If you just cannot get enough of The Cowherd Prince, you are not alone. Krishna Udayasankar’s prequel to the bestselling novel Govinda is a thrilling insight into the world of Govinda before he became the master strategist of The Mahabharata. We had a chat with the author and it was an absolute delight!
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We hear you’re a science fiction buff. Who are your favourite writers in the genre?
KU: I was a huge fan of Isaac Asimov as a child and teenager. I mean, I still am, but it’s difficult to say that now without asking myself questions about separating the art from the artist – after the allegations of harassment against Asimov. But I can’t stop liking what I’ve liked all these years, I can’t change the fact that I love the books and have been influenced greatly by them. So yes…
You characterise your protagonist Govinda very carefully. You have also said that consent is one of the most important things to learn from Govinda. What would you say is the importance of looking at mythological characters from a more contemporary lens?
KU: Fiction is a device by which we look at the world around us, all the more so for genres that deal with alternate worlds, like myth and history or fantasy. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that good fiction is always a commentary on the way the world is. When it comes to mythology, I believe that becomes even more important because it is a two-way thing – the way we understand our past, the way we believe things happened, are fundamental parts of how society functions in the present. And if we want to question our present or examine it, then we also need to examine our understanding of myth or the pre-historic past – all the more so because for a large part of our society, myth is the bedrock of defining good and bad, right and wrong.
The Cowherd Prince||Krishna Udayasankar
We also hear that you hate spinach. If abandoned on a deserted island with only spinach to eat, which three books would you take with you?
KU: Haha! Since I would not eat a book or tear it up even if I were starving, I assume the question is which books can make the spinach go down easier? Traditionally, it would be Amar Chitra Kathas – since those were the spinach-y books of my childhood. But now my list would be: My entire Calvin and Hobbes collection, Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan and Asimov’s Foundation series. And maybe I’d try to sneak in Lord of the Rings too? And The Jungle Book. And … wait a minute, three books? I can survive on spinach but I can’t survive on only three books.
What are you reading now? What book are you excited to read next?
KU: I am re-reading Martha Well’s Murderbot novellas in anticipation of reading her latest – a full Murderbot novel next.
What is your favourite thing about being a writer?
KU: Hanging out with some amazing (imaginary) people. Living in other worlds. Travelling to places I have never been, vicariously doing things I can’t dream of doing otherwise in this lifetime (whether it’s flying a fighter jet or whipping up a six-course meal!) And of course, one of the best parts of being a writer is getting to share these experiences with readers – who often become friends.
How do you battle writer’s block?
KU: I don’t battle it, not anymore! All I do is show up every day, even if that means I’m doing nothing other than stare at a blank page. But that is when I am writing. I often go for months without writing, particularly between books. I’ve learnt that imagining new worlds, new stories is one of the best parts of writing (other than playing with words). I tell myself now, that its ok to do that, and the story will come to me when it has to.
What is your writing process like? Are you a planner, or do you wing it, or is there a third customized method that works for you?
KU: I’m a mix of planned, chaotic and downright clueless. I think I try different methods at different points on time in a book – usually winging it when I begin, then stepping back to plan a little bit, then just being instinctive about it again. I also work on multiple books, sometimes, so I could be following different processes at once. Like I said, clueless and chaotic!
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Krishna Udayasankar’s The Cowherd Prince is captivating and will keep you reading well into the early hours of the morning.
Startups have changed the world. In the United States, many startups, such as Tesla, Apple, and Amazon, have become household names. The economic value of startups has doubled since 1992 and is projected to double again in the next fifteen years.
As venture capitalist Alexandre Lazarow shows in this insightful and instructive book, this Silicon Valley ‘gospel’ is due for a refresh–and it comes from what he calls the ‘frontier,’ the growing constellation of startup ecosystems, outside of the Valley and other major economic centers, that now stretches across the globe. The frontier is a truly different world where startups often must cope with political or economic instability and lack of infrastructure, and where there might be little or no access to angel investors, venture capitalists, or experienced employee pools.
Here’s a glimpse into some of these insights for all you future entrepreneurs!
Learn from the microfinance industry
‘In [the industry’s] early days, a key insight was that the poor were creditworthy borrowers. By placing borrowers into groups with a sense of strong social accountability and shared responsibility on the loans’ repayment, microfi nance lenders found that repayment rates were high.
But this insight was also the biggest challenge: the in-person nature of putting people in groups, making regular visits to collect money, and maintaining deep customer engagement is expensive. Companies like Tala, Branch International, and Safaricom’s own M-Shwari now offer consumer loans, relying entirely on the mobile money platform.’
Out-Innovate || Alexandre Lazarow
Create rather than disrupt
‘Timbo Drayson founded OkHi, a technology-driven startup that creates addresses where there are none. OkHi’s mission statement is “Be Included.”
Creators do three fundamental things simultaneously. First, they offer a product or service that solves an unserved, acute pain point in the formal economy. Second, Creators offer a solution for the mass market. Finally, Creators are focused on game-changing innovations that fundamentally rethink a market and a sector.’
Raise a camel, not a unicorn
‘The growth-at-all-cost model simply does not translate to the realities of the Frontier. Instead of the unicorn, then, I propose the camel as the more appropriate mascot. Camels live in and adapt to multiple climates. They can survive without food or water for months. Their humps, primarily composed of fat, protect them from the desert’s scorching heat. When they do find water, they can rehydrate faster than any other animal.15 Camels are not imaginary creatures living in fictitious lands. They are resilient and can survive in the harshest places on earth.
Signing up for Silicon Valley’s unicorn-hunting strategy is a bit like mortgaging your home to buy three new homes. If things go well and the market moves in the right direction, then the rewards are massive. Facebook’s eye-watering returns for investors are a case in point. Yet this approach also increases the likelihood of losing everything.’
Build A-teams, don’t hire just A-players
‘…in Silicon Valley, companies and employees see their relationships as short-term affairs. Retention rates are among the lowest in the United States. More than 13 percent of staff turn over every year, and in certain job categories like user design, the rate is well above 20 percent, which translates to short employee tenure.
Frontier Innovators […] use fi ve key strategies to build and scale top teams. They test candidates for behavior and capabilities, develop a proprietary talent pipeline, leverage global distributed options, take a growth mindset to retention and training, and think critically about compensation and perks.’
Cross-pollinate
‘Frontier Innovators […] cross-pollinate. They leverage diverse lived experiences, often across multiple geographies, industries, and sectors, to build their businesses. They tap global networks for capital and resources.
At the Frontier, a typical innovator’s lived experience is longer and spans geographies, sectors, and industries. This diversity in experience explains the issues they choose to tackle and the unique approaches they employ.’
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With rich and wide-ranging stories of frontier innovators from around the world, Out-Innovate is the new playbook for innovation–wherever it has the potential to happen.
50 Toughest Questions of Life invites people to have a conversation about themselves with themselves. Deepak Ramola’s quest began after he was inspired by the life lesson of a young girl who said, ‘Life is not about giving easy answers, but answering tough questions.’ Over the years, Ramola has amassed life lessons from inspirational sources across the world: from the women of the Maasai tribe to young girls in Afghanistan and sex workers in Kamathipura; from the lessons of earthquake survivors in Nepal to Syrian refugees in Europe, among many more. The book is a collection of fifty such questions that made him pause, along with a bouquet of answers, anecdotes, stories and notes from his journey of teaching human wisdom for a decade.
From these strikingly fresh, tender yet searing questions, we are bringing you one that made us pause and reflect on our lives and how we could lead it more meaningfully.
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If you could design a menu for your life, what all would it include?
Every time I ask someone this question, two things happen: First, a smile breaks out on their face, and second, they ask me to break it down further and explain.
It’s quite simple, though: If you could curate a metaphoric menu for your life, what all would you include? What would brighten your breakfast, what would you have for lunch, what would dinner be, and, finally, what would dessert comprise of? You guessed right—I am not talking about food here.
I ask this question as an exercise to look for what is most important to you. What truly matters and what can you have more of?
Meaningful conversations, poetry, time with my kind of humans, writing or being in the back seat of a car, listening to a favourite music playlist—all these things soothe my soul. Therefore, the menu of my life would include some soulful personal time at the start of the day, lunch would comprise conversations with people I love, dinner would be peppered with poetry recitals, and dessert would sweeten the deal with a long solitary walk or a quick drive on empty roads with a loved one.
50 Toughest Questions of Life || Deepak Ramola
Swimming in the morning, sunbathing, drinking a cup of tea with my grandfather, reading a nice book, meditating, taking short naps, long walks, cooking for the family, daydreaming, playing a game of cards, writing letters, receiving handwritten letters, chatting with my partner, wine tasting, hanging out with friends, watching a gripping movie on the Internet—these are the responses I get from people when I ask them what is on their life’s menu.
Only when you filter the best in your life, take note of its worthiness, can you truly encourage yourself to let go of what doesn’t serve you anymore, or as Marie Kondo, the Japanese tidying expert, says ‘doesn’t spark joy in you’. The question of deciding your menu is an act of gratitude for what exists, and it helps you realize that certain nights should be full of more than the usual. Some days leave you only when you hum your favourite songs as a lullaby or let an old tune fill up the silence. Or you reflect back to the glory of old memories with close ones in full force. A conventional curation runs the risk of making a new ‘hello’ taste drab in the mouth of adventure, while ‘goodbyes’ will undermine the potential of all that you should hold on to. So think aloud and wild.
You know, if I could sit down with you in a café that has white wooden chairs, green walls and small plants cupped in recycled glass bottles, I would tell you that the universe is ready to deliver. It’s you who hasn’t placed the order as yet. And to do so, you often have to ask for a menu or create your own. Weigh your options, see through your choices. You are worthy of being coddled. So sit back in a sunlit patch of your room. Unbutton your happiness. Create your menu. This time!
Sri M’s writings are not concerned with doctrinal teaching; instead, they explore the core of humanity, looking at the nurturing dimension of spirituality. Get a glimpse into his captivating new book The Homecoming and Other Stories with this excerpt.
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The well-built, curly haired young man of medium height, dressed in blue jeans, red T-shirt and brown ankle boots, carried only one piece of luggage—a small-sized, glossy black Ecolac briefcase.
Krishna, with his twenty years of experience as a licensed porter at the Bengaluru City railway station and given to watching all kinds of people with all kinds of luggage, noticed that not once since he had entered the platform had the young man put down the briefcase. Unusual, because from the way he carried it there was little doubt in Krishna’s mind that the briefcase, though small, might be heavy.
‘Gold ornaments, may be even gold biscuits,’ Krishna said to himself. He had carried what he guessed was gold many times. Bangaru Chetty, the well-known jeweller, always engaged him to carry his luggage. Chetty trusted him.
Trust. A lot of people trusted him but what had he gained? Nothing.
He rubbed his fingers across the brass badge pinned to his red T-shirt which proclaimed that he was a licensed porter, licensed to carry other people’s luggage all his life, while he himself possessed nothing other than life’s burdens: a heavy load which he knew no one else would care to share. So much for trust and honesty.
Krishna wasn’t the type who coveted someone else’s property but under the prevailing circumstances, in sheer desperation, he was willing to deviate from the principled life he had led thus far. What had his high principles given him, as his wife once said, ‘except poverty, misfortune and eternal sorrow?’
The Homecoming and Other Stories||Sri M
‘Just this once,’ he said to himself. ‘Let me give it a try. Must be a smuggler. The loss would be nothing to him.’
The station was crowded. Armed policemen stood outside a special coach of the Chennai Mail, guarding some politician, an ex-minister of Tamil Nadu who, for some strange reason, had decided not to spend the taxpayer’s money flying and go by train.
Krishna steadied his nerves with great effort and walked up to the young man with the briefcase who was standing outside the second-class sleeper coach adjoining the minister’s VIP coach. Hardly ten minutes left for the train to start and he was still outside. Perhaps waiting for someone.
‘Porter, sir?’ said Krishna and gestured towards the briefcase.
The young man said, ‘No,’ and turned his face away.
Under normal circumstances, Krishna would have gone and found another traveller but that day he just stood beside the news-stand nearby absorbed in his own thoughts.
‘Krishna,’ he said to himself ‘You are not made out for that kind of stuff, see? You certainly can’t snatch the briefcase and run. Crime is not your cup of tea. You can’t do it. So, suffer. Be an honest man . . .’
…By now the train had gathered speed and had moved out of the platform. The ticket collector was at the other end and no one else seemed to give any serious attention to his movements. Taking advantage, Krishna jumped out of the train, adjusting his gait to avoid falling…He stood still for a while, briefcase in his hand, taking stock of the situation. It was clear that he couldn’t walk out of there or go home carrying an elegant, new briefcase. He would have to transfer the contents into his old worn-out airbag in which he carried his uniform and lunch-box every morning when he came to the station…He collected the bag from the shelf and walked back to the shed to collect the briefcase, which was locked, just as he had expected it to be. He decided to break it open after going
home, if it could somehow be fitted into the bag.
…He pushed open the door and went in. Apart from the tiny kitchen there were only two rooms. In one of them was an old hand-operating sewing machine his nineteen-yearold daughter used to earn a few rupees doing simple stitching and mending jobs for the neighbours. She had fallen asleep on a floor mat, waiting for him. Beside her was his dinner: Ragi balls, beans curry and tamarind chutney. Meenakshi was smiling in her sleep. Her dream world was perhaps happier than the real world he had brought her into. Tears came rolling down his eyes as he saw her torn skirt, plastic bangles and imitation gold earrings. Perhaps it would all change now. How lovely she would look with real gold ornaments! He was hungry but decided to eat later. First, he had to open the briefcase and he had better do it without waking them up. There was no light in the other room where Ambuja, his wife, seemed to be sleeping soundly, thanks to the sleeping tablets he had managed to get her in the morning. Carrying the briefcase, he tiptoed into the tiny kitchen. The electric light wasn’t working because the bulb had popped. He lit the kerosene lamp, softly pushed the door shut and sat on the floor. Holding the briefcase in his lap he examined the locks, trying to figure out the best way to pry them open with the least noise. That was when he heard the peculiar ticking sound coming from inside the briefcase. What happened next took only a split second. A fire-orange, dazzling flash, followed by an ear-splitting blast! Krishna couldn’t complete the scream that rose in his throat.
The same night, just as the train moved out of the station, the young man emerged from the canteen, walked up to the public telephone booth and dialled his boss’s number. ‘Okay sir, all done. Too much security for the minister, sir. Didn’t want to risk getting caught, so planted the briefcase in the next compartment. Range more than enough, sir.’ ‘Thank you, goodbye,’ said the man on the other side and hung up. Then with a smile on his lips, he poured himself a peg of Old Monk rum and drank it up straight, celebrating in advance the death of Enemy Number One.
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The Homecoming and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Sri M that explore the impact of human behaviour and the nuances of spirituality.
Harpreet Grover and Vibhore Goyal met in college and then spent the next decade of their lives building a company before exiting successfully.
One way to tell their story is this: they had a dream, they followed it and, then, through perseverance, they made it come true.
But that’s not really the truth. Like everything in life-at least everything worth having-it wasn’t that simple. There was blood, sweat and tears, there was loss of capital, loss of friendship and even a loss of faith along the way. This is a tale of grit-of a company built in India by two Indian-middle-class-twenty-somethings-turned-entrepreneurs-written in the hope that you can avoid the mistakes they made and learn from what they did right.
Here’s an intriguing excerpt from Let’s Build a Company that reveals how the duo’s entrepreneurial journey started.
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I started my first business in the fourth standard—with no funding, in my dad’s scooter garage.
Back in 1990, four-storey buildings in our neighbourhood in Pitampura, west Delhi, used to have scooter garages; small spaces that could just about fit in a scooter and a cycle. All my pocket money went into renting Super Commando Dhruv, Nagraj, Bankelal and all the other Hindi comics that were popular then. I had a friend who was couple of years older, and we would rent comics together and then swap them. Once a month, our parents would also let us buy some.
Between the two of us, we had about fifty comics, which, we soon realized, were more than what the shopkeeper had in stock at any given point in time. An idea hit us: why not give out our comics on rent and make some pocket money? The shopkeeper loaned them out for Rs 1 a day, and we could charge half the rate. We had no bills to pay, no family to feed. We just wanted some pocket money. So I asked my dad to take his scooter out of the garage and thus began our comic- book business! We had almost every kid in the neighbourhood coming to us to rent comics. It went on well for about three months. Then my dad got transferred to another government- bank branch in Patiala and our business had to shut down. That was my first taste of what I would later realize is termed ‘entrepreneurship’.
While I was growing up in Patiala, Vibhore was failing seventh-standard maths. His parents decided that he needed to get coaching to ensure he cleared his exams. They also wanted him to learn the value of hard work. So Vibhore started working in a garage, repairing bikes to earn pocket money. As he grew older, his fondness for computers grew and, along with school, he started teaching C++ in a local coaching centre. (By the time he got to college, he knew more coding than final-year computer science graduates. This would really come in handy when he helped me clear our first-year course in Fortran.)
Let’s Build a Company || Harpreet S. Grover, Vibhore Goyal
Cut to 2000, when I was accepted into IIT Bombay, a letter came home stating that all first-year students would have to share a room. I thought it would be a good idea to reach a couple of days in advance and take the best of the two beds. When I arrived, I found this geeky guy already there with his trunk placed below the better bed. Vibhore Goyal had beaten me to it and set the tone of our friendship for years to come.
Both of us had enrolled in the five-year dual degree civil- engineering programme. While Vibhore was disappointed with his rank (he had hoped to crack the top 100), I was delighted just to get in.
…
The five years at IIT Bombay were eventful and we ended up spending a lot of time together. From the second year onwards, Vibhore had a bike, which I would borrow—only to slip on the road and smash the headlight. We would then go together to get it repaired. In the third year, Vibhore got an internship in Pune; I went to meet him on the last day so that we could lug his computer back together—he drove the bike back to the institute while I sat behind holding a big CPU between us on a wet highway. Another thing we always did was go to the station to drop the first person who was going home at the end of semester. Vibhore’s parents would send him an AC first-class ticket, and he would find someone to sell it to. He would then buy a general ticket to go to Jaipur and pocket the rest. I always found this funny, not to mention enterprising.
By the time we graduated, Vibhore had spent time working on a high-tech start-up based out of IIT Bombay and landed a job with Microsoft’s research division. Meanwhile, I had tried to start a brand for fresh fruit juice with my classmates Ritesh and Rahul, and failed. We bought a mixer but trying to figure out the economics of how many carrots provided one glass of juice proved to be too much trouble. I finally landed a job in Inductis, a data analytics company. After the final interviews, the company took us to a five-star for a buffet. There, they asked me if I already knew all the questions they had posed in the interview. Apparently, I had the highest score across interviews. I said no. They said, then you are quite stupid, because we asked the same questions we asked last year. That got my mind buzzing and I spent most of my final year creating a document titled ‘BePrepared’, which was a compilation of interview experiences of final-year students.
While together in IIT, Vibhore and I had discussed starting a company, but our ideas were always up in the air. Also, it was clear in our minds that we wanted to get a job after graduation. After all, that’s why we had come to IIT in the first place.
Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen is one of the world’s best-known voices for the poor and the downtrodden, and an inspiration for the proponents of justice across the globe. He has contributed almost without peer to the study of economics, philosophy and politics, transforming social choice theory, development economics, ethics, political philosophy and Indian political economy, to list but a few. In How to Read Amartya Sen, Lawrence Hamilton provides an excellent, accessible guide to the full range of Sen’s writings, contextualizing his ideas and summarizing the associated debates. In elegant prose, Hamilton reconstructs Sen’s critiques of the major philosophies of his time, assesses his now-famous concern for capabilities as an alternative for thinking about poverty, inequality, gender discrimination, development, democracy and justice, and unearths some overlooked gems.
Today, we are sharing with you some interesting insights from the book on Amartya Sen that would strengthen your understanding of him as not just as an economist, but also as a deeply sensitive man and a visionary par excellence.
1) The man
‘For many years, Sanskrit was Sen’s second language, after Bengali, and he could read classical, Vedic and epic Sanskrit. This fascination with the language and literature of Sanskrit also balanced and complemented his acumen in mathematics. Both of these important skills have been readily apparent ever since in his academic work, often side by side in the same volume.’
‘Sen is also a child of the Bengal famine and Indian Partition. He experienced at first-hand as a nine-year old boy the horrors of the Bengal famine of 1943, as he did a little later the horrors of communal violence of Partition. In a number of places in his academic and non-academic work, he tells the story of how, during the sectarian tensions and violence that accompanied Partition, a Muslim man, a poor day-labourer, was attacked by a gang in his mainly Hindu area. The man was still alive as he stumbled into Sen’s childhood home; the now slightly older boy helped organize to have him sent to hospital. Unfortunately, he did not survive. Not only does Sen use this story to illustrate his oft-repeated and convincing point about the dangers of sectarianism and dogmatic community and identity-based thinking, but also that, despite his wife imploring him not to go into Hindu areas in this period fearing for her husband’s life, this poor man felt impelled to do so as he was the breadwinner for his family and could get work nowhere else.’
2) The economist
‘First, despite his training in the mainstream of strait-laced post-Second World War economics, in exemplary fashion he grasped the opportunities provided to him and schooled himself in the main currents of contemporary philosophy. This gave him a much broader and more capacious view of the assumptions of the ‘dismal science’ of economics, the main shibboleths of which would be his targets for years to come…. in line with two of his greatest forebears and two of the political economists upon whom he draws most, Adam Smith and Karl Marx, he has done all he can to understand the main problems and issues in economics from the perspective of a broader ethical concern: improving the quality of life of all.’
‘Second, especially in his work on famines, but also right across his many contributions in other areas, such as development, freedom, justice and democracy, Sen has always immersed his reader in his deep and broad knowledge of theory, while never tiring of supporting his claims and arguments with relevant empirical facts.’
‘Sen’s theoretical and practical proposals based on his version of capability value the agency of individuals in and of itself – as constitutive of a life worth living – and because they tend to produce better overall effects in development projects.’
How to Read Amartya Sen || Lawrence Hamilton
3) The Visionary
‘While…Sen is first and foremost a man of letters (and numbers), he has also been involved in a number of practical projects that have changed the way the world thinks about and carries out a number of important and pressing matters, particularly as regards development. In fact, it is his work for and criticisms of large international bodies such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank (the Bank), and many others besides, that has broadened his appeal and fame, along with his associated practical contributions to, for example, global attempts to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality.’
‘Sen has provided new ways of conceiving of development, as well as new tools for measuring it and its component parts: famine, poverty, inequality, growth, freedom and so on.’
‘Sen’s view of freedom is much richer than is the norm in a great deal of economic, development, philosophical and political theoretical literature: it encompasses both the requisites for individuals to make their own individual choices and the social, economic and political means for individuals to exert the necessary democratic power within and beyond their own societies.’
The universe has bestowed limitless powers and infinite siddhis on the human consciousness. Along with being effective and successful in the personal and professional spheres, the purpose of human life is also to ensure the complete blossoming of the individual consciousness. In Celebrating Life, Rishi Nityapragya shares the secrets that can help you explore your infinite potential. He offers an in-depth understanding of how to identify and be free from negative emotions and harmful tendencies, and how to learn to invoke life’s beautiful flavours-like enthusiasm, love, compassion and truth-whenever and wherever you want.
Here are the only six steps that you need to follow and inculcate in your life to become a master of your circumstances and lead a more meaningful and fulfilled life.
1) Play of universal consciousness
‘As science translates its findings into practical use, to make life more comfortable and convenient, spirituality is about beautifying the human consciousness and making it blossom.’
‘As there are laws governing the physical universe, there are specific laws according to which the human consciousness functions.’
2) Extraordinary Powers, Siddhis, of Your Individual Consciousness
‘Nature has bestowed limitless powers upon the human consciousness. The more you understand the technicalities, the scientific aspects of your consciousness, the more you realize that you already have all the abilities necessary to create the quality of life that you want.’
‘In the domain of consciousness, like attracts like.’
‘The way people relate to you is largely a reflection of your own mind.’
3) Meticulous Refinement of Your Own Consciousness
‘Through optimum utilization of the instruments given to you by the nature of body-breath-mind-intellect-memory and ego; through your Committed Skilful Efforts you have the opportunity of tremendously accelerating the process of evolution of your own consciousness.’
‘Inherently, you already have all the powers necessary to create the life that you want. You are not designed to be a slave of circumstances; you are designed to be the master of situations.
Celebrating Life || Rishi Nityapragya
4) Being Free from All Bondages, Negativities and Harmful Tendencies
‘The incoming breath energizes the body, provides vital force and supports the soul so that it continues to live in the physical form; the outgoing breath removes impurities from the body and empties your individual consciousness. The secret is, the more empty, the more free the mind is, the more happy it is and more available it is to do anything that you want to do with it.’
5) Optimizing the Golden Opportunity of Being in the Human Body
‘Every individual soul is giving these three precious instruments—of time-energy-mind—to the activities of their own lives. …though time and energy are extremely precious instruments of your life, it is the mind that plays the whole game. It is the mind that gives direction to your time and energy as well.’
‘Neither is Maya designed to give you higher insights, nor is it meant to enhance your energies or offer you any happiness. On the contrary, it is guaranteed to waste your precious time, drain your most valuable energy and is destined to contaminate your pleasant, happy mind.’
6) Designing Your Life
‘Your emotions, your choices, your actions, your decisions, your happiness, your Dharma, the blossoming of your consciousness, all of it is your own responsibility.’
‘The more you become an instrument in the process of someone’s learning, the more you teach, the more you learn.’
There is no dearth of writing on Jawaharlal Nehru. More will always be less when accounting for his contribution to the country, which starts from before the inception of India, the idea of India. A man who fought imperialism, colonialism, and strove for the idea of a nation propped by secularism, diversity and communal camaraderie is not a figure easily summarised in words. But this 14th of November, we are celebrating Nehru’s birthday with a list of works that come close to portraying the brilliance of his persona, a figure larger than life, vital to our history.
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An Autobiography
An Autobiography||Jawaharlal Nehru
by Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, was a great personality who also wrote a number ofinspiring and knowledgeable books. ‘Jawaharlal Nehru: An Autobiography’ is his autobiographical work which he penned down between the years of 1934 and 1935 while he was in prison. In this book, Nehru explores his ideologies and the events in his life that led him to the situation he was positioned in when he wrote this book.
The practice of civil disobedience that Nehru had taken up, is discussed by him terms of his belief in the movement. The author starts off the book with an introduction to his ancestral history, where he mentions that his predecessors had to run away from Kashmir to settle elsewhere.
The book also paints a vivid picture of the pre-independence era in India, where the air of dissension was at an all-time high. The book depicts the political realisation of an upcoming giant of a nation and the battle for its freedom.
The Discovery of India||Jawaharlal Nehru
The Discovery of India
by Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru wrote the book ‘The Discovery of India’, during his imprisonment at Ahmednagar fort for participating in the Quit India Movement (1942 – 1946). The book was written during Nehru’s four years of confinement to solitude in prison and is his way of paying an homage to his beloved country and its rich culture.
The book started from ancient history, Nehru wrote at length of Vedas, Upanishads and textbooks on ancient time and ends during the British raj. The book is a broad view of Indian history, culture and philosophy, the same can also be seen in the television series. The book is considered as one of the finest writing om Indian History. The television series Bharat Ek Khoj which was released in 1988 was based on this book.
Glimpses of World History||Jawaharlal Nehru
Glimpses of World History
by Jawaharlal Nehru
‘Glimpses of the World History’ is an account of the progress of the world through centuries and ages. This book is a collection of letters that Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to his daughter Indira when he was in various Indian prisons for three years. The letters were meant to introduce her to the world and its history. In the first few letters, Nehru expresses his sadness for not being able to be around his daughter and give her the materialistic gifts that other parents could but he promises to give her a gift that he could afford; in the form of knowledge and wisdom through words that come from the very core of his heart. Nehru wrote 196 letters and covered the history of mankind from 6000 BC to the time he was writing the letters.
Letters From a Father to HIs Daughter||Jawaharlal Nehru
Letters from a Father to His Daughter
by Jawaharlal Nehru
When Indira Gandhi was a little girl of ten, she spent the summer in Mussoorie, while her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was in Allahabad. Over the summer, Nehru wrote her a series of letters in which he told her the story of how and when the earth was made, how human and animal life began, and how civilizations and societies
evolved all over the world.
Written in 1928, these letters remain fresh and vibrant, and capture Nehru’s love for people and for nature, whose story was for him ‘more interesting than any other story or novel that you may have read’. This is a priceless collection of letters from one legendary leader to another.
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Get a small glimpse into the life of Pandit Nehru in his own words.
The landscape of business has changed dramatically over the years, more so in the past one year. Here is a curation of some quintessential reads that give important insights into the world of artificial intelligence, the economy of Instagram influencers, and low-risk investments with great returns, among several others.
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The Learning Factory
The Learning Factory||Arun Maira
by Arun Maira
In The Learning Factory, Arun Maira narrates people-centric episodes that bring alive the values of the Tata Group, standards that combine the high-velocity practices as well as the old-fashioned principles that make the Tata Group the giant it is today. Founded in 1868 by Jamshetji Tata, the Tata Group symbolizes the great Indian story of hope, growth and phenomenal success. The group played the role of a nation builder in post- independent India. Its companies were headed by legendary chairpersons, all of whom firmly believed in the importance of continuously learning and growing. Like all great successes, this isn’t one story – it is many accounts that are so powerful that the whole is so much greater than the sum of all its parts.
With insightful stories of conduct that are as practically implementable as they are inspiring, this is a blueprint for the individual as well as the business that seeks success through its community of leaders, workers and thinkers.
Crash||R. Gopalakrishnan
Crash
by R Gopalakrishnan
While many people talk about the path to the top of organizations, very few are honest about how difficult it is to stay at that position. R. Gopalakrishnan analyses the ‘software’ challenges, which leaders confront every day, and shares the insights he has gained developing, managing, investing in and supervising a variety of companies. The author shows that great leaders continue to excel not just because of their skills and intelligence but also by connecting with others using emotional competencies like empathy and self-awareness. Filled with anecdotes, analysis of various situations CEOs may find themselves in and unconventional advice to help them, Crash: Lessons from the Entry and Exit of CEOs is for veteran leaders as well as for those who aspire to start their own ventures.
Get Better at Getting Better||Chandramouli Venkatesan
Get Better at Getting Better
by Chandramouli Venkatesan
What makes people succeed? Why do some people succeed, while others struggle despite working hard?
This book is based on the insight that success is not about how good you are but how powerful a model you have toimprove how good you are. Chandramouli Venkatesan calls it the ‘Get-Better Model’, or GBM. Successful people are those who are able to build a powerful GBM to continuously improve themselves, and this life-changing book shows how you can unlock your potential at work and in life.
Tatalog||Harish Bhat
Tatalog : Eight Modern Stories from a Timeless Institution
by Harish Bhat
From steel to beverages, supercomputers to automobiles, TATA companies have broken new ground and set new standards of excellence over the past two decades. Tatalog presents eight riveting stories about the strategic and operational challenges that TATA companies have faced, and the progressive outlook and determination that have raised the brand to new heights. Among the engaging and inspiring stories told here are those of Tata Indica, the first completely Indian car that succeeded in the face of widespread cynicism; the jewellery brand Tanishq that has transformed one of India’s largest industries; and Tata Finance, which underwent several tribulations yet demonstrated the principles that TATA stands for.
It is 2030. India is among the world’s top three economies. All Indians use advanced technology to either do their job or get their job done. All Indians have access to quality jobs, better healthcare and skill-based education. Technology and human beings coexist in a mutually beneficial ecosystem.
This reality is possible. It is within reach. With Bridgital.
In this ground-breaking book, N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, presents a powerful vision for the future. To the coming disruption of artificial intelligence, he proposes an ingenious solution, where India is perfectly positioned to pave a unique path from the rest of the world. Instead of accepting technology as an inevitable replacement for human labour, India can use it as an aid; instead of taking them away, AI can generate jobs.
Let’s Build a Company||Harpreet Grover, Vibhore Goyal
Let’s Build A Company
by Harpreet Grover and Vibhore Goyal
It started with a phone call from Harpreet’s mother introducing him to an uncle who wanted some help. Or maybe it started when Vibhore and Harpreet met as roommates in Room 143 at IIT Bombay. What remains true is that soon both had quit their jobs and launched CoCubes. From no money in their bank accounts for eight years after graduating to becoming dollar millionaires two years later in 2016, this is a tale of grit-of a company built in India by two Indian-middle-class-twenty-somethings-turned-entrepreneurs-written in the hope that you can avoid the mistakes they made and learn from what they did right.
This is that story-the story that you don’t always hear. But if you want to be an entrepreneur, and you prefer straight talk to sugar-coating, it’s one you should read.
Coffee Can Investing||Saurabh Mukherjea, Rakshit Ranjan, Pranab Uniyal
Coffee Can Investing
by Saurabh Mukherjea, Rakshit Ranjan, Pranab Uniyal
Most people invest in the usual assets: real estate, gold, mutual funds, fixed deposits and stock markets. All they end up making is a measly 8 to 12 per cent per annum. Those who are exceptionally unfortunate get stuck in the middle of a crash and end up losing a lot of money. But what if there was another way? What if you could grow your money four to five times whilst taking half the risk compared to the overall market?
Bestselling author of Gurus of Chaos and The Unusual Billionaires, Saurabh Mukherjea puts his money where his mouth is. In Coffee Can Investing, Saurabh will show you how to go about low-risk investments that generate great returns.
No Rules Rules||Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
by Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer
Trust your team. Be radically honest. And never, ever try to please your boss.
These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail order service into a streaming superpower – with 190 million fervent subscribers and a market capitalisation that rivals the likes of Disney.
Finally Reed Hastings, Netflix Chairman and CEO, is sharing the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment and tech industries. With INSEAD business school professor Erin Meyer, he will explore his leadership philosophy – which begins by rejecting the accepted beliefs under which most companies operate – and how it plays out in practice at Netflix.
No Filter: How Instagram transformed business, celebrity and culture
No Filter||Sarah Frier
by Sarah Frier
In just ten years, Instagram has gone from being a simple photo app to a $100-billion company. The journey has involved ground-breaking innovations, a billion-dollar takeover, and clashes between some of the biggest names in tech. But it’s a story that has never been told – until now.
In No Filter, Bloomberg’s Sarah Frier reveals how Instagram became the hottest app in a generation, reshaping our culture in the process. But this is not just a Silicon Valley story. No Filter explores how Instagram created a new economy of ‘influencers’ and pioneering a business model that sells an aspirational lifestyle to all of us. It delves into Instagram’s effects on popular culture, rewiring our understanding of celebrity and placing mounting pressure on all of us to perform online – to the point of warping our perception of reality. No Filter connects one company’s rise to a global revolution in technology, culture and business. But we’re still learning about what it has cost the rest of us.
The Lean Startup||Eric Ries
The Lean Startup
by Eric Ries
Most new businesses fail. But most of those failures are preventable.
The Lean Startup is the approach to business that’s being adopted around the world. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. The book explores what customers really want. It’s about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it’s too late.
‘Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.’
― Leonard Cohen
Time and again, in many known and unknown ways, poetry has saved the world. Singing in the Dark does the same. We want to share with you some poems that keep us going through the worst of days:
Dawn of Darkness – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
I know, I know,
It threatens the common gestures of human bonding
The handshake,
The hug
The shoulders we give each other to cry on
The neighborliness we take for granted
So much that we often beat our breasts
Crowing about rugged individualism,
Disdaining nature, pissing poison on it even, while
Claiming that property has all the legal rights of personhood
Murmuring gratitude for our shares in the gods of capital.
Oh how now I wish I could write poetry in English,
Or in any and every language you speak
So I can share with you, words that
Wanjikũ, my Gĩkũyũ mother, used to tell me:
Gũtirĩ ũtukũ ũtakĩa:
No night is so Dark that,
It will not end in Dawn,
Or simply put,
Every night ends with dawn.
Gũtirĩ ũtukũ ũtakĩa.
This darkness too will pass away
We shall meet again and again
And talk about Darkness and Dawn
Sing and laugh maybe even hug
Nature and nurture locked in a green embrace
Celebrating every pulsation of a common being
Rediscovered and cherished for real
In the light of the Darkness and the new Dawn.
Singing in the Dark||Nishi Chawla, K. Satchidanandan
Apocalypse – Annie Zaidi
Waves do not come dashing against the noontide
They tiptoe in
and out with the smallest dose of pain
taken from the cabinet you left dusty
on purpose
so nobody guesses how much you hoard
The wretched manage to show up
across the shatterproof glass of time
to class office factory godown
boat ocean horizon end time
with a slouch and a glower of expectation
Your eyes are fleet
testing
weighing
catlike
on nights when the tide rises
and rises and the rain quietly falls,
as promised, it comes
It sits
gleaming on the roof
with creature eyes
offering no sign
no pause for breath
no cause or rules
about arks: no ones or twos
it offers no map
A thing
squealing its lack of defence
mouse like, it comes to nibble
the cheese of your world
It arches
head and back
now signals: here
I am
Take me at this flood
or there I go
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Bumblebees – Amanda Bell
There was no need to fret about the bees—
their fragile nest, unlidded
as I pulled weeds beneath the apple tree,
their squirming larvae naked
to my gaze and to the sun.
They watched me from the border
while I hastily replaced the roof,
before returning to rethread
the fibres of their grassy home.
In the cleared weeds I see
their entrance and their exit,
how their flightpaths sweep
the garden in an arc, stitching up
the canvas of this space, as if
they could remake the world
which lies in shreds around us.
The dome moves, as I watch it,
the stretching of an inchoate form—
when morning comes
it glistens with white dew.
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Singing in the dark is a beautiful anthology of poetry that comes at a time when we need poetry more than ever.
