Books I read : The Rozabal Line

First and foremost, the flow of the book disrupts you. It moves across ages. It moves across continents. But, except for that, it makes up with a lot of facts and mythology and stories.

The simple story is that Hinduism and Christianity and Islam are all the same religions and are the different facets of the same fundamental belief system. Christ had not died on the cross - he had married, he came to india and probably died in India.

Add to the story the possiblities of past life regression and voila, you have a powerful and gripping story.

Decent read. I will give this 3 stars out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Don't Sweat The Small Stuff at Work

by : Richard Carlson

Recommended reading for all the guys who get stressed out.

He has some great - absolutely common sensical advice for all of us.

The ones which I really loved were these :

* Don't dramatize the deadlines
* Have some 'no phone' time at work
* Make the best of the corporate travel
* Remember to acknowledge
* Make a list of your personal priorities


There are obviously many more here. Very well written. Very meaningful.

Book Review : Echo Burning by Lee Child

I have come to like Lee Child's character, 'Reacher'. The lonely guy who wants to be alone is interesting. Somehow he lands into trouble. Somehow he rescues people. He stands upright. He fights crime. He is very passionate about justice...

This story is not different. It is all of that. Jack Reacher gets a lift just when he was looking for one. And, from smebody he would have least expected it. The woman, who gives him a lift expects him to kill her husband. Reacher investigates and lands up in the middle of loads of trouble. And, the husband gets killed. Apparently by the wife herself. Why is the question. Then the story unfolds itself. 

The first half moves very slowly - unlike the other stories I have read before of Lee child's Reacher stories. But, the second half makes up for it. There are some holes in the logic. For example, why should the Walker guy try to cover up the killing? Why kill only the husband? Why not the wife also and make it look like a scuffle? Who is going to suspect him of all people?

But, with all the holes, it makes up for a good night's read. With diverse characters such as Carmen Greer whom you don't know whether to trust or not, the lady attorney who is a gay, the grandmother Rusty, who hates mexicans and rascist to the hilt, the horses and the ranch, it is rich in detail.

Engey Brahmanan by : Cho. Ramaswamy

An engaging story by Cho. With lots of questions and answers from Hindu scriptures it explains - or at least tries to explain who is supposed to be a 'brahmin'. The one who lives his life only by taking 'biksha' - that is  by begging for food; the one who does not save anything for tomorrow; the one who studies vedas and scriptures, the one who does homams and yagas, the one who prays for everybody's benefit everytime he prays, the one whose only work is to teach others, who does not expect any material benefit for his teaching, the one who treats all his students equally, the one who imparts all his knowledge to his students - he is the one who can be called as 'brahmin'.

Cho goes onto show that nowhere in vedas or in bagwat gita, it is said that the 4 castes are based on birth.

It is pretty clear that there is none called as a brahmin these days in the true sense of the word!!

Out of Poverty :  What works when traditional approaches fail 

By : Paul Polak

To my mind, this is one of the most important books that I have read on the topic of poverty and how to get rid of the same.

The gist again, is simple : Go where the poverty is and observe it first hand. Live with the people for sometime and see why they are suffering. See what needs to be done to make them earn money for themselves.

No governmental organization and no world level organization - whether it is the gram panchanyats operated from Delhi or the world bank operated from God knows from where - tries to figure out why exactly people are poor.

Written by a man who has the personal experience and expertise on what he is talking about, and who started the International Development Enterprise (IDE), which is helping people around the world, this book is certainly an eye opener in thinking about poverty.

People are poor because they have no work sufficient enough to earn money. They don't have consistent work to get out of poverty. They may own land but they don't know what to sow and what agriculture they should do. They are all rain dependent. They are all people dependent. They also depend on a host of others for their equipment and so on. Can we get those equipments simplified? For example, can the drip irrigation be done at the fraction of the cost of how it is done in Israel? Can agricultural methods be taught to them so that they can get the crops going in a profitable manner? What are the practices which take away from making the profits? What makes agriculture very expensive? Can that be tackled?

Those are the questions the books asks. The author has lived in Napal. In India. In Indonesia. In vietnam. Where it really matters and has observed people in first hand. Has worked with them.

One simple line struck me : Don't give the rural poor people anything free. Teach them how to get work. Teach them how to make money and how to make it profitably. They can take care of themselves from then on.

Very true.

Secrets of a CEO Coach : Your personal training guide to thinking like a leader and acting like a ceo 

by 


D.A.Benton

Interesting book. Most of the points are the usual ones such as know what you are saying, walk the talk etc. But, what I found most useful are the set of questions. There are a number of questions that the author poses for you to think through. Right from your background, who your parents were, how happy were you in school and onwards to your responsibilities in your job. That walk through the entire life history throws wonderful insights into yourself.

I jotted down the points and I started answering them. It reveals lots of insights into the person that I am and why I relate to my job the way I relate to it. It also tells me a few things that I haven't really considered till now. To that extent, a very useful book.

A Bias for Action : How effective managers harness their willpower, achieve results, and stop wasting time


By : Heike Bruch & Sumantra Ghosal

I think I first read this book around 2005. I don't think I understood it fully then. But, I could appreciate the book a lot more when I read it again now.


The gist of the book can be summed up in one sentence : how do we get ourselves into purposesful, goal directed action taking? How do we ensure that our teams do this all the time?

Is it that we don't know what to do? And if we do know what to do, why is it that we don't do things which are critical to us? Which are critical to the organizational well being? What stops us? How can we break these barriers and move towards getting things done?

What is purposeful action? It is defined as consistent, conscious and energetic behaviour. How do we balance these with the experimentation and flexibility which are absolute must in organizations? How do we get deep personal commitment to that goal?

The authors come up with a simple 2 by 2 matrix to explain all the above. On x axis, you have` energy levels : low or high. On y axis, you have the focus. Low or high. You have 4 archtypes now. Those who are the frenzied : high on energy but low on focus. They just keep doing something to occupy themselves. There are the procrastinators who lack both the energy and the focus. These people harm all the teams and mar the organization. There are the detached. These are focused but are lacking in energy levels may be because a personal sense of commitment is missing. And, then there are those who are the purposeful who have high energy and focus levels and who come across as reflective and calm amidst chaos.

What is this energy? For people to be energetic, they must believe that the action to be taken and being taken is subjectively meaningful. They must be able to take proactive action and initiative. Their need to act should also come from whithin. And, only when they have exceptional energy levels, do they make exceptional efforts when tackling heavy levels of workloads.

Here, I remember Jack Welch's credos : Being energetic, Able to energise - are the key traits of a manager. Absolutely that is exactly what the authors are also talking here.

What is focus? It is the energy channeled towards a specific outcome. Focused managers are goal oriented. They keep moving towards achieving that one goal in spite of any obstacle being placed on their path. They ensure that all their activities are towards that goal and ensure that the activities don't clash with each other or detract from each other. Focus also requires phenomenal personal discipline. The focused manager must be able to concentrate on the job on hand, should be able to crystalise the actions that he needs to do and should be able to cull out meaning from the many noises surrounding his job and actions.

The book gives many case studies where people from different quadrants ended up in the high energy - high focus - purposeful quadrant and then pulled their companies out of the woods.

I enjoyed reading this book. I often wonder whether I have the required focus and energy levels to consistently do a great job for my company. And, if I lack either, how do I continuously prod myself to find the right levels of both.

Buy.Ology : Martin Lindstorm

Why do people buy? This is an age old question which smart marketers have been trying to answer. There are endless number of market research techniques which try to answer the same. There are survey methods, there are projective techniques, there are observational methods and so on and so forth. But, nothing gives you a clear cut answer in terms of what excites the consumers and why they end up buying what they buy. Or, for that matter, why they don't buy inspite of having come close to buying you many times.

The new answer that Lindstorm comes up with is the brain imaging technique. This is a medical technique used to look into the the brain for any lesions and so on. But, marketers are now trying to use it to see what brain activity happens when consumers see an ad, when they see an image, when they are excited and so on.

And, Martin Linstorm says that this is the new way to go!

But I guess we need to wait and watch. This has potential but I guess it is just too early to become overjoyed!

Written in Bone : Simon Beckett

A forensic anthropologist (never heard of such a profession before reading this novel!) goes to an island where a body is reported to be in a funny state.

He goes there and finds that its head is torched out. Nothing else is damaged in the hut the body is found. A storm blows across and the island is cut off. And, there are more murders which start happening. The place that Dr.Hunter, the forensic specialist stays in, gets caught in fire. He escapes miraculously. But, a policeman was not so lucky. He dies in a separate fire. A journalist who is pursuing them gets killed, hacked to death and then torched.

So, who is doing it and why?

Made a very interesting read.

Full of twists and turns and you find that there are subplots all over the place.

The only thing is that it makes a very gory reading. But, written very well.

A quick look on the novelist : Simon Beckett

Dumb Witness : Agatha Christie

Interesting story from the queen of crime. An old woman, surrounded by relatives who would like to gain from her, falls from the stairs. It is believed that the terrier, Bob has left the ball that it plays with on the top of the stairs. A few days later, she dies. Her death is believed to be from natural causes. However, she has written a letter to Hercule poirot, which, mysteriously, reaches Poirot only after she dies.

So, what has really happened? Did she die of natural causes? Did Bob, the dog, really was at fault?

That is what Poirot unwields finally!

As in every other Agatha Christie's novel, the build up is slow but surely it picks up pace and the denouement is very good!

For a full account of the plot, check here : Dumb Witness : the complete plot

To know a detailed account on Agatha Christie, check this : Agatha Christie

The Last Frontier : Alstair Maclean

There is no need to talk about the writing powers of Alistair Maclean. This novel is no different. Great writing. Frenetic pace.

The hero, Michael Reynolds is a british agent. He is sent to wintertime Hungary to rescue the nuclear prof. Jennnings who has been captured by the communist government against his wishes. How the mysterious "Count" and the even more mysterious "Jansci" help him is the story.

Fighting against all odds and pulling it off is the theme here also. The story also gets into a lot more in depth study of human nature. It talks about how people who fight war come to hate it and turn pacifists and fight a different kind of war from then on.

Very interestingly put together. It has also been filmed.

A Prisoner of Birth : Jeffrey Archer

A fantastic Jeffrey Archer book. Great plot. A person who is held for the murder of his friend, though he did not commit it, escapes to avenge it. But, he escapes as another person whom he resembles. Did he avenge it? Did he join his sweet heart? How did it all go down?

That is the plot.

But, the usual vintage Archer language throughout. The twists and turns. And, a lovely ending which warms your heart. Good fun.

In the Lap of the Buddha : By : Gavin Harrison

This is a book by a person, who chose bhuddism as his religion. A person, who was afflicted with HIV+ diagnosis and whose life lay shattered, he tells us his story of how he decided to fight the war of the disease, how he fought the demon within himself, how he fought off the anger and the fear and the self hatred which comes with the diagnosis.

He goes on to tell us about how to confront the physical pain and also the fear of death. He talks about the eternal question of "Why me?"

He gives guidance on his method of how to meditate. How to look at your body with love and kindness. How to meditate with love and kindness for your enemies who have wanted nothing but your downfall and destruction. How to love those who used you.

How to finally free yourself from the clutches of revenge seeking behaviour and fill yourself with love and affection so that there is nothing but love is left in you.

When I started reading the book, I was curious but also suspicious of what I will gain from this. The book looked like one more book on meditation. But, boy, was I wrong. I am glad I read the book.

When you read this, you understand the words of the one who has suffered through and in spite of his suffering and his still continued pains and ravages, has chosen to forgive all, who has chosen to love all, including himself. Unconditionally.

Beautiful book.

Life After Death -  The book of answers : Deepak Chopra

The  book opens to a lot of promise. It puts evocative questions such as "what happens after death?" and whether "death is the end of life" as is naturally believed to be. With 4 deaths in the family over the last 18 months, I have been looking for some of this stuff. It starts well. It starts with the Savitri Satyavan story - which is familiar. It offers fantastic thoughts and points : "there is nothing which gets truly destroyed. everything gets transformed from one form to some other form". The eight standard physics. Energy can not be made nor can it be destroyed. The sum of energy in the universe is a constant. One just needs to know how to harness the energy which is in abundance in this universe. That thought is echoed in the book.

But, the book then gets into all the advaitic thoughts. It quotes a lot of stories from after life incidences which I have heard and read about.

At the end of the book, I did not get a handle on how to understand death. There are a lot of thoughts and points here. But, the essence is "death is not the end and it is a mere continuum into another form" gets repeated in so many words and so many pages throughout the book.

Where the soul goes, how the rishis understood all this and so on and so forth are all put over here. But, none of that has helped me understand the "why" of death. Why does it occur so very suddenly? So very violently at times? What really happens after that? Why are we unable to communicate to people who are "dead"? How do we communicate? How can we understand "death" while we are alive? After all, Ramana Maharishi was supposed to have understood "death" while he was a mere boy and that incident was the one which drove him to Tiruvannamalai...So, what happens when you die? And, how can you die before you really are dead?

I did not get a clear handle on these. Probably, one needs a lot more maturity to figure this...

ஒரு தமிழ் புஸ்தகம் படிக்க இவ்வளவு நேரம் ஆனது இதுதான் முதல் தடவை. என்னால் தொடர்ந்து படிக்க முடியவில்லை. உக்கிரமான எழுத்து.

ஜெயமோகனின் நினைவுகள். அவரது தாயின் மரணம். மரணம் அல்ல. தற்கொலை. தந்தையின் தற்கொலை. சிறு குழந்தையாய் இருந்தபோது நிகழ்ந்த நிகழ்வுகள். அம்மாவிற்குப் பிடித்த நாவல்கள். அம்மாவிற்குப் பிடித்த பாட்டுகள். கேரளத்து ரமணன் பாட்டு.

கம்யுனிஸ்டுகளின் கதைகள். அஜிதன் பிறந்தது. கேரளத்து கவிதைகள்

வ்ர்ம வ்வைத்தியரின் சிகிச்சை. தங்கை விஜி. அருண்மொழியை மணந்தது. வேலைக்கு சேந்தது.

துரவியாய் ச்சுற்றியபோது கண்ணில் பட்ட பேரழகி. குழந்தை வளர்ப்புக் கலை.

எதையுமே கதை போல் படிக்க முடியவில்லை. ஏதோ, நானே நின்று ஜெயமோகனுடன் சேர்ந்து நின்று, அவருக்கு நிகழ்ந்தவற்றைப் பார்ப்பது போன்ற உணர்வு.

இது மனதைத் தொடும் எழுத்து இல்லை. இது, மனதை அடித்துச் செல்லும் அலை. அற்புதமான உணர்வு இது.

The book which won the man booker prize.

A very angry story. Story of a boy who ran away from his home, who learnt how to drive, who drove around his master and who learnt how to survive in the city of Bangalore.

The way the story is writtin is very different. It is a letter to the Chinese Premier. The language is fantastic. It is dark. It is funny and a brand of humour which is absolutely angry and which spits at you.

It presents India as one of the filthiest of the nations. It paints the people here as those who are cunning and deceitful and cheating on a daily basis. It shows its leaders as all suckers and absolutely self centered ones.

At the end of the story , I didn't know what the story tried to tell. Is it okay to muder? Is it important to get out of slavery and being a servant to being your own master? Is survival very difficult in India? What?

The story left me troubled. I was wondering whether it deserved the booker....probably it doesn't, in my eyes.

எஸ்.ஷங்கர நாராயணன் என்பவர் தொகுத்த கதைகள். எல்லாமே சங்கீதத்தை அடிப்படையாகக் கொண்ட கதைகள். அற்புதமான கதைகள்.

"சரிவாரிலோன" என்ற தியாகையர் கதை. தியாகராஜ ஸ்வாமிகள் ராமனை நினைந்து நினைந்து உருகி பூஜை செய்து பின்னர் ஊரார் பேச்சால் காயம்பட்டு மனம் வெதும்பும் கதை. அற்புதம்.

"ஏறும் இறையும்" என்று இன்னொரு கதை. ஜெயமோகனின் கதை. அற்புதமாக எழுதப்பட்ட கதை. 'ரிஷ்பம்' என்ற பெயரிலே விளையாடும் கதை.

"உக்ரம்" என்ற ப்ரபஞ்சனின் கதை. நீஜமாகவே உக்ரமான கதை.

"வீணை பவானி" என்ற கல்கியின் கதை. அவருக்கே உரித்தான பாணியில், அழகான, உருக்கும் கதை.

"சின்னம்" என்ற வாஸந்தியின் கதை. தாஸி குலத்தில் பிறந்த பாவத்திற்காக, பாடகி படும் பாட்டைச் சொல்லும் கதை.

"திரிவேணி" என்ற கு.அழகிரிஸாமியின் கதை. இராமன் வருகிறான். தியாகையரின் வீட்டுக்கு வருகிறான். அவர் பாட்டில் மயங்கி, ஸீதாப்பிராட்டியுடன் வருகிறான். அழகான, நெகிழ வைக்கும் கதை.

இளங்கோவனின் "நகுமோமு". சின்ன கதை. ஒரு சின்னப் பெண், ஒரு பெரிய பாடகிக்கு பாட்டின் பொருள் சொல்லி, எனவே அந்தப் பாட்டு எப்படிப் பாடப்ப்ட வேண்டும் என்றும் சொல்கிறாள். நல்ல கதை.

"ஆர்மோனியம் சிரிக்கிறது" என்ற அனுராதா ரமணனின் கதை. தன் மனைவியின் அற்புதமான சங்கீதத்தை ரசிக்கத் தெரியாத மனிதர், கச்சேரி நுணுக்கங்களை பற்றிப் பேசும்போது சிரிக்கும் பெண்ணின் கதை.

லா.ச.ராவின் "ஈ ஜகமுலோ திக்கெவரம்மா". உணர்ச்சி மயமான கதை. கதையின் போக்கிலே, நம்மையும் அப்படியே படாத பாடு படுத்தும் கதை.

இன்னும் சில கதைகளும் இருந்தன. ஆனால், இந்த சில கதைகளே மனதைத் தொட்டு, உணர்வில் கலந்து, உயிரிலும் கலந்து நிற்கின்றன. புஸ்தகம் கிடைத்தால், நிச்சயம் படிக்கவும்.

Finding out leaders is difficult. Why is it difficult? Typically because it is difficult even to define what leadership is all about. Also, it is made even more difficult because of the pace at which we need to do things. However, unless you have fantastic leadership, the company starts floundering at some point in time.

This is what Ram Charan takes and looks deep at.

He looks at the conundrum of "how to get the supply of leaders at different levels?" and tries to answer the question of how does one plan for succession.

He advocates an apprenticeship model. This sounds really radical. However, as he points out, it is not as radical as it sounds first. The apprenticeship is the basis in which almost all the professions prospered in the previous centuries. It is still in vogue in professions such as Medicine and engineering and so on. People learn from the teacher / boss and learn the tools of the trade and then become master over a period of time.

However, the same is not really applied in the case of management.

And, Ram Charan points out that it is perhaps time that we started doing this.

He also looks at and gives a probable framework of evaluating people on leadership. That is a good framework. He gives plenty of examples of how different organizations started grooming leaders from early on. How to have a proper process in place for this identification and grooming. How to take bets on leaders from early on. How to separate temporary successes or failures from long term possibility of success or failures. How to look at different situations and why those situations might require completely different styles of leadership.

He talks about a set of key points : identification, nurturing, how to mentor the leaders, how to set challenging tasks to them early on to spot the real leaders, how to put a process of continuously offering them great tasks which will refine their skills, how to manage the talent pool of leaders, how to continuously monitor them and what kind of frame work might work to take care of all of these.

Made me wonder how I would go about if I have to look for leaders. Made me wonder whether I do any productive and useful mentoring. I was also thinking about who are the potential leaders around me. There seem to be a number of them.

Very good book for any one who is passionate about leadership.  For anyone who wants to mentor and nurture talent under him. For both the bosses and the HR teams.

One of the tamil books that I have enjoyed in recent times. The actor's another dimension is celarly visible here. His erudition of ramayana and that of kamban is clearly available to all.

He has selected about 100 poems from Kamaba ramayana and has given fantastic commentary on the same. He has simplified the tamil a bif of the poems so that even people like me can read them.

Gems!!

I am going to read kamba ramayana fully now!!

A psychological thriller. I have read about the author and have seen some rave reviews. The writing is indeed taut and as good as there is. The girl who cannot remember what really happened. The police enquiry lines. The murders which have piled up. The circumstantial evidence for anyone of the dozen people who can be the suspects.

But the ending was not very good. Introducing new facts and figures to finish off the story? Never liked that kind of an ending.