The Curious Case of Suraj Menon

(All of us are born curious. Some of us actively practice it, irrespective of age. Our Curious Cases series give you a glimpse into the minds of such curious folk. May they rub off you the right way!)

Name

Suraj

Location

Bangalore

What I do

Consult for pharma cos, write, set quizzes and over think things

On the Curiosity scale, I am...

Off The Scale Curious

What I prefer to consume (in descending order of preference):

Social Media > Books > Newspapers > Audio > Movies > TV Shows 
(although I'd move social media to the middle if I could)

Number of books and movies I get through in a year

Books - 20+ Movies - 20+

One book I’d recommend to a friend / colleague:

If work related - The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson 
If outside of work - Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See

My best source for book / movie / website recommendations:

My friends' networks

One movie / show I’ve loved that hardly anyone else has watched

Om Dar Ba Dar

I am currently reading:

The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk - a history of British and 
Russian machinations in Central Asia

One place on Earth that I am very curious about:

Djenne, Mali and the great mosque

Website(s) that I get a lot of useful info from:

Wiki, The Guardian, Slate, Rolling Stone

One topic I am super-opinionated about:

Indian cricket (who isn't?)

People come to me to find out what I think about these topics:

Music, History occasionally, Cricket, Films

What I prefer to use (in descending order of preference)

Twitter > Facebook > LinkedIn > Quora

The strangest food item I have eaten

Octopus Soup

If I could spend a day in the mind, body, and shoes of a person, it would be…

Peter O'Toole on the sets of Lawrence of Arabia

One interesting / fun fact I recently learnt:

In the game of snooker, a referee is obliged by the laws of the game - 
to point out the colour of the ball to colour blind players on request

I stay up-to-date by doing this...

Read, just read: on a screen, paper, books, newspapers, magazines, 
on the internet. Don't stop reading.

One interesting/fun fact about myself

I do a half decent Lata Mangeshkar impression

I express my curiosity by doing these things:

Setting quiz questions. Trying to find weird or unusual (and often tenuous) 
connections between seemingly unrelated things. And trying to read as many 
different things as I can.

The one thing I am very interested in

History and Music

A habit or skill I’d love to acquire:

Learning to play a musical instrument

A movie or TV show that taught me something new

QI - something new with every episode

If there was one mystery I’d like to solve, it would be

What is the air velocity of an unladen swallow?

I would love to do this at least once

Do a whisky tour in Scotland or spend a week working at a brewery

People I would like to ask all these same questions to:

Niranjan. Charles Bukowski. Jimmy Page. Jimi Hendrix. and just for fun YouYou Tu

Curiosity is important to my work because...

I work in consulting - which means a big part of work is asking the right 
questions to clients to help them define their problems and issues better. 
Not being curious is not an option.

Someone I know who asks a lot of questions

A lot of quizmasters

My curiosity tip

Being curious about things is a habit. 
If you stop, it becomes difficult to pick up. The trick is to not stop.

Where you can be found online

Twitter: @surajmenon

More Curious Cases here!