BRAToSPHERE

Category: Review

  • The Secret of the Nagas – Book Review

    It has been after a long hiatus that I am back to blogging. I have now shifted to Mumbai, from Bangalore, and shifting is one pain in the ass and time consuming.

     The last week was an extended long weekend of holidays, with Wednesday, Thursday being a holiday and again Saturday and Sunday. The smarter ones planned trips for the whole week, and vanished. The dumber ones like me preferred to sit at home and read.

    I spent the entire Wednesday and part of Thursday in completing Amish Tripathi’s new book – The secret of the Nagas. (Of course, I did manage to catch up with bodyguard too on Wednesday).

    After reading The immortals of meluha, and even suggesting it one of my executives sometime last year, I was quite enthusiastically waiting for this sequel.

    If Chetan Bhagat paved the way for indian writing for the masses, Amish has taken it forward and paved the way for imaginative writing among the new crop of Indian writers. He has very cleverly combined mythology and modern day emotions to tell a story of which not much has been spoken or known.

    The legend.. picks up from where the Immortals left. While the events in book-1 took place in Meluha, detailing the war and the way of life of the suryavanshis and the chandravanshis, and ended in Swadweep, events in book-2 unfold in Swadweep, details the the different perspectives of life, and ends in Dandak Forest – the Naga territory.

    I particularly like the way Amish manages to convince that there are no good or evil ways of life – there are just different ways of life. In the first book, the chandravanshis were tarnished, and the suryavanshi way of living was convinced as THE way of living, having lord Ram’s approval.

    In the second book, Amish did manage to convince us that Chandravanshis are not evil, but have a different way of living – mixing pleasure. I would not like to give out more details fearing that I may ed up ruining the reading experience.

    The primary forte of Amish seems to be in detailing the fight sequences, and the war scenes in words, that the reader is completely shifted to a parallel world.

    The book opens quite well, and raises quite high expectations but does not manage to live up to it completely. A wonderful thought process, it somewhere fails in execution. There is so much scope for adventure and comparison of different philosophies of life but it does not deliver completely.

    The climax of the book, and the detailed description of the dandak forest (where the nagas live) does get irritating, and the end does look abrupt with one yearning for more. The way in which the book has developed I fear the third book does not fall into predictable lines and spoil the fun.

    All said and done, The secret.. is not a bad book, and the plot holds your attention completely and the urge to keep reading it is alive throughout.

    As a final verdict, no doubt book – 1 was better than book – 2, but without any qualms, I can clearly declare that Amish has shown a way for a different kind of writing, catering to a wide audience in indian writing.

  • Chanakya’s Chant – Book Review (rating : 7/10)

    On a rainy evening here in Bangalore, me and Naveen were sipping beer and having chicken tikka at the oasis mall, when we realized that we need to rush. I had a bus to catch at 8:30, and it was already 7:45. It would take me more than half an hour to get to the bus stand.

    In spite of the rush, I could not resist getting into Shankar’s book store in the mall, for a magazine to aid while travelling. My eyes fell upon a golden color interesting looking book, and I could not help but buy it in a hurry and rush out to the bus station.

    CHANAKYA’S CHANT – ASHWIN SANGHI

    Very well researched. Creative. And catching.

    The book runs alternatively between 2300 years ago and the present day. One chapter speaks about the legend chanakya who helped unify India and bring in the golden rule of Chandra Gupta Maurya as the emperor of India, while the other is the present day account about GangaSagar Mishra, Chanakya’s modern avatar, with the same narrative, where his protégé is the oxford educated slum child Chandini, who becomes the eventual prime minister of india.

    The book narrates excellently the parallel stories of both Chanakya and Gangasagar, who with their cunning intellects, and manipulative techniques, twist their respective surroundings and political environments without an iota of self doubt or remorse.

    The writing style of the author ( Ashwin Sanghi, his first book the Rozabal line now commands a read!) is captivating,  especially the frequent use of proverbs, and quotations. The protagonist’s observations, and the dialogues are witty and sharp. Also, each of the episodes seems well planned out and executed to be fitting in the overall scheme of things.

    There are times when you feel that it is Chanakya (or gangaSagar) running the show, and their respective proteges are mere puppets in their hands. But I guess, this much was important to highlight the character of the shrewdest Brahmin india has known.

    Sanghi demonstrates very convincingly that the core of politics and strategy has not changed much with time, and the basics still apply. Information is still wealth. The parallels drawn between the two eras are also quite interesting – Chankya’s Vishkanyas versus Gangasagar dancer-whores and B-grade film starlets, Chanakya’s tantric versus the present day pavement astrologer.

    Twisting the facts, gossip, blackmail and removing of obstacles are all part and parcel of this dirty job, and very well depicted here. The book shows us that politics is not about only pulling each other’s hair, but involves much more and requires the understand of a lot of varied fields. Also the present day story hints at the present day happenings around us and gets the reader thinking.

    For example, R & S is shown as a business house bestowed by political favours. It is shown that the two partners display a public fight just to attract more political favours, and expedite their business growth. ( Ambani’s anyone?)

    In the last chapter, it is written that the husband dies in an air crash suspiciously. ( Sanjay Gandhi anyone?)

    The book fails on predictability, with the ending being anyone’s guess.  But the way to go about it is quite interesting. The book manages to keep the reader engaged and compelled to read through to the very end. Overall, this should be a must read book in your shelf this summer.

    Rating: 7/10

  • Train to Pakistan – Book Review

    Train to Pakistan
    Train to Pakistan

    In my quest of reading books of all kinds I recently stumbled upon Train to Pakistan – a historical novel by Khushwant Singh published in 1956. I had bought this book a long time back, but never had the time or intent to read it. It just got lost in the middle of the other bigger volume books I guess. A week back I started reading it, and could not put it down till finishing it. It is a small book(about 200 pages), and is over 50 years old, but still feels so fresh and new. It recounts the Partition of India in August 1947.

    Instead of depicting the Partition in terms of only the political events surrounding it, Mr. Singh digs into a deep local focus, providing a human dimension which brings to the event a sense of reality, horror, and believability.

    Truth meets fiction in this very well written episode of one of the most violent times in our history. Mr. Singh must have himself been witness to this mass gory, and it shows in the writing. The trauma and tragedy of partition have very well been captured through the characters and their simple stories. Indeed, the book has been scripted in blood.

    Story

    It is the summer of 1947. But Partition does not mean much to the Sikhs and Muslims of Mano Majra, a village on the border of India and Pakistan. Then, a local money-lender is murdered, and suspicion falls upon Juggut Singh, the village gangster who is in love with a Muslim girl. When a train arrives, carrying the bodies of dead Sikhs, the village is transformed into a battlefield, and neither the magistrate nor the police are able to stem the rising tide of violence. Amidst conflicting loyalties, it is left to Juggut Singh to redeem himself and reclaim peace for his village. Is he able to?

    Partition has left many scars in the hearts of several Indians and those tragic  days still haunt the new India, the memories of that tragic period still makes people shiver, and being a sindhi and hearing these stories from my grandma, I completely relate to it.

    Imagine being ousted from your house, friends, family, everyone and packed off to some distant land, like a courier package. All this, only because you are circumcised, or you are not!

    A must read for any one, who wants to get a first hand feel on the happenings of those times. A big message from the book would be that this kind of holocaust should never ever again happen anywhere, and the pain and torture is simply irreversible.

  • >Those Two Months

    >This blog has existed for about 4 and a half years now, and I have been loyal to some extent to it. Yes, there have been these flirting moments, and those close calls, when I wanted to call it quits, but the overall love towards it kept me going.

    Now this is not a girl that I should get so attracted to and keep raving about it(in case of girls, it is more out of compulsion and less due to the inherent want though!). The blog has indeed been a good companion, and has seen me through my ups and lows, and has now become a very integral part of me, my identity, my.. my.. . Okay! no melodrama here.

    Sometimes, this makes me wonder, why do I actually blog?

    We write to record our thoughts, true! The other reasons that I could convince myself are:

    1. Makes me a better thinker (yeah! Socrates in the making!)

    2. Makes me a better writer (obviously!)

    3. Develops a voice within myself, which is consistent and natural
    .
    .
    .
    Ah bull..! I just write for fun! Coz, I enjoy writing and nothing else.

    Do I never get these writer’s block? Obviously I do!

    Sure, there were times when I was completely stuck, and did not know what to write, though somewhere deep inside I did want to write. In such times, I just walked out of the house, go to the beach ( in vizag), and start listening and eavesdropping on people. Random arbit people, that you would find in hoardes everywhere. It would then become that person’s story, and the keyboard kept clicking.

    Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.- ~ Steve martin

    I realize that I have written atleast one post every single month since I started this blog. Every single month! Except for two months – Dec’06, and Nov’09.

    I think I know the reason why this happened. Why these two months got singled out? What exactly happened during these two months?

    December 2006

    I was in my final year of engineering, and was living life kingsize. I had everything I always wanted, everything that any college goer would wish. CAT was going good, AIESEC was loads of fun, College was exciting and I was doing pretty decently there, I was on the verge of having a girlfriend,etc.. what better could one ask for?

    CAT was done in November, and all the Sundays of December were scheduled in my diary with appointments with other exams – IIFT, XAT, SNAP, JMET, and what not!

    With so much happening, I think there was little time left for any blogging. There was no time to actually sleep. Nah! I was not studying.

    I remember this one exam – JMET. It was on the 10th of December, Sunday. Just two weeks before this, in the last week of november, I was crowned the organising committee president for a local conference of AIESEC, scheduled to happen on 9th and 10th December. Great! How do I manage this?

    “Oh! Come on, I am striving to be a manager. This is the real test!. Multitasking”, I tried convincing myself.

    All of December first week was spent in getting sponsorships, ensuring all logistical arrangements are in place, everyone is invited properly, etc.. the whole day, starting from 7 something in the morning with a team meet and a smoke at the beach to late midnight, I was caught up organising this.

    Saturday, 9th December morning, everything was set, and i was in the hotel (venue of the conference) right at 8AM, to ensure last minute settings are done properly. The show went on all day, and the evening ( well late night!) parties also went on smoothly.

    I was awake till 5:30AM in the morning, ensuring everything is going proper in the party, and there were no untoward events. Then also handling disputing couples who were booked in the same room, but now wanted separate rooms after their quarrel ( how would they end up if they get married?), helping puking people to get more comfortable, more so if the puking person is Asthmatic. This went on till 7 in the morning, and then I realize I have an exam at 10AM.

    I rush home, asking my team members to take care, and assigning one person the power of attorney to take decisions for the morning.

    I reached home with a shabby tattered look on my face, got freshened up, had breakfast and zoomed to the exam center. I looked like I had just woken up from sleep and walked through. I told my friends of the amount of alcohol within my body, that has been urging to vomit out since morning.

    I somehow sat through the paper for two hours, and my sense of duty towards the conference ( or call it lack of trust in my team!) was so high, that Immediately after the exam I zoomed to the hotel, and it went on again like the previous night, right up till monday morning.

    These two days were an example of the kind of fast paced of life, I was lucky to experience in december’06, and thus my reason for not writing a single post.

    Ah! Well, before you start guessing, I got an AIR of 252 in JMET.

    November’2009

    This is the second such month, which went without a single post. I was in delhi in November having my Sales officer stint.

    The last three months had been strenuous and quite eventful. My first actual exposure to the corporate world, to the world of FMCG, to the world of selling. Yes, I was a salesman! Ah! Well, a sales officer handling the central part of Delhi.

    November was my review time, and I was badly rogered in my first review that happened on 26th October (yes, I do remember the date!).

    Right from then, I was bent on proving a point and prepared hard for nights together trying to memorize everything that could be asked in the review. (it was scheduled to happen in the first week of November).

    Ensuring that no stone is left unturned, I actually memorised everything. How many grams is each unit of every sku? what is the case configuration? how many sku’s in each outer?, what is the price of a single piece? of an outer? of a case? What is the retailer margin? distributor margin? the invoicing details, various placement programs, the details of each one of them, how many such outlets exist in delhi, how many in my area, which ones? Everything.

    The next thing, I would start memorizing was the actual sku wise sale of each outlets of the 3500 odd outlets in my territory.!

    Well, as luck would have it, my review did not happen in november first week. I rather went to jim Corbett national park with the delhi team. After the trip, when I was very much expecting my review to happen, I was instead sentenced off to meerut, UP for a week.

    “I want you to butcher the RD there”, were the words directed to me!

    I did not have an option, and taking it in the right stride went on. After two days in meerut, I was again called back for the branch review, within two days of my stay there in meerut.

    I now expected my review to happen. It was already the second week of November and my next stint details had come. I attended the two day review, then the launch of a new product, and then on the subsequent Monday when I went to office (very hopeful that I would be reviewed today!), I was sentenced back to meerut.

    “two days is too less. Go there for one more week!”, I was told.

    “Yes Sir”, and I marched directly to meet Nisha in the evening and from there directly to meerut without any luggage whatsoever.

    Here I need to thank Nisha for being there during those difficult days, which could have been a lot more depressing if not for her.

    Stayed in meerut for the whole week, and started back on Saturday reaching delhi late night.

    On Monday, again expecting the review to happen now that the vanvaas ( exile) of meerut is done, I was completely ready. Well, life cannot be all that simple. The review has further been postponed indefinitely, due to some urgencies!

    I was free on tue and wed, as the review would now only happen on 26th, Thursday at the earliest. I went back to meerut, having nothing better to do here in Delhi. Met Nisha on Tuesday, and went back to meerut that evening, only to come back on Wednesday afternoon itself. I would rather prefer spending time with Nisha here in Dlehi, than whine there alone in meerut!

    26th November, Thursday
    I headed out to office, and this time not so hopeful that there would be a review. I spent the morning, again in the waiting room, cribbing about life in general. At about 2:30PM, finally after the long wait, I was called in for the elusive review. It went well, and it had to after all those nights of preparations.

    27th morning, I took a flight to Chennai to meet people here in the south branch. Little did I then know, that this is the branch that I would eventually get posted to. I was in Chennai on Friday and Saturday, and then early Sunday morning, took a flight to Mumbai to attend some training program there.

    Flew down to Bangalore on Tuesday evening, dec 1st, finally reporting to my next stint. ASM Shadow stint.

    There, thus the whole month of November was filled with utmost depression, and despair, and yeah! I forgot to mention this – I even had a small argument with P, which turned out to be a big one leading to eventualities.

    Novemeber 2009 was BAD! Now, how could i have blogged?

  • >3 idiots learning

    >“yeh jo dil hai na.. bada darpok hai. isko bevkoof bana ke rakho.. life mein jitni bhi problem ho.. isko bolo “koi baat nahi chachu.. sab kuch theek thaak hai. ALL IZZ WELL. ALL IZZ WELL”

    How true? Jus keep uttering this to yourself, that everything is fine, and there you get a big boost of confidence to tackle any problem. My dad always says, “There is no problem that big that it cannot be tackled. It is only the mental roadblock to believe that it can be tackled that is big!” Again, how true?

    Well, the dialogue is from the movie – 3 idiots, and truly as Uma Sir says, What a movie it was? More than the entertainment value the subtle message that is delivered speaks volumes, and hopefully will awake people. This post is dedicated to him, for his motivation to write something on this front!

    The movie’s theme is highly inspiring and thought provoking even while it takes a dig at the current educational system with all its latent flaws and seriously questions the very relevance of societal whims which eat away into a budding student’s mind that the end of education is a high profile job, wealth, fame, name et al., making them deprived of the opportunity to set their vision on something where their heart and soul lies! .. ~ Uma Shankar

    The book “five point someone” I am sure I read by more or less all of us, and this movie is a loose adaptation of the same. (no matter what Raju or vidhu say.. it is very much inspired from the book). Though yes, It does require the caliber of hirani- Aamir to bring out the latent message in the book – the education system of the country and its flaws.

    A little about the movie – It starts with Madhavan & Sharman getting a link about the whereabouts of Aamir , & they set out to meet him. Their college life is shown in the flash back. Aamir, who is different from others, with some off the track goal in mind, shows the first glint of his brilliance in the ragging scene. (very old engineering ragging technique!) They become friends & start living their rollercoaster life in the college. Boman irani is the principal, and he makes their lives hell, & to top it all, his daughter falls in love with one of them ( you know who!). The college fun, filled with some unexpected twists ad turns do make it an enjoyable watch.

    The movie has raised some very valid & burning questions – teenagers committing suicide out of pressure, the validity of the college courses, need of grading system, etc.

    The best part of the movie is that the makers have not only criticized the system and left it there, but have also shown the way – the school in Laddakh is a reminder for the government to see.

    Now talking in detail about some fundamental flaws of the Indian education system which need to be changed.

    Learning by rote

    Learning by rote involves learning facts without developing a deep understanding of them. This lack of understanding makes it impossible to grasp meaning and apply and transfer the knowledge to other areas. Memorizing vocabulary words is pointless, for example, without understanding how to use them in conversation.

    Lectures often emphasize rote learning rather than critical thinking. Topics are discussed sequentially, not critically. The teacher does the talking and most of the thinking. The student memorizes material and is placed in a passive role. But many of us who use the lecture should also be concerned that our students learn to think critically.

    I remember students when teaching in a coaching institute for competitive exams. When I start teaching them to solve a problem yb starting from the basics of arithmetic, and then complete the entire question in a logical step by step manner, no bidy would listen. In the end, one of the guys would ask, “Sir, is there no shortcut formula for this problem?”.

    Yes, there is a shortcut formula. MAKE ONE!. You should know how to derive the shortcut and make it your own.

    I think it is time, that india moves to an enquiry based learning. This describes a range of philosophical, curricular and pedagogical approaches to teaching. Its core premises include the requirement that learning should be based around student’s questions. Pedagogy and curriculum requires students to work together to solve problems rather than receiving direct instructions on what to do from the teacher. The teacher’s job is therefore not to provide knowledge, but instead to help students along the process of discovering knowledge themselves.

    Obsession with Grades

    When I was in college, it was apparent. As the semester comes to a close, student anxiety tends to rise, usually to extraordinary levels. At L, the libraries would be filled with students

    Students just talk to professors about one thing – grades. It is never to do with a new invention or some latest technology. No! it only has to be grades, and even if the talk digress to something academic it is only with the hope of creating an impression for it to reflect on the grades. ACP – After class participation.

    Students who actually get curious about a subject are rare. It all just waters down to a letter grade.

    My friends who went on a student exchange program to different parts of the world, had this to say about the system there, “.. their classroom manners weren’t the best – arriving late, answering cellphones, and frequently turning in homework after it was due. But grades were never an issue. It truly was a productive academic environment – the focus was on collaborative learning rather than individual grades…”

    An example here would be MIT Professor Noam Chomsky. During his junior high school years, he went to an experimental school run by Temple University’s education department. With no grades or competition, each student was simply encouraged to do his or her best. Chomsky recollects this school as a wonderful and influential experience.

    His parents then sent him to a competitive high school for college-bound students. Chomsky realized that grades and success were all that mattered, and school suddenly became a scary place that he admits he hated: “If I got a B in something, it was tragic,” he writes in a letter. “I even got a D once – in English grammar, a subject that made no sense at all as far as I could figure out.”
    huh! English grammar. Thankfully CAT just has the application part of English.

    Since joining the linguistics faculty at MIT in 1955, he has changed the face of linguistics, and especially the English language, with his theories on generative grammar. The point here: Grades aren’t everything; excellence is. (point reiterated more than once in the movie!!)

    Of course, who can argue that earning a good grade is not important? I, too, must admit that I become preoccupied with grades in my own graduate classes. but well, i was never in the rat race. I just wanted to clear the papers, as a pre requisite. It remained the same at L too.
    But rather than running behind success, we should strive to sun behind excellence, which is the truer secret to education.

    “kamyabi ke peeche nahi, kabilyat ke peeche bhago!.. kamyabi khud tumhare peeche daudegi”

    When “get results now” prevails over “achieve excellence,” it’s very tempting to renounce our integrity.

    The movie is a must watch for everyone, and especially to the parents of south india, who have tirelessly churned engineers and more engineers in the past several years. In the south india I have seen, it is like after tenth standard, a teenager is given the option – engineering or medicine? It is as if there are no other options available in the world. This has done good to the economy – a complete full fledged coaching market has sprung and is flourishing, but what has it done to the intellectual capital?

    We have lost potential cricketers, actors, writers, photographers to this demon called engineering. Most of them have been sucked to the IT industry, and one year of recession has shown its true colours. Supply far exceeds demand and still there is a demand for “Quality” and “job ready” candidates. All these students just know to rote, so applying them to the real world is completely a different ball game al together.

    So I sincerely hope the movie shows some ways, and brings about a mindset change in some people at least. And also, hoping that the people in power, think something about the whole system and realize it is time for reforms. In relation to movies, some may wonder what movie did jeffrey dahmer watch with his victims.