This years reads and next years target

The year was imbalanced in respect of my reads distribution over the month. The first six months were sort of blank. I was busy reading the technical stuff as I had the task of teaching in the hand. However, the last 5 months were progressive. I finished following books.
1. Achoot
2. Into the wild
3. Train to Pakistan
4. Indira by Inder Malhotra
5. Amish's Immortals of Meluha
6. Secret of Nagas
7. Corporate leaders by Ramachandran,
8. Osho's Fame, fortune and Ambition
9. Raghuram Rajan's I do what I do (in progress)

This totals around 9 books. Maybe I am forgetting one more name. I still missed by years target of 12 books. However, I am committed to making up for this lag in my book count in the coming year.  

For next year, I have already listed the titles I will be reading. Here is the list for my own record:

1. Influence

2. Shashi Tharoor's book on Modi

3. Agatha Christie: Anyone

4. Murakami: Anyone

5. Weight loss book by Rutuja Divekar

6. Amish's 3rd book

7. Gora

8. P.B. Mehta's book

9. Rural Manifesto by Varun Gandhi

10. George Orwell 1984

11. Power of Unconscious Mind

12. Economics simplified by Sanjeev Verma

In addition, I need to read 2 to 3 more books to compensate for this year's lag. I am keeping my fingers crossed and ask for will, energy and good luck from the almighty that he gives me the strength to finish these books.

Book review: Secret of Nagas

This is the second book of the Shiva trilogy written by Amish Tripathi. The book is a continuation of the plot from the first book. Once again, Amish has got it right. His lucid writing with multiple parallel tracks, all merging in one big drama makes it an interesting read.  This also has the potential of becoming an epic tale on 70 mm. Amish has detailed every scene so beautifully that the novel runs like a movie in front of reader's eyes. I recommend this book to all fiction-lovers

Problem of poverty

If you are not a socialist at age of 20, you have no heart. If you are not a capitalist at 40, you have no brain. We often hear young people with socialist heart bragging about the richness of poverty. The idealist types can be heard saying they do not possess any material desire. They are well-off with their limited needs. But all this is easier said than done. We live in the age of materialism where money drives 99% of the things in life. Your place in the society, and family is governed by Money.

One who gives away his material desire should either become Mahatma or be ready to accept his fate as no-one.

The point to note here is the problem of poverty does not stop at the transition from BPL to APL. It goes beyond this and penetrates the boundaries of contentment and happiness. The feeling of relative deprivation is considered much severe than absolute deprivation. To say I do not wish to be rich suits only when you have earned enough in the life to be called rich. Or else somewhere we need to set our limits on what we want/desire/expect from our lives. 

Many things in between

Ideally, this blog should have been published around Dipawali but for no reason I delayed it. Maybe because there was no theme of this blog rather it was a mixture of many scattered thoughts, observations, and experiences. 

First among them is my experience at Sheroes Hangout. My niece asked me for a treat and we visited a hangout cafe named Sheroes hangout. The special thing about this place is that it is run, and managed by acid attack victims only. The place is entirely donation based. They do not charge you for food. It came as a big surprise for me. The food was raw and only the front staff was acid attack victims but the plight and sight of them touched my heart. I was happy to see them reconstruct their life after such horrific unjust committed to them by evil members of the society. It was inspiring. Sometimes, the instinct to survive makes you do many things.

Another such example of survival instinct was a person running with the Samosa tray in his one hand while trying to get inside a fast-moving train. Maybe the one-minute difference will help him in selling 4 more samosas. The desperate expression on his face made me realize how fortunate I am in my life and how silly I am to curse my luck or people around me.   

Another example was to see a person driving rickshaw on the eve of Dipawali to earn few extra coins when everyone around him is celebrating with their loved ones and family members. Sometimes it feels like everywhere there is so much sorrow. Everybody is running to achieve something or trying for wish-fulfillment. 

Sometimes when I see famous, rich, successful, influential and achiever people, I start comparing them with me, thinking about how do I fare vis-a-vis him. The ambitious me surge its head again and again. At times, I feel content but not happy. I do not know the trick. Getting rid of ambitions, expectations, and desires sound impossible and impractical. But when I see such people, I feel how rewarded I am. How lucky I am? Suddenly all my desires/ambition/expectations go away. I develop a sense of Niskaam Karma. In such a moment of insight, the only thing which seems to matter is to do my duty in a disciplined and consistent manner. A productive work-life will follow as a consequence.

Sometimes I wonder, why am I not able to do what I wish? Where am I wasting my time? Is it the laziness inside me or over-ambitious character of mine. I do not have answers. All I know is if you keep trying, things happen. Take everything as a duty and just do it. Maybe the desire of being productive is not so fulfilling in the end. So why to run behind it. Just live in the moment.

Book review: Immortals of Meluha

The year is ending and hence time has come to write the pending book reviews for all the books which I gulped in this year. One of the interesting read was Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi. 

The book is the first part of the Shiva trilogy written by Amish. It is based on a different interpretation of our mythological stories.  The book shows the famous Indian god Shiva, the destroyer of evil in a totally different shade. He is the chief protagonist in the book and shown as a human which his share of faults, imperfection, emotions, and anxieties. 

The book is exciting, fictional drama and a kind of perfect potpourri for a filmmaker. The storyline is interesting. The book is punctuated with philosophical thoughts which enlighten readers heart and mind. He has successfully conveyed a message about the necessity of celebration of the diversity in thought, lifestyle, and culture. In addition, he also pushes forward an alternate picture of our much-revered gods like Shiva, Agni or Brihaspati. His entire star-cast is inspired by Indian mythology. Despite the mundaneness of characters, the book keeps you glued to the story and captivate your imagination.

A good read for all the history lovers, drama readers, fictionphiles and mythology believers.

Beating the lazy me

As usual, I woke up feeling lazy, in the state of half sleep. However, as soon as I opened my eyes, a powerful thought struck me. I asked myself, why should I wake up? Why should I not continue sleeping in the quilt?

I closed my eyes and went on a thought ride with the hope of finding some convincing answer to this question. To my good fortune, an answer came in the form of inner voice. The answer was "balance". Something within me told that go out, see the sun, water the plants, feed animals, experience the early morning breeze, do exercise and do many other activities which you like to do rather than investing all your time on just one activity of sleep.

This voice reminded me of my vision of ideal life. It brought to my memory the fundamental question of what kind of person I am? With the self-observation and experience of so many years, I know that a productive, disciplined, consistent life style is what I crave for. Then how could the lust of sleep hold me back in the quilt. I sprung out of my bad, immediately standing on my feet and did all my lovely morning activities. Those little moments of activities were  very joyful cherishable moment of the day.

To add to my good luck, I discovered few videos which I was searching for long time. I listened to those videos in the morning. It made my day. I will write about those videos some other time.

Another trick which we all know but we rarely put in practice is listing the minute by minute schedule of our day before going to bed on the previous day. This exercise gives us purpose and goal to leave the bed and energize our action.

For past few days, I am following a consistent schedule filled with numerous small activities. This to me is the beginning of living a blissful joyful life. The moment your face bears a pleasant smile from an activity as small as seeing the sunrise or watering the plants is when you get away from the clutches of competition driven world and connect with your soul. That is the essence of happiness.