By Bikram Vohra
Have you noticed how people sometimes say something so out of line that you wonder what exactly they meant? It is not even a backhanded compliment, it is a sort of blunt and harsh remark, often personal, that leaves you unflattered.
Continue reading News flash: don’t take offence if people in office call you loyal
By Anita Iyer
Last days at work can be overwhelming. Filling a brown carton, unpinning pictures, post-its, memos, sending goodbye e-mails, packing up each piece of memory from your work desk, and checking out for the last time with your access card — goodbyes are hard, especially if you’ve loved your job, and have spent years at the company.
Continue reading Want a nice farewell when you quit the company or… no fuss?
By Anamika Chatterjee
When I was young — more specifically, the age when you dream big dreams and hope for them to come true — my father led me to believe he might just be the Alex Ferguson of West Bengal football.
Continue reading Football’s going home soon, thank god for small mercies
By Allan Jacob
There was a time when scooters symbolised the automobile culture. I’d like to think there was a nice balance to life in those days. You didn’t have to be brave to drive a scooter. A helmet could be dispensed with. Normal was okay but would suffice. Riders simply stepped onto it, rested their feet on the platform and enjoyed the road. No fuss, no sweat — if they got a good first kick in. The starter may have stuck out like a big sore toe from beneath the bulbous machine but they were undeterred. They kicked it down once. Twice, three times. Cold start. So they tilted it to the side and let the engine juices flow.
Continue reading Like Gregory Peck on the scooter, through the streets of Bangalore
By Kelly Clarke
After a work assignment some weeks ago, time was against me. It was late afternoon, I was halfway across town from office and my colleague, a deskie, was pressing me for copy.
Continue reading How do you deal with smiling teenage kleptos in trial rooms?
By Suresh Pattali
Been there, done that, I know how bad it could get inside a dark hellish labyrinth a kilometre beneath the earth and four kilometres from the nearest point of sunlight. In the 19 days when the 12 boys and their football coach were trapped inside the flooded Tham Luang cave system in Thailand’s Chiang Rai province, not a day had passed without my prayers for their safety. Such was my agony that at times I metamorphosed into one among the boys who survived the ordeal on hopes, prayers, and more importantly the bond that existed between them.
Continue reading What those caves were like for the 12 brave Thai boys
By Keith Pereña
A couple of weeks back, one of my colleagues approached me with a huge sheet of paper. On it, I noticed the names of other colleagues with numbers alongside them; he then asked if I wanted to place a bet on who was going to win the World Cup. I must have looked blank for he followed that up with, “You don’t follow the World Cup, do you?” As far as I was concerned, it was just one of those big events that needed to be reported on. It was just news.
Continue reading Basketball, I get. Now, to figure the fuss about the ‘other’ game
