Book Review: Think Straight

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Think straight is all about training your mind to move from chaos to clarity and that is what the cover of the book represents! It is a very small but powerful book. I like to read books related to self-help and I have already read some books from the authors such as Robin Sharma, Paulo Coelho, and Mark Manson. I found that Darius has somewhat similar writing style to Mark. He does not try to be philosophical instead he tried to convey the message as much straight (short) as possible. No related stories just a description about how can we train our brain to think straight with his own or other philosopher's examples. One more interesting thing I found in the book is that there are lot of quotes from other people and brief explanation in the context of thinking straight. It won't take more than two hours to read it and I would highly recommend it to our readers who wants to improve their thinking.

Here are some of the highlights of the book:

• "The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it." - William James
• Just sit down, be one with your thoughts, observe them, and then, ignore them. That’s all there is to meditation.
• "Conquer yourself rather than the world." - René Descartes
• "There are no facts, only interpretations." - Friedrich Nietzsche
• Only think about things you can control. That automatically eliminates about 99% of your thoughts because there’s very little you control in life.
• It’s better to be aware of your thoughts and decide what you will ignore, and what you will give importance to.
• I like to avoid assumptions as much as I can. I prefer to look at facts and then draw conclusions. What if you can’t rely on facts? Well, sometimes you just can’t find facts, or you have to make a quick decision. In those (very rare) cases I prefer gut feeling. Whatever you do, never waste your thoughts on other people’s ill-informed opinions and guesses.
• "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." - Steve Jobs
• Achieving a goal never happens linearly. Most of us believe there’s a straight line from where you are to where you want to be.
• If everyone is doing one thing, that often means you shouldn’t.
• Thoughts should serve a useful purpose. If they don’t, they’re useless. That’s straight thinking.
• “We usually think of ourselves as sitting in the driver's seat, with ultimate control over the decisions we made and the direction our life takes; but, alas, this perception has more to do with our desires—with how we want to view ourselves-than with reality.” - Dan Ariely
• “The life of wisdom is a life of reason. It is important to learn how to think clearly. Clear thinking is not a haphazard enterprise. It requires proper training.” - Epictetus
• “If there is any instrument you must fall in love with and fetishize, it is the human brain—the most miraculous, awe-inspiring, information-processing tool devised in the known universe, with a complexity we can’t even begin to fathom, and with dimensional powers that far outstrip any piece of technology in sophistication and usefulness.” - Robert Greene
• “The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.” - Marcus Aurelius
• With practice, you can get better at controlling your thoughts, so you can decide what you think.
• “If you can change your mind, you can change your life.” - William James

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Book Review: One Indian Girl

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Chetan Bhagat's attempt to explore feminism! It is a story of a girl who is successful banker from IIM but have complicated relationships. She is independent and want to have balance in life with her career as well as family life and fighting with typical Indian mentality. Reader will get chance to visit New York, Hong Kong, London, Delhi, and Goa in the story! Although the story is about faminism and also written well with lead character moving all around the world, I don't know why I find it more like a Bollywood movie script than a fiction novel. I firmly believe that Chetan Bhagat is writing books to be adopted as a movie and earn healthy royalty for it, however, I find nothing wrong in it.



The most favorite thing of the book is that first time I found that there is a character with my name. Isn't it exciting? But then I feel bad when I read these lines :( "What sort of a name is Brijesh? Can it be more unfashionable? Radhika, you are going to marry a guy called Brijesh. You will be Mrs Brijesh Gulati. That’s terrible. Okay, stop it. Stop it, Radhika. He’s come a long way. He’s a nice guy. That’s what matters, right?" and eventually he turned out to be a good guy like me. ;)
Anyways, It is a good story to read for a time pass. I believe hard-cored feminist will surely like it.

Celebrating 20k views

Hello everyone!

We are celebrating 20k views of our blog and like to thank all the readers (all of you) for your love, support and encouragement. I would not say that we write for you because we are not! We write what we feel, however, it makes us happy when you like it. I started this blog over blogger platform in year 2009 then I moved to Wordpress in year 2012 for better blogging environment. Again in year 2017, we decided to monetize our blog and it is free on blogger so we are here again! The transition time was tough as some of our readers left out and some join in as well. Change is inevitable and we need to move on. Isn't it?

Blog Statistics (As on February 11, 2020)

In year 2018, my new year resolution was to reach 20k views. We had only 4375 views at that time! Finally we are here, sooner or later, we reached our target. With great response from your side, we now have average 800-900 views every month, so I believe we can achieve 30k views by the end of 2020. I want our blog to reach 1000 views every day but we have time and content limitation. The advantage of online publishing is that it follows exponential growth, hence, if you publish few good articles and it gains good views, it will increase exponentially (same is applicable for research publication citations).

Although we try our best to promote our articles at various social media, your help and support is really helpful for us to increase our reach. Therefore, I request all the readers to like, comment and share our articles. I also request you to follow our blog so that you can receive all the articles directly to your email address as and when they are published at our blog.

How to follow our blog?

Thanks, keep reading, keep loving, keep supporting...

Book Review: The Captive

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This was my first attempt to read a book from Romantic thriller genre! It was a great experience and I would love to read more from the Author. There are many twist and turns in the story which keeps your interest intact and you can't stop yourself for reading more of it. As per title it is the story about captivity but it also has a romantic angle between the captor and captive. What? Why? How? these are some of the questions which always comes to your mind while reading the story. I highly recommend it to all who interested reading romance, suspense and thriller stories. Here are some glimpse of the story:

• We are survivors. As long as we can, we fight. Because being alive is much better.
• They say that when survival mode kicks in, then the logical part of the brain stops functioning, and everything points to three different options—fight, flight, or freeze.
• I know we are supposed to love our mother because she is the first person we are connected to, and she is the one who gives us blood and nourishment and protects us while we are inside her stomach. And when we are born, even though the physical cord that joined us is severed, another more important cord is formed. An emotional cord. That’s what matters.
• Hurting women or innocents is not being powerful, it’s just showing weakness!
• If I’m going to be a victim of a senseless crime, I will not go down easily
• The best way to tackle a bully is to show that his taunts and jeers isn’t working on you.

Book Review: Kuch Rang Zindagi Ke

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It is the first Hindi novel I read; I should say a short story instead of novel. I may be biased because author is my brother. Although I am being as honest as possible. It is worth reading and as it is short story it wont take long time to read. It is about a girl and her innocent feelings towards his friends (specially male friends). Language used in the book may look quite offensive but it is usually used in our regular conversations, however, it is not used in writing. Author attempted to be frank with writing and I hope you will like it.

How to start PhD?

PhD (Doctor of Philosophy)!

I recently completed my PhD and some of my friends have the question, 'How to start PhD?' I believe many of you may also have the same question and that's why I decided to publish an article to answer the question.

Before going into the details I have some small answers for FAQs or lets say background check! First and foremost thing is why? In all the scenarios first question should be 'what' then 'why' and then we can find the answer for 'how'. Here in our scenario, I have already answered the what part in first line. If you are not satisfied with it, you may search it on Google or Quora (sometimes it is better than Google). So lets try to answer 'why?' Major reason which I observe is government policy (you may argue that I have started my anti-modi / anti-government / anti-nation agenda again). But most of the top tier institute allows only PhD holder to appear in the interview process. Only Bachelors or Masters has no value if you are planning to get job in academia or you already are in academics. It is necessary for all academician to have PhD! Second reason may be your research interest. Someone may genuinely interested in doing research to help mankind. Third reason may be you have lot of money and you can buy whatever degree you want. In India, anything can be bought, if you have sufficient money to pay (for further discussion contact Mukesh Ambani)! So, If you are from third category, you need not to worry about anything we are going to discuss here but for category one and two this discussion may be useful.

PhD in a long-term process, it may take four to seven years to earn the degree (I am not considering fake degrees). The only person who is most important in your life during you PhD is your supervisor. Therefore, in my view, selection of supervisor is the most important part of your PhD journey; research area, publications, etc. comes later.

Most of the people approach their supervisor based on their research profile and regret later. Because the person who has good research contribution not necessary be a good human being as well. It is better to have good amount of conversation with your future supervisor before actually joining him/her. Your supervisor should able to understand your personal issues as well because in this long journey, you may have many personal issues and if your supervisor don't understand it, you may end up struggling between your personal and research life!

Next important thing is your area of research. Mostly people ask their supervisor or other seniors about the area of research and problem statement. This may be a good strategy for short term research but here it wont work. You have to identify the area in which you are interested to work. It is something that you can work on 24x7 for four to seven years. In starting, everything seems interesting but after sometimes your research becomes monotonous and you don't like to work any more and you realize that you have chosen the wrong area but now you are a half way mark and no wayout. Sometimes it also happen that you can't find any more problems to solve. There is no research without finding and solving problems. Therefore, it is advisable to choose your area of research wisely.

Now the discussion about the difference between category one and category two aspirants. Major focus of category one people is on degree whereas category two people worried more about their contribution. Therefore, category one aspirants should go for the university or institution which don't have very high publication and contribution criteria so that they can earn their degree easily. Category two should target top tier universities and institutions so that they get better facilities, faculties and work environment.

I hope this article will help PhD aspirants to start their journey.

Please post any of your questions in comments, I will try my best to answer.

“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Book Review: Asura

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Asura, the story of Ravana and his people. Most of us already know about the story of Rama (Ramayana). As per Ramayana, whatever Rama did was according to dharma (law) but "history is written by the victors". This book explains the Ravana perspective of Ramayana. The story is well written and all the important events of Ramayana is covered with Ravana perspective. There is a relevance to each event and justification from the Ravana side. This book helps us to see beyond the Gods and mythological creatures. It is written with human touch, hence, in this story everyone is a human without any magical powers. Reader can also relate it with current time and systems. It may change your perspective towards Ravana. I also find comparison between south Indian and north Indian culture at various places in the book.

I have read Shiva trilogy by Amish Tripathi in the past which inspired me to read more mythological books. The writing style of Anand Neelakantan is very different from Amish Tripath and it is obvious too. In this book, I find many words beyond my vocabulary. I usually read books from Indian authors so my vocabulary is very limited and I got an opportunity to add few more words into it by reading this book. I highly recommend this book to all the mythology readers.

Here are some glimpse from the book which may motivate you to buy an read it (to buy you may visit the Amazon link given at the start of the article.):

• I didn't know then, but I had been born to fulfill someone else's destiny. To allow someone else to become God.
• Our dharma was based on simple things: a man should be true to his words; he should speak from his heart and shouldn't do anything he considered wrong. One should not cheat even if  one was sure to fail. One should honor women and not insult anyone. If there was injustice, we had to fight it at all costs.
• We saw temples where the God resided and demanded a portion of the earnings which men strive hard to earn. And we also saw the representatives of those Gods who plundered in God's name.
• Why were only a few able to control the power and wealth while the rest obliged them, and even laid down their lives to help this small selfish gang oppress them and their children? Was it fear?
• Money, caste, rituals, traditions, beliefs, and superstitions all conspired together to crush the humble majority.
• The moment I started asking why, I was branded a hothead.
• I am no atheist. I strongly believe in God and am always willing to pray for my material and spiritual progress. But for me, God is a very personal thing and prayer needs to be spoken silently in my heart.
• The rituals, the animal sacrifice, the curse of caste - none of these had the sanction of the Vedas nor were they divine proclamations or edict.
• What my predecessors had tried to do was to run a republic. They wanted democracy, where each man, like this bunch of idiots in front of me, decided the future of the nation.
• The rich did not care who ruled, as long as they were allowed to be rich. The poor could not afford to care and nobody asked their opinion in any case. Only the middle class mattered and any half-witted ruler knows how to pamper them.
• It could have been due to my inborn leadership qualities that this stealing of a subordinate's ideas emanated from me and the bad and foolish ideas had some other father.
• What would you choose between glorious martyrdom and deceitful victory?
• Peer pressure is something which even great men find hard to resist.
• People conduct their business in the market place with elaborate rituals so no one would touch or pollute each other. But they also spat red pan juice all over the street and walked over it.
• People openly defecated but were still scrupulous about not touching each other.
• The irony was that the natives were more afraid of being touched by Asuras than of being killed.
• Do not believe in anyone, especially your siblings, when aspiring for success, for they are bound to be your bitterest enemies.
• Never trust a traitor, even if he has done the dirty work for you. Tomorrow he may turn against you.
• It took courage to lose your pride and still survive. It took will power to suppress one's screaming ego and grovel before another man. It took determination to keep one's head down and act humble, when you were seething inside. Ultimately, the victories do not matter, nor pride or glory, only the survival matters - one's life and successors, the clan, race and language.
• Children need space to grow and it is difficult when their father is a huge banyan tree.
• Men cheat, betray, love, strive, struggle, fail, fall, getup, and repeat the process to die and vanish forever or be reborn. But the earth remains aloof, distant and unchangeable. I was just a speak floating in the mighty universe. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next minute, I would be gone. Would it matter to anyone? A few perhaps would be sad and others happy for it, but it would only be relevant for a while. Over time, my achievements, my birth and death, would be irrelevant. So the size of my empire was irrelevant and there was no need for any bloodshed. Life was too short for fighting wars and too sweet to throw away on silly things like ambition. I wanted to believe that I was not afraid to die. One day everyone died. That was the way of nature. You had to give way to the next set of living things. Mentally, I had never been afraid to die. But then, how could I ever leave this beautiful life? Wind whistled past my ears and I took a deep breath of the cool morning air. I breathed life.
• You keep the godhood you gained through unfair means and I'll keep my manhood and die a warrior's death.
• The king could not drag us to a war over his private affairs. It was a family feud at best but we were paying the price.
• We would give our blood, our lives and everything we owned, for if we lost this war, we would lose something more precious than life.
• Claim that God is with you, or better you are God, then anything you do, any adharma you commit, becomes divine play.
• The emperor uses gold to decorate his roof when men like us do not eat even one square meal a day.
• Everything the rich and the mighty did, even in charity, pity or generosity, smacked of selfishness.
• This country will never change. Grab everything whenever you can - that's the mantra. Greed was the basis of this rotten country.
• Curiosity is a great motivator
• People loved you not for the short-term popular things you did them as a ruler, but because you were just.
• Asuras would not be Asuras without betrayals.
• I was so tired of war. But I didn't have the power to stop it, The juggernaut rolled on. It would stop when the time was right and not when the participants wished.  And it would destroy whatever came in its way - pride, power, life, honor, everything.
• Save your political speeches to fool the masses. You are fighting this war for your own selfish reasons.
• The love of a father for his son is always one-sided.
• When I strove for bigger things - for bigger cities, magnificent temples, wider roads, better ports, larger ships, increased trade, improved business, making a name among the nations of the world, making my country richest in the world - I forgot something simple and basic. I forgot my people. I thought glittering cities marked progress. I forgot about the people who lived in gutters. When I gave lavish banquets, I forgot that most of my people had nothing to eat.
• I am now mature enough to know that things happen randomly and we poor humans get caught like straws in the wind.
• I would make military service compulsory, irrespective of whether the person was the son of a rich merchant, ugly priest, or poor beggar.
• I would make it mandatory for everyone who passed out of the technical or medical schools, to serve for at least five years in the countryside.
• It was a vicious but meaningless cycle, where the only losers were those who were honest and straightforward. Everybody cheated to their own capacity. And everyone was aware of what was happening.
• From birth to death, our culture had trained us to bribe and to take bribes and endorse bribes.
• Do the birds need permission to fly? Do the fish swim on someone's authority? Learning for human, is like swimming for fish or flying for birds.
• If your dharma needs to be protected from a little boy, by killing him, if dharma is afraid of a few Sanskrit words uttered by a child, think if you can, you ruler of this sacred land, what sort of dharma you are protecting and whose hands hold the strings that control you.
• The irony was that he was successful in getting Sita back from most powerful king in the world, and yet was powerless to save his wife from clutch of orthodoxy.
• Ravana was a man who lived life on his own terms, doing what he thought was right and caring nothing for what was written by holy men; a man who lived life fully and died a warrior's death.

Book Review: Lafz

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It is a collection of Hindi poems. I cannot write the detailed review about it because the author is my brother which makes my opinion a biased one. However, I request you to read it and write an honest review about it.

Thanks

Book Review: Introducing Buddha (Graphic Guides)

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Introducing Buddha is a short story about the journey of Buddha and Buddhism from India to around the world. A graphic guide series books has very good illustrations for various important concepts and events which make the book more attractive for readers. The story of the book starts from India where Buddha was born and how Buddhism spread around the world. The different path of Buddhism. Cultural adaptation of Buddhism in different countries. Here is the wisdom I extract from the book:

•  Much learning is like a poor man counting another's treasure without a penny of his own.
• Words are not the highest reality, nor what is expressed in words the highest reality. Why? Because the highest reality is an experience which cannot be entered into by means of statements regarding it.
• Poetry and visual symbols come much closer to reality.
• The mind must be in a state of wisdom to understand wisdom.
• We have to make friends with ourselves and be kind to those aspects of ourselves we like least. Learning to be kind to ourselves brings the discovery that fundamentally we are quite soft. We become hard when we habitually deny our own woundedness and blame others for causing our pain. In admitting our own hurt, we become soft and vulnerable.
• Tantric deities do not exist in the so called “real world”. But nor does Sherlock Holmes or Madame Bovary, even though people may feel very familiar with their characters.
• People often use their anger at social injustice as a basis for action, but that is unwise. When you are angry you are not lucid and you can do harm.

Book Review: The Alchemist

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I think you may have read many reviews about this book and even many of you may have already read it. However, I believe that every reader/reviewer has his/her own perspective to understand the content. This book is all about chasing your dream and pay the price to fulfill them. We have to make choices in our life and many time we end up regretting the chosen path and believe that the other path might be the better choice. I believe that regretting your choice will make you weak and make your journey towards your dreams difficult. Therefore, it is better to take your own decision and take responsibility of it. Find the way towards of your dreams and more important is, enjoy the journey. It is not the fulfillment of your dreams but your journey towards fulfillment of your dreams will teach you a life changing lessons. I don't want to discuss the story of the book because that you already read or heard from other sources but I would like to narrate some interesting lines from the book.

Wisdom:

• When someone sees the same people everyday, they end up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
• At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.
• We have to take advantage when luck is on our side, and do as much to help it as it's doing to help us. It's called the principle of favorability. or beginner's luck.
• Beauty is the great seducer of men.
• People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.
• Everyone has his or her own way of learning things.
• Die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day.
• Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World.
• It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil; It's what comes out of their mouths that is.
• Camels are traitorous: they walk thousands of paces and never seem to tire. Then suddenly, they kneel and die. But horses tire bit by bit. You always know how much you can ask them, and when it is that they are about to die.
• One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.
• Fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
• Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the dream.
• Every search begins with beginer's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severely tested.
• Your eyes show the strength of your soul.
• When something evolves, everything around that thing evolves as well.
• Anyone who interferes with the destiny of another thing never will discover his own.
• There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
• When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
• To die alive is to take risks. To pay your price. To do something that sometimes scares you but you should do because you may like or you may not like.

Here is the link to my brother's blog for the book review. I hope you will find it interesting too.

Book Review: "Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service"

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My friends gifted the book to me on my farewell at CTAE. It was my first attempt to read a book on spy fiction, hence, my review may look like a naive one!
It feels like you are reading a script of 'James Bond' or 'Mission Impossible' type movie. Although every country has its own secret agencies and they all do such type of mission, Mossad is more special because to survive in the location where you are surrounded with enemies (powerful) from all side is require you to be alert all the time. Mossad did it so many times in past decades. After reading this book, my respect for Mossad and Israel has increased drastically. Iran nuclear program to hijacking Iraq fighter jet, bringing Eichmenn to Israel to killing many enemies in their own countries, Mossad did many great missions. It is must read book for all the espionage lover. Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

• In the fall of 1987, a secret meeting was held in Dubai. Eight men met in a small dusty office: three Iranians, two Pakistanis, and three European experts (two of them Germans) who are working for Iran. The representatives of Iran and Pakistan signed a confidential agreement. a large sum of money was transferred to the Pakistanis, or-more precisely to Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the head of Pakistan's official nuclear weapons program.
• Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan had stolen the centrifuge's blueprints from Eurenco, European company where he worked in the early 1970s, and then started manufacturing his own in Pakistan. Khan soon turned into a "merchant of death", selling his methods, formulas, and centrifuges. Iran became his major client. Libya and North Korea were also clients.
• On February 4, 2004, a tearful Dr. Khan appeared on Pakistani TV and confessed that he indeed had sold know-how, expertise, and centrifuges to Libya, North Korea, and Iran, making millions in the process. The Pakistani government hastened to grant full pardon to "Dr. Death", the father of their nuclear bomb.
• Last words of Adolf Eichmann, spoken in the Nazi tradition: "We'll meet again... I have lived, believing in God... I obeyed the laws of war and was a loyal to my flag..."
• The wind and the waves dispersed the remains of the man who twenty years earlier had merrily declared: "I'll jump laughing into the grave, happy at having exterminated six millions Jews."
• My dear Nadia, my dear family, I am writing to you these last words, hoping that you'll remain united forever. I ask my wife to forgive me, to take care of herself and give a good education to our children... My dearest Nadia, you may remarry, so that our children will have a father. You are absolutely free in that respect. I ask you not to mourn the past but turn to the future. I am sending you my last kisses. Please prey for my soul. Yours, Elie.
• Their overconfidence, and the exaggerated demands of their handlers, led them to their deaths.
• Herbert Cukurs was accused, notably his personal responsibility in the murder of thirty thousand men, women, and children, and considering the terrible cruelty shown by him in carrying our his crimes. The accused was executed on February 23, 1965, by 'those who will never forget'.
• Black September, they said, intended to launch an all-out war against Israel. The only way to stop it was to kill all its leaders, one after the other. Crush the snake's head.
• I am a man of peace, a hundred percent. My father lived in times of war and paid for that with his life. Now a new era has begun. I hope that peace between Israel and Palestinians will be the most important event in the life of those two peoples.
• He had been deeply disappointed by Egypt's defeat in the 1967 six-day war, and had decided to join the winner. But beside that "ideological" motives, Marwan asked for lots of money: $100,000 for every meeting in which he would deliver a report to his handlers.
• "Comb" a method developed by veteran Mossad agent Zvi Malkin to follow the suspect. Besides following their "mark", the agents combed the areas that he might visit, and were in place even before he arrived.
• Shaqaqi himself was considered by the Palestinian diaspora to be the ideological father of suicide terrorism. He was the first to find in Islam's holy teaching a legitimization for suicide bombing and killings.
• A bullet in the head or a missile fired at the car is more humane than poison? It would have been better, of course if there was no need to kill people, but in war against terror this is unavoidable.
• Shoval drone can fly four thousand kilometers without refueling and carry a load of a ton. The Israeli drones, some of the best in the world, carry out intelligence and attack missions all over the Middle East.
• The Ethiopian Jews paid a heavy price for their dream to enter the gates of Jerusalem. More than four thousand Jews died during the various stages of their journey.
• If someone comes to kill you - rise up and kill him first.

Book Review: "What Young India Wants: Selected Non - Fiction"

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This is a good attempt of writing a non-fiction by Chetan Bhagat one of the most successful Indian fiction writer. He very interestingly raised the issues the young India (young generation of India) is facing. He also suggested some of the solution which we can put in practice to solve some the issues. It always depends on us how we react to the situation. This book may help young people to think towards the betterment of the country. It is collection of selected essays and columns, hence, most of the chapters are very short but very meaningful.

Book Review: "It Happened in India"

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It is the story of one of the most successful businessman in India. The man who founded Future Group which grow to more than 6 firms. He started his journey from small shop "Pentaloons" ( I am bit surprise with the decision of selling pentaloons to Aditya Birla Group) of cloths to one of the largest network of FMCG chain "Big Bazaar". Kishore Biyani, a typical baniya understand Indian market so well that in span of a decade big bazaar was available in all major cities of India. It is very inspiring story for those who want to start their own business and dream to touch new heights.

Book Review: "Laughable Loves"

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It is a collection of seven love stories. It indeed is laughable if we take it in a light way otherwise it is full of erotic games and a sexual relationship between a man and a woman. Here is the review about seven different stories:

1. Nobody will laugh: The first story is revolving around few characters but is very humorous. It is about the lie effect, how one lie leads to another and so on. The moral of the story is woman don't like liers, The one who caught red handed though. 
2. The golden apple of eternal desire: This is the story of two friends who loves hunting girls. They show different ways to impress a woman and control her! I don't find it funny anyway.
3. The hitchhiking game: This is a story of a couple who play erotic games when they are on a vacation. It is more of an erotic than funny.
4. Symposium: It is an erotic comedy. It is getting interesting after Elisabeth's suicide attempt but then story got wrapped up too early.
5. Let the old dead make room for young dead: The story revolve around two characters but it is very interesting one. It shows a lifelong love.
6. Dr. Havel after twenty years: It is story about Dr. Havel and his expertise in handling women. Though story becomes little humorous after the meeting between Dr. Havel and the editor.
7. Eduard and God: This is the best story of the book. It shows true love over erotic feelings.

Book Review: "Dhirubhaism (Gujarati)"

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Dhirubhaism is a story of the work ethics Dhirubhai Ambani believes in. How a small town boy become the most successful businessman in India. He believe in some ideology and he follows it through out his life and most of the people around him believe that those ideologies has make him successful. The author Mr. A. G. Krishnamurthy is one the closest friend to Dhirubhai. In this book he discuss the ideologies of Dhirubhai and his success story due to those ideology. It is worth reading for all the entrepreneurs and the one dream of it.

Book Review: "EM and the big HOOM"

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The book was gifted by one of my colleague as a farewell gift. I love reading books but this is something different! It is a story of a family 'EM' the mother, 'HOOM' the father, a son (who tells the story), and a daughter. Story is more focused on EM than HOOM. The author added all the possible feelings in the story. EM is a mentally unstable character but her family loves and support her a lot. It is very difficult to take care of a person with suicidal tendency but the family stood strong. The story starts with EM and HOOM's relationship and end with EM's death but every moment of it is very well written in the book. I really like the book and I recommend it to the serious story lovers.

Wisdoms:

1. I used to wonder: What must it mean for a lower middle-class woman to tell a strange about her sexual history and her fantasy life? Does she understand the free association that is sometimes used, or why the psychiatric social worker wants to know so much about her childhood? Those who have some experience with homeopathy may not be shaken or shamed by the bizarreness of the question, but which Indian woman will talk about masturbation? And what can mental health mean in a nation that wants an injection to put it back on its feet the next morning.
2. God listens to the prayers of mental because they are touched by his hands.
3. I believe in Jesus Christ and the Buddha and Krishna and Allah because you can believe in anything if you look straight at the message:
• Love one another? Good idea
• Detach yourself? Good idea
• Do your duty? Good idea
• Submit to the will of God and go with the flow? Good idea
4. If anyone ever does you a favor, you cannot forget it. You must always credit them, especially in public, especially to those they love and those who love them. You must pay your debts, even those that you can never fully repay. Anything less makes you less.
5. It occurred to me then that the mad in India are not the mentally ill, they are, simply mad. They have no other identity. Here, everyone was mad. They had lost their hair so that the institution could keep them free of lice. They had lost their clothes because their families had abandoned them, and they had lost their lives because they had lost their families. They were now free in a bizarre sort of way. They were also alone except for the shoulder in front and the touch of the fingers of the person following behind.
6. When you're a child, cast the runes. When you're an adult, ask an expert.

Book Review: "Albert Einstein: A Short Biography"

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It is one of most inspiring biography. We all know that Albert Einstein was a great scientist but very few know how he became one. This book shows the journey of Einstein from childhood to the great scientist in a very short but interesting way. Einstein face many problems in his life but his never give up attitude keeps him in the hunt.

Book Review: "Anything for You, Ma'am"

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One more attempt of an IITian to be an author. It is a simple love story with humor and suffering. It came in the era of Chetan Bhagat (CB), however, it doesn't have a vulgarity and sex which is always there in CB books. It is worth spending your free time to read this innocent love story.

Book Review: "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life"

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Last month when I visited crossword in Pune, I find this book. From title itself it looks strange to me and may be to many of you. When I read its short summery, I found it interesting. Therefore, I bought it and It is worth buying, for me at least. I consider it to be one of the best motivational book I have ever read. However, I can't compare it with the books from Robin Sharma. In starting, one might get bored with more use of " f " word but after first chapter, it is interesting. The real life examples and wisdom from other books and authors make it easy to understand. It is more of a casual writing than a typical motivational writing but still there are many hidden messages in the book.

Wisdom:

• The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And paradoxically the acceptance of one's negative experience is itself a positive experience.
• Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different.
• To not give a fuck about adversity you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity.
• Whether you realize it or not, you are always choosing what to give fuck about.
• Life itself is a form of suffering. The rich suffer because of their riches. The poor suffer because of their poverty. People without family suffer because they have no family. People with family suffer because of their family. People who pursue worldly pleasures suffer because of their worldly pleasures. People who abstain from worldly pleasures suffer because of their abstention.
• We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature's preferred agent for inspiring change.
• Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one.
• Don't hope for a life without problems. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.
• Happiness comes from solving problems.
• Problems never stop; they merely get exchanged and/or upgraded.
• Happiness requires struggle. It grows from problems.
• The deeper the pain, the more helpless we feel against our problems, and the more entitlement we adopt to compensate for those problems.
• There is no such thing as a personal problem. If you have got a problem, chances are millions of other people have had it in the past, have it now, and are going to have it in the future.
• Self-awareness is like an onion. There are multiple layers to it, and the more you peel them back, the more likely you are going to start crying at inappropriate times.
• Pleasure is not the cause of happiness; rather, it is the effect. If you get the other stuff right, then pleasure will naturally occur as a by-product.
• Sometimes life sucks, and the healthiest thing you can do is admit it.
• Often the only difference between a problem being painful of being powerful is a sense that we choose it, and that we are responsible for it.
• I'm always wrong about everything, over and over and over again, and that's why my life improves.
• The more you try to be certain about something, the more uncertain and insecure you will feel.
• The more you embrace being uncertain and not knowing, the more comfortable you will feel in knowing what you don't know.
• The more something threaten your identity, the more you will avoid it.
• It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
• If it feels like it's you versus the world, chances are it's really just you versus yourself.
• Improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures, and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you've failed at something.
• Don't just sit there. Do something. The answers will follow.
• The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
• We're all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by life's trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.