Culture – Anupam Choudhury

Corporate (Un)Culture

SHORT STORY/SATIRE: ‘The email from the HR Business Partner came on a Friday morning. She wanted to meet Rajat to discuss something important. Rajat’s manager, Lokesh, hadn’t mentioned anything. So he was curious what it could be about.’

Here’s Why I Need You to Work 18 Hours a Day: And Not Whine About It

SHORT STORY/SATIRE – ‘The ‘conference room’ was a corner of the studio floor with big glass windows, seven bean bags, and toys scattered around. Raman Ronadhona had taken a bean bag next to a stuffed bulldog. The Founder-CEO, the 30-something Chaman Chaturkumar, stomped in and plonked into a huge tan bean bag shaped like a chair. He had a frown on his face and didn’t look happy.’

Phunparliamentary

One of the most common expletives in North India (and I’m sure elsewhere) begins with ‘chu’. It is naturally uncivil and, you guessed it, ‘unparliamentary’. What is interesting is that some locals dampen the auditory (but not the semantic) blow of the word by replacing ‘chu’ with ‘phu’.

Adventures in Personal Space

The tall young man walked up to the counter like his dad owned the sun and everything under it – typical of some of God’s favourite men in Delhi.

Desperately Seeking Glory—On Twitter!

You can guess that those are their national flags or the flags of the countries to which they owe their allegiance. I’ve made an unfortunate observation: most of these flag-flying fellas are 1) men, 2) easily angered, and 3) humourless.

Who Is That Guy?!

Some people on my friends list clearly overdo the filters. They exude this luminescent amber glow from their faces like they’ve been recently promoted from human to angel; like they’re hiding their halos behind their backs out of modesty.

A Fictitious Sibling Rivalry: In Defence of Literary Fiction

What Mr Bhagat’s real issue is that he doesn’t get the kind of ‘respect’ that literary fiction writers get. Even Stephen King alludes to this in his book On Writing. As always, people are at fault—not Mr Bhagat, not Ms Desai.

Alexa, Tell Me a Joke

A funny conversation about Alexa, the AI assistant from Amazon. How smart is she, really?

How to Do Nothing

This article shares its title with a New York Times bestseller by Jenny Odell. But I haven’t read it. A reviewer said that Ms Odell’s work is “ambitious”. This article’s subject is the antithesis of ambitious. I’ve been working. I’ve been busting my ass without a break for months now. I’ve kept my nose toContinue reading “How to Do Nothing”

I Miss Neighbourhoods

I miss neighbourhoods … where you could just pop into a friend\’s house uninvited, to chit chat or eat or drink something, or just yell your friend\’s name from outside his house, waiting for him to come out so that you can go to play, or gossip about another friend or talk random shit, orContinue reading “I Miss Neighbourhoods”