old best friends promised each other that they would be friends for life! And even if they lost touch they would reunite again twenty years later i.e. on 17th March, 2104 in Hawaii! They obviously didn’t bother to check the map to see where Hawaii was located and were oblivious [...]

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 [...]

When I ask myself what good I did last year, I do proudly say, “Much more than I ever did in the past.” So have I turned a new leaf and taken to philanthropy or social service last year? No, nothing of that sort. Why then, this proud reflection of the year gone by? I [...]

‘Arcot Easwaran has claimed that when the whole world is switching over to English, Mr. Vajpayee has shown disrespect to it by addressing the U.N. in Hindi. Leaders of many countries such as China, Japan, Russia, France, Germany and Spain address the international forums in their own national language. Do they all disrespect English by [...]

A couple of months ago, I was embarrassed beyond words for being the chief villain in the story that follows. Having had a particularly bad day, I reached home, dog-tired and drained, irritable and unhappy. You see, just that evening, an order I was expecting for my fledgling training business to get finalized fell through. [...]

It is such an education to watch well-heeled people interact with “lowly” waiters. Condescending, arrogant, self-righteous are some terms that come to mind. And lest you smirk at this finger pointing, it might be sobering to note that a vast majority of us are condescending, arrogant and self-righteous towards waiters, or for that matter, any [...]

A reader wrote: I regularly read all the articles at tickledbylife.com. I would like you to carry an article with the title “How to live without money”. In olden days people used the barter system. If this is possible then black money from the system will vanish, hunger for amassing wealth will vanish, so many [...]

Many years ago, in the 15th and 16th centuries there was a part of Great Britain that was as lawless as it gets. This was the region in the North of England/South of Scotland which is now called The Borders. This was good cattle country but it fell between the jurisdiction of the Scottish Kings [...]

When I was young I had to ride my bicycle to school.  During the winters I had no gloves and when I got to school, my hands were frozen for a long time afterwards.  Imagine writing an exam paper early in the morning with stiff fingers and a time constraint. I first saw television when [...]

Remember the times when, not so long ago, there was an eagerly awaited person every day? The postman in his khaki on his bicycle. As he clanged his bell, our hearts stopped. We wished he had something for us too. An envelope or a little postcard. Or a greeting card from a friend or a [...]

‘Fear’ seems to be the predominant vibration of the day. If it is not the fear of spiralling inflation, then it is the fear of stock market going down. If that is not your issue then it is the burning trains, and exploding bombs that put the scare in you. Wherever one goes the talk [...]

I had occasion to discuss the ongoing Wall Street crisis with two of my friends. One of them lives in Singapore and the other works for a nationalised bank in Chennai. My Singapore friend remarked that with capitalism having capitulated his executive friends are reading Karl Marx with great respect! My Chennai friend who dreaded [...]

In an article in The Hindustan Times, television star Barkha Dutt contrasts presidential debates in the US with poll campaigns in India. I notice that, on most occasions, when Indians (including yours truly till I moved to the US) compare India to the US, they go misty eyed, gushing with total admiration for the US [...]