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