Round the world in just two books!!

The world goes around and comes back to the same place they say. I was taken on a journey, which brought me back to where I started, when I read the following novels. The Inscrutable Americans, some kind of defines the path followed by more than a thousand Indians, who go out to US in hunt for higher studies and higher glory with a profound settlement strategy. They quiet feel US is some kind of atonement, in their small cantonment.

Anurag Mathur defines his central character Gopal with characteristics disembarking as and when the pages of the book keep turning and the story unfolds itself. A guy from the hamlet of India, goes to US for his higher studies. He has never been in a city in India, is completely taken aback by the city culture in US.

A complete catastrophic change of paradigm and morality, which has been portrayed in a rather hilarious endeavour. The author tickle that laughter bone. The innocence of Gopal and the more extravagant American born Randy, brings the humorous coefficient which multiplies with the story.

The one thing I will never forget from this book is this, The offer by "a very good looking, black man, dressed in a breathtakingly beautiful gray overcoat" of "some real live pussy" begins the theme of the book, Gopal's quest, initiated without his slightest understanding, to get laid before he returns to India. "No thank you, sir," Gopal declines."I'm vegetarian." And when he returns to his cousin unscathed (and unlaid), he says, "I met friendly man selling vegetarian cats."

Randy on a mission to get Gopal laid, fails miserably each and every-time. This is kind of a book, surely makes you wonder, why the hell didn't I try going to US. The book is a good time killer and leaves you with a rather, cool note. A great travel read or a weekend stress buster. I do recommend it.

The other book I read was out of total curiosity, a book which I picked up just because it was something to do with IIM and business schools. Turns out, it had a completely contrasting nature. Samrat, a young American born with a Indian origin working at Wall-street, (Not quiet a story now, because of the financial crisis. This is sometime when there was no crisis) gets increasing frustrated with his monotonous life and wants some change. He comes back to India and enrolls in IIM-Banglore for doing his MBA.

His Indian experience is very nicely explained. Coming from US, Samrat, meets his fellow students at IIM, Sarkar(a guy from IITs mindbogglingly brilliant but a marijuana addict) and Vinod (ex-Indian army solider). The author gives us a birds-eye view of how things are go around in the IIMs.

Samrat comes to India, in search of happiness, but he just finds the gruelling IIM schedules. He gets a interim with one of the top companies and loves completing it. With Sarkar, he goes for a 10 day soul stirring experience in a yoga session at the Himalayas. After 2 years of Indian experience, he finds his happiness in a less dramatic job. A frugal salary, not a demanding life style.

Does Samrat find what he is looking for? Very cool book for casual reading!! Keep off the Grass here means nothing but marijuana. But marijuana does play a vital role in the story line!! :) Ruskin Bond, does tell you a a thing or two. I enjoyed every bit of it!! After all this reading, I could not sit home reading, so I planned to take a drive for a sandwich. I ordered a sandwich and was reflecting the books. As I was thinking, I was eyeing my bike which was parked on the other side of the road. Just lost in my thoughts.

The sandwich wala came out and asked me, do you want to have it here or take it as parcel. I said, I will have it. As I was having it, I still reflected the book. As I finished it, I asked the guy for a tissue paper. The guy replied-"Tissue paper tho nehi hai saab, yeh Indian paper he hai" and trusted me a old newspaper. Then I felt, wherever I go, India and the Indianess in me, will never change!!

Eats, shoots and leaves==Kung Fu Panda

I just finished a book called, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves"....a book about today's usage of English punctuations. Well we can never guess that from the title of the book. The explanation of the title goes something like this. It has been explained in the form of a story.


A giant Panda, enters a bar, asks for a sandwich, eats it happily. The panda was about to leave, when the bar attender asked it, money for the sandwich. It removed a gun out of no where and fired twice in the air and left. Before it left, the panda tossed a animal book to bar attender. An book with descriptions of all the animals, but with poor punctuations. It read, Giant Panda: Animal found in parts of china, feeds on bamboo. Eats, shoots and Leaves.

I have to say, the author of the book Lynne Truss, has read most probably all the books of English punctuations and also history books wherever the word punctuation appear. So much references on each and every page, it makes the reader feel like, he has missed all the books in the world. It also shows how learned she is. Taking nothing away from the book, it does not make one very curious to read the book. Only a persistent voracious reader can finish this book.

The writer is against the way today's generation of people have turned the punctuation symbols and made their own grammar out of them. She goes on and explains how it should be properly used, by explaining how it is wrongly used in today's bits and pieces English. The author throughly disagrees by the way the today's English has been broken up in emails and smses. Like gr8 for great and 10x for thanks. She feels we have to start a revolt against such things.

A through professional with majestic sentence formations skills, spell-binding descriptions with eloquent and free flowing effluent, expressive English. To be frank, I guess you can give this book a miss, if you are looking for humor. It is not as humorous as her "Talk to the hand". The sarcastic comedy of Truss is missing in this one.


To continue with panda story, I saw a movie just yesterday Kung-Fu Panda. An awesome animation movie. Complete opposite to the above english punctuation crap!! Amazing story line, breath-taking animation, stomach aching comedy. Even the expression on the face of the panda makes one laugh his heart out.

The complete setting in china, with Kung-Fu, and all these animals, this movie is here to stay. A complete contrast to the book I read. You see, there is always a lighter side of things in life!!

Dhirubhaism!!

Vision, people say is not what all can see. Swami Vivekananda once said, "Even if I would loose my eyes, I would not have lost my vision." What is this vision, which makes people so great! Listening to their heart all the time, overcoming many obstacles, and winning at last. A vision that makes people constantly run behind it to acheive it. A vision that makes them think beyond everything that a normal man can perceive.

Dhirubhaism, is a book written by A G Krishnamurty, gives us glimpses of one of the visionary of 20th century, Dhirubhai Ambani. Born in a remote village in Gujarat, how can a normal guy like him with very less knowledge, leap to such an heights.

The book explains the qualities of the man. The way he man-handled all his situation and people. He was a genius in persuading people, in getting his things done. His aim was to acheive his goals. He would adopt all the possible way he can to reach his goal. A buring desire for success. A ruthless ambition, coupled with intuited vision. A great combination of dream and hardwork.

3 things that impressed me was, "The arm around the shoulder"- This part explains how down to the earth Dhirubhai was. He would put his arm around any guy and explain him what he needs. This kind of a gesture makes the subordinates under him at complete ease. This made Dhirubhai break the ice, talk freely and most of all nip any kind of dissatisfaction or anger in the bud.

The second thing I liked was the fact that, Dhirubhai, was optimistic to the core. Never did he think he will not win. Even at the face of defeat, he would be optimistic and find a way out. At several patches of his life, he has faced number of hard ships. Phases where he has had losses. But he never went down, always came back. That is a the tenacity of the man, who always wants to win come what may.

The third thing that struck me was the his "magic of thinking big". He had a great vision and always thought very big. All his project would be so gigantic and enormous in size that his competitors would not dare to put a foot into it. They would rather play safe. When he used to work in Aden for a pertoleum firm, his dream was to own one such firm. Every person at that time would have laughed at him. But he never gave up. Reliance petrochemicals, was the dream come true.

The author at certain locations could have avoided reputations. The fact that his advertising company Mudra, started from stratch, in just nine years became among the top three in India, has been repeated multi number of times. He could have added more stories of Dhirubhai itself, that would have made the reader more curious.

Nevertheless, a good book, just 96 pages, could be read in an hour or two. It has been 2 days that I have read this book; but vision of the great man still strikes me. To add to all in a recent interview, Sunil Mittal, CEO Airtel-Bharti, said openly that, "we cannot match the plans of Reliance". He said "Reliance plans are so mind bogglingly huge, that Bharati cannot match it". That is how huge Dhirubhai and his vision stand.