Unreal Blog

Pointers in surviving the corporate jungle. Newspaper column in Today on 14 June 2008.

[...] In the unforgiving, dog-eat-dog corporate jungle, you need to be sure of the welcome. More importantly, you need to prove yourself worthy of it. Fear not, I am here to help you through it. And I will gladly accept all credit for your survival, if you care to make it public. But I regret that we (this newspaper, me, our family members, dogs, lawyers and so on) cannot be held responsible for any untoward consequence of applying my suggestions. Come on, you should know better than to base your career on a newspaper column! [...]

Read the rest of "An Office Survival Guide"

How to market sophistication, a la francaise! Newspaper column in Today on 5 Jan 2008.

Sophistication is a French invention. The French are masters when it comes to nurturing, and more importantly, selling sophistication. Think of some expensive (and therefore classy) brands. Chances are that more than half of the ones that spring to mind would be French. And the other half would be distinctly French sounding wannabes. [...]

Read the rest of "Sophistication"

Newspaper column in Today on 1 Sept, 2007.

[...] A normally aggressive soul, on the other hand, may become an obnoxious sender of what are known as stinkers. Stinkers are emails that are meant to inflict humiliation. [...]

Read the rest of "Office Email Wars"

This concluding part of the philosophy of money (to appear as a column in the May issue of the Wilmott Magazine) shares my private disappointment that whatever I wrote up may not have been as original as I expected it to be. But the concept of money has been around for a long time now, so I should not dwell on it too much.

Read the rest of "Philosophy of Money – IV"

Having looked at the how of money in the last post, here is the why of money in this third post in the my mini-series. Why do we want it so bad?

Read the rest of "Philosophy of Money – III"

This second post of the mini series based on my upcoming column in the Wilmott Magazine looks at how people make money in a scalable fashion. It was posted earlier in this blog.

Read the rest of "Philosophy of Money – II"

Here is another mini series of posts based on an upcoming column of mine in the Wilmott Magazine to appear in their May issue. I have posted similar ideas here before, but this series will put them together, hopefully as a cohesive whole. This first post of the series looks at the unphysical nature of money.

Read the rest of "Philosophy of Money – I"

On my strange and funny dreams.

Read the rest of "If Time Died Now, I Would Be Happy"

If hard work does not entitle us to fat bonuses, perhaps our “talent” does? This is the third in the series of posts based on an upcoming column of mine in the Wilmott Magazine.

Read the rest of "Bonus Plans of Mice and Men – III"

Another old gem from my newspaper columns collection, this post talks about email duels that all of us have gone through at some point in our career. Enjoy!

Read the rest of "Stinker Emails — A Primer"

Bush has just left the building. Perhaps the world will be a kinder, gentler place now. But it will certainly be a less funny place. For life is stranger than fiction, and Bush was funnier than any stand-up comedian. Jon Stewart is going to miss him. So will I.

Read the rest of "Bushisms"

I have been doing a bit of geeky stuff lately — writing Wordpress plugins. That made me think… We all started off as geeks, didn’t we? What’s the use denying it? Remember how the teachers loved us, and the sexy cheerleaders, well, didn’t? During our moments of panic, we go back to our geeky roots. At least, I do.

Read the rest of "Geeks"

This one is a hilarious piece I found on the Web. If you really like it, you have to wonder — am I still doing too much techie stuff and too little management?

Read the rest of "Meeting Bingo Game"

Okay, they say this Mensa Invitational by the Washington Post is just as fictional as these words. But these words — man, are they funny!

Read the rest of "Mensa Word Play"

Only my fellow Malayalees can enjoy this hilarious email I got, unfortunately. If you cannot read Malayalam, please ignore this post.

Read the rest of "For Malayalees Only"

Here’s an IQ question to help you decide how you should spend the rest of your day! [...]

Read the rest of "Trick Question"

Here is a Malayalee view on what really went on with the fake moon landing pictures!

Read the rest of "Moonwalkers"

I wrote this piece on the World Malayalee Conference 2008 for a Singaporean newspaper. I was away in India during the conference (22-25 August, 2008) and did not see it in print. This post is about my home state of Kerala, its language Malayalam, and those who speak it – the Malayalees. If those words make no sense to you, you may not be interested in this post.

Read the rest of "The Worldly Malayalees"

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders? Why would Nietzsche say a thing like that? Here are my thoughts.

Read the rest of "God’s Blunder"

Richard Feynman on physics and sex. My serious and not-so-serious thoughts on the words of the great man, aptly described as ‘No Ordinary Genius.’

Read the rest of "Sex and Physics — According to Feynman"