Incessantly browsing through our grams, checking our Slack notifications and Whatsapps, has become the new social norm. It has taken over the different tables we occupy in our day-to-day. The dining table, the meeting room table and the restaurant table, these tables were once a place exclusively for fun conversations and communal bonding. But now they’re merely another touchpoint where our phone rules our lives.
It’s high time we take back the table.
In Your Happiness Was Hacked, authors Vivek Wadhwa and Alex Salkever explain how tech companies entice us to overdose on tech interaction by taking advantage of vulnerabilities in the human brain function. The book discusses how to define and control the roles that tech is playing and could play in our lives.
Here are 7 tips and tricks from the book to avoid getting hooked on tech:
Your Happiness Was Hacked is a timely book that can act as a handy guide to help us adapt to our new reality of omnipresent technology.
AVAILABLE NOW!
The Bhagavata retold with illustrations – An excerpt
The Bhagavata is the story of Krishna, known as Shyam to those who find beauty, wisdom and love in his dark complexion. It is the third great Hindu epic after the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. However, this narration was composed in fragments over thousands of years.
Devdutt Pattanaik’s book, Shyam seamlessly weaves the story from Krishna’s birth to his death, or rather from his descent to the butter-smeared world of happy women to his ascent from the blood-soaked world of angry men.
While talking of Shyam, Vyasa told Shuka, ‘Some tried to hurt him, he who cannot be hurt. Some tried to protect him, he who needs no protection. Let these tales make you sing lullabies for Shyam who sleeps in the cradle.’
Here is an excerpt of two of the stories from the book that talk about Shyam destroying Putana and Trinavarta, as an infant.
In keeping with tradition, nursing mothers in the village and in the surrounding countryside gathered in Yashoda’s house to offer their milk to her son. Among them was the wet nurse Putana.
Putana had been ordered by Kamsa to fill her breasts with poison and kill every newborn in Vraja. ‘Hopefully, one of them will be the child who escaped, the one destined to kill me.’ Putana let her love for Kamsa eclipse the morality of her action.
After nursing hundreds of infants to death, she arrived at Nanda’s house. ‘Let me feed your little boy,’ she said, a smile on her face and murder in her heart. Shyam leapt into her arms in glee. ‘See, he already likes me!’ Turning to Rohini she said, ‘You carry on with your chores. The child is safe with me.’
With everyone gone, Putana settled Shyam at her breast and let him suckle. She waited patiently for his cherubic limbs to go limp. She waited and waited, but the child showed no signs of slowing down. If anything, he sucked with greater vigour. Feeling uncomfortable, she tried pulling him away, but the dark child clung to her white breast like a baby monkey, suckling furiously. Putana grew weak. She could neither stand nor sit. The child, she realized, was drinking not her milk but her life. She opened her mouth to let out a bloodcurdling scream but the sound caught in her throat. Her vision blurred. And then she breathed no more.
Then Kamsa invoked Trinavarta to sweep into Gokul like the wind, scoop up the child who killed his beloved Putana and dash him to the ground before his mother’s eyes.
Trinavarta transformed into a whirlwind, flew across the Yamuna to Gokul where he found Shyam in the courtyard of Nanda’s house. Yashoda was churning butter while Nanda was busy cleaning the cowsheds. The wind demon swooped down like a hawk and carried the child away. He rose high in the sky, intent on hurling Shyam down from a great height.
But the higher Trinavarta rose, the heavier Shyam became. Though he still looked like an infant, barely three months old, sleeping soundly, unaware of the wind demon’s foul intentions, he weighed as much as a mountain.
When Shyam awoke and found that he was high above the earth, he did not cry. Nor was he afraid. He firmly clung to Trinavarta’s neck as if to steady himself. Trinavarta felt himself choking. Breathless, he could no longer whirl. Reduced to a harmless draught, he slunk back to earth.
It was only when Trinavarta placed Shyam back in his cradle that the child eased his grip. Trinavarta then collapsed and died. That day, the air over Gokul stood still as if in awe of Shyam’s strength.
Arefa Tehsin on her journey with the Globetrotters!
Arefa Tehsin has spent much of her childhood treading the jungles of Aravali with her naturalist father. Having authored several fiction and non-fiction books, she has come out with an exciting fictional work for young readers, The Globetrotters. The book records the journey of Hudhud, a naughty kid who is horrible to everyone including innocent creatures. Until his strange new history teacher decides to set him straight with a curse. Hudhud now has to roam the vast earth with and as the greatest migratory animals. His goal is to find the answer to all wrongs…
Here Arefa Tehsin talks about her process writing this book. She further talks about getting into the psyche of animals and their daily life:
—————————————–
There is one question that I have been asked a few times by the readers, or those who don’t read but just know that I write about animals. ‘Arre, how do you get into the psyche of animals?’ One even went on to ask, ‘You have animal dreams, no? If I saw so many snake pictures in a day, I would have nightmares!’ I nod politely and try to get into the psyche of the person asking the question before I form my answer. The fact is, I love animals. And I don’t mean cats and dogs who hog the limelight as soon as animals are mentioned to humans. I mean the wild variety — lumbering monitor lizards, ever-grinning crocodiles, badass hornets, swashbuckling parakeets, clamorous frogs, silent snakes…you get the drift.
Before I can move on to other animals, eyebrows cock up at the S word. ‘Snakes…you love snakes?’ Time to let out another small giggle while they look at me as if I have lost all my nuts. Yes, I have a particular soft spot for these slithering reptiles with flickering tongues and a wicked image. In fact, I suffer from the whim of catching them on sight, or at least chasing them to have a closer look before my husband Aditya or someone else, who thinks I am sorely tempting fate, can pull me back. I would rather hold snakes than the so-called cuddly squirrels who get into my house and chew my wooden blinds every three weeks! So you see, I do not have to try hard to get into the head of these animals. They are kind of in my head already. For me, animals and jungles, and not the plain old humans in their four-walled homes, hold an unrivalled mystique.
When I grew up, my naturalist father would take me into the forests and inside the cages of leopards and bears and crocodiles and pythons, so that I lose fear of the wild, which I did to a great extent. I began loving the jungles and their denizens more than the cities with their teeming multitudes and heaps of garbage, which unlike the wastes in the forests, never got recycled. Jungles were not just clean and green places of peace and quiet but of high octane action too, happening even in an ant mound, if only one had the patience to pause and look.
And then, I was fed bedtime stories invented by my father every night. I possessed this inherent dastardly genes of a story-spinner. I would in turn feed my unsuspecting school friends and cousins with tales of fantastical creatures living in my garden and my pencil box. I was ever so serious about the worlds I invented that I took the plight of the creatures in them to my heart. I’d tell Saadat, my cousin, about Jack – the alien – who lived in the roots of a banyan tree as a beetle, trying to find a way to go back home. We started gathering money by selling old bottles to help him with his spaceship. I wonder if Saadat, who is a pilot and flies transatlantic flights now, has visions of Jack’s spaceship up there sometimes. Mine was not a case of having an imaginary friend. It was a case of giving all my friends imaginary friends. In being non-existent, they became all the more enchanting.
When I started writing, it had to be about wilderness that was so essential for my well-being. Most of the times when I heard people getting agitated about mistreatment of animals, it was for the domestic, tamed varieties — horses, dogs, cats and cows. They were at least not facing extinction! I wanted to talk about those who were out of sight, out of mind, and out of discourse — the animals and trees and wild spaces that are disappearing like morning mist with the dawn of human ‘development.’ Those were the ones suffering irrevocable harm to their kind. Those were the ones I wanted to talk about. My father had always said that it is not facts or preaching or lessons that will connect one to nature, it is stories. Stories, like music, have the power to move, to change. I armed myself with stories, even if they were the non-fiction kind, and began unleashing them.
About getting into the psyche of a character, I had once, long back, wondered about how this happened when I read Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. How could a man slip into the heart and soul of a woman so utterly? It was like skin-changing! When I started writing, I realised I could be a skin-changer too. But I have no testifier to confirm how good or bad I am, unless you want to go to a black widow, read out my story and take her opinion if her life and feelings have been rightly depicted.
There is always a lot of reading involved when you are going to write about an animal in its true living space, which can be the deep ocean or the freezing tundra — the wild spaces that you have never seen before. One has to read about their behaviour, habits, likes, dislikes, neighbours, homes and the threats they face. Once that is done, it is rather effortless to slip into the mind of a hungry leatherback turtle swimming the deep ocean trying to find a delicious jelly of a fish to eat or a young porcupine reindeer travelling across the Arctic, having a rollicking good time. It is even easier to slip into the imaginary world of an ancient guardian witch who protects the world of legends or being an Agogwe, a little rainforest dwarf who wraps his long beard around him in a cloth like fashion.
Truth be told, I have never thought how I get into the psyche of a character — animal, human or sub-human. It is not like doing sorcery through words or going to a mind-gym to exercise your imagination. It just happens when I sit down to write and plunge into a story. Living in different worlds is not my escape from reality. It is my reality.
An author had said, ‘In the end, only the stories survive.’ I only hope, so will the wild animals.
The Unending Game – An excerpt
In God we trust, the rest we monitor . . .
As a country’s stature and reach grow, so do its intelligence needs. This is especially true for one like India that has ambitions of being a global player even as it remains embattled in its own neighbourhood. The Unending Game by Vikram Sood tackles these questions while providing a national and international perspective on gathering external intelligence, its relevance in securing and advancing national interests, and why intelligence is the first playground in the game of nations.
In the book, he provides a panoramic view of the rarely understood profession of spying to serve a country’s strategic and security interests.
Here is an excerpt on How Spies Work
All in a Night’s Work
The night had to be dark and moonless, so dark that one could not see one’s hand, literally. The time at which the agent would be slipped in had to be synchronized to when the border guards would be away for an hour. This timing was crucial, to enable the agent and his escort to get past no man’s land. The agent would say his prayers and hear whispered good luck messages with last-minute instructions. Then the men would slip away into the darkness. The hushed footsteps would soon fall silent as they headed for the nearest road or railhead to await daybreak. The agent would then be handed over to yet another man who would lead him to his destination.
Infiltrating an agent into a target country meant sleepless nights for the agent’s handler, from the time he was slipped across, to the time he sent a ‘safe arrival’ signal. In those times—even two decades ago—this signal could take days, weeks or even months. This was at a time when one did not have iris recorders and fingerprinted identity cards, so creating a new identity document was easier. In the pre- Internet days when cellphones had not even been thought of, the handler just had to wait patiently to hear from his agent. Sometimes
the mission was to contact a resident source who had been silent for
a while or simply to try and find out what had happened to him.
One always worried about those who went silent from day one. Treachery, a last-minute bout of cold feet, or the wrong use of domestic code—any of these could cause disasters. Communication in domestic code would come via a third country. Secrecy in those days lay in communicating in specially prepared inks with the hope that the opposition would not discover it.
On other occasions, an agent would be equipped with a cumbersome camera of the kind available in the 1970s and be tasked to do a panorama of a strategic road, from point A to B, complete with culverts and bridges. A month later, the man would return, to be debriefed metre by metre of the road by his handler. After which the report would find its way to the headquarters, where it would be smartened up and sent to the consumers. Things moved slowly those days, and wars took their time. Now, handlers do not have to send agents to collect this kind of topographical intelligence. Satellite cameras do it for them; as do Google Maps, accessible on anyone’s cellphone.
A Successful Spy
Intelligence officers do not themselves unlock safes, drive around in fancy cars, wear flashy clothes or have knowledge of judo or karate. They are required to recruit, train and handle men and women who can lie, deceive, steal secrets and manipulate people. Their skill lies in being able to move around inconspicuously while being present. Professional intelligence officers worry about detailed operational plans and finding the right person to handle a task. The ability to elicit information is an asset and is usually linked with an ability to say a lot without revealing anything to pretend an exchange of information is taking place. James Bond is fantasy, George Smiley is reality.
In the strictest sense, a spy who completes a productive career without being discovered and settles down to quiet retirement is a successful spy. As the CIA used to say, ‘The spies that you have read about, by the mere fact that you have read about them, are exceptions. The spies who interest are the ones who do not get caught and who therefore are not to be read about.’ The British described a good espionage operation as a good marriage where nothing out of the ordinary happens, is uneventful, and does not make for a good story.
A good agent (or spy) is one who has access to target information. It is not their rank in an organization or social standing that determines their utility. All other qualities fade away if they do not have access. Someone with discretion, financial standing and unobtrusiveness may be useful as a ‘utility agent’—who organizes safe houses, financial transactions or transport, or who as a talentspotter leads to prospective agents and may also meet them initially to assess them but is eventually required to fade out from the operation. He does not, strictly speaking, engage in any activity that might be deemed anti-national. Behind each operation, especially in a country where the local counter-intelligence is aggressive and vigilant, there is a need to build layers between the actual source and the agent. It works both ways, though. The larger the number of layers, the greater the risk of exposure through indiscretion or a mistake along a long chain.
Many intelligence agencies take the trouble of creating new identities and cover stories even for their officers and agents, teaching them cultural nuances and not just the language of the target country and helping them acquire its nationality in the hope that they would land themselves employment in the areas of interest. This can take years and there is always the risk of the person changing his mind and disappearing, not necessarily out of treachery but because he or she has had a change of mind, or fallen in love, or is finding the new horizons offered by the adopted country lucrative, or even just out of sheer boredom.
Raising and installing a long-term illegal was a practice prevalent in the Cold War years, when access was limited and counter-intelligence could be ruthless. Today, most major intelligence agencies prefer to raise their sources among the nationals of the target country; they are usually persons of credible standing with access to persons who have information of value as these sources have a natural premium.
5 Unforgettable Gifts from Lahore
Lahore is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful cities in the world but you won’t find it in most travelers’ dream destinations list. But if you are brave enough to keep the negative press aside, fight for the hard-to-get visa and save up for an expensive flight, you will be rewarded with a city known for its unwavering hospitality, rich culture and delicious delights.
There is a famous Punjabi saying, ‘Jinney Lahore nahin vekhiya, O jamyai nai’ (The one who hasn’t been to Lahore, hasn’t taken birth) and anyone who has visited Lahore can validate the same. Keeping in mind all the greatness of this city, we have curated a list of 5 things that the world is forever grateful to Lahore for!
1. Fawad Khan
While India may have first laid eyes on the dashing Fawad Khan as Sonam Kapoor’s lover in the bollywood film, Khoobsurat, the actor has been Pakistan’s favorite man for decades now. It’s not only because of that flawless face, but also his charming personality that can unarguably win most hearts.
2. Badshahi Masjid
A breathtakingly beautiful mosque, built by Aurangzeb in 1673, this is Mughal architecture at its finest. The red sandstone shaped into vast arches and sky-piercing minarets, is delicately inlaid with marble and offset by intricate stone carvings.
3. Nihari
Even though Karachi and Faisalabad offer a great variety of foods, it’s Lahore that draws food lovers from all over the world; and no foreigner returns from Lahore without tasting its mouthwatering, rich and spicy food. One dish that holds a special spot in every Lahori’s heart is the majestic nihari! Nihari is a thick, brown, spicy gravy with tender pieces of meat.
4. The Lahore Zoo
The zoo houses a collection of 1380 animals and over 136 species. The children can enjoy the electronic rides while the adults can relax by indulging in a perfect alongside the picturesque waterfall.
5. Goodbye Freddie Mercury by Nadia Akbar
Nadia Akbar’s audacious debut novel, Goodbye Freddie Mercury gives readers a juicy slice of Lahore by effortlessly breaking the perceived stereotypes of life in urban Pakistan. This book takes us inside the mansions of Pakistan’s ruling elite where we are revealed a life rarely thought existed in Pakistan- think drugs, sex and political plots.
Come, Enter the World of Globetrotters
After Hudhud is cursed for playing pranks on his teacher and troubling innocent creatures, he must roam the vast earth with-and as-the greatest migratory animals.
Arefa Tehsin’s The Globetrotters follows the surreal trip of Hudhud, through the Arctic Ocean and the Sahara Desert, discovering the inner lives of marvellous animals and the wonders of the wild.
Let’s meet these animals that Hudhud takes form of in this remarkable journey:
1. The Blue Whale Calf
2. The Caterpillar
3. The Young Caribou
4. The Turtle
5. The Arctic Tern
Sacred Games – An Excerpt
Are you hooked onto Sacred Games, by Vikram Chandra yet? Whether you decide to read the book, and then watch the Netflix series, or watch the series and then read the book, you’re bound to get engrossed.
Seven years in the making, Sacred Games is an epic of exceptional richness and power. Vikram Chandra’s novel draws the reader deep into the life of Inspector Sartaj Singh, and into the criminal underworld of Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India. This is a sprawling, magnificent story of friendship and betrayal, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its dark side.
If you’re yet to start reading the book, start with this excerpt!
A white Pomeranian named Fluffy flew out of a fifth-floor window in Panna, which was a brand-new building with the painter’s scaffolding still around it. Fluffy screamed in her little lap-dog voice all the way down, like a little white kettle losing steam, bounced off the bonnet of a Cielo, and skidded to a halt near the rank of schoolgirls waiting for the St Mary’s Convent bus. There was remarkably little blood, but the sight of Fluffy’s brains did send the conventeers into hysterics, and meanwhile, above, the man who had swung Fluffy around his head by one leg, who had slung Fluffy into the void, one Mr Mahesh Pandey of Mirage Textiles, that man was leaning on his windowsill and laughing. Mrs Kamala Pandey, who in talking to Fluffy always spoke of herself as ‘Mummy’, now staggered and ran to her kitchen and plucked from the magnetic holder a knife nine inches long and two wide. When Sartaj and Katekar broke open the door to apartment 502, Mrs Pandey was standing in front of the bedroom door, looking intensely at a dense circle of two-inch-long wounds in the wood, about chest-high. As Sartaj watched, she sighed, raised her hand and stabbed the door again. She had to struggle with both hands on the handle to get the knife out.
‘Mrs Pandey,’ Sartaj said.
She turned to them, the knife still in a double-handed grip, held high. She had a pale, tear-stained face and tiny bare feet under her white nightie.
‘Mrs Pandey, I am Inspector Sartaj Singh,’ Sartaj said. ‘I’d like you to put down that knife, please.’ He took a step, hands held up and palms forward. ‘Please,’ he said. But Mrs Pandey’s eyes were wide and blank, and except for the quivering of her forearms she was quite still. The hallway they were in was narrow, and Sartaj could feel Katekar behind him, wanting to pass. Sartaj stopped moving. Another step and he would be comfortably within a swing of the knife ‘Police?’ a voice said from behind the bedroom door. ‘Police?’
Mrs Pandey started, as if remembering something, and then she said, ‘Bastard, bastard,’ and slashed at the door again. She was tired now, and the point bounced off the wood and raked across it, and Sartaj bent her wrist back and took the knife quite easily from her. But she smashed at the door with her hands, breaking her bangles, and her last wiry burst of anger was hard to hold and contain. Finally they sat her down on the green sofa in the drawing room.
‘Shoot him,’ she said. ‘Shoot him.’ Then she put her head in her hands. There were green and blue bruises on her shoulder. Katekar was back at the bedroom door, murmuring.
‘What did you fight about?’ Sartaj said.
‘He wants me not to fly any more.’
‘What?’
‘I’m an air hostess. He thinks . . .’
‘Yes?’
She had startling light-brown eyes, and she was angry at Sartaj for asking. ‘He thinks since I’m an air hostess, I keep hostessing the pilots on stopovers,’ she said, and turned her face to the window.
Katekar was walking the husband over now, with a hand on his neck. Mr Pandey hitched up his silky red-and-black striped pyjamas, and smiled confidentially at Sartaj. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thanks for coming.’
‘So you like to hit your wife, Mr Pandey?’ Sartaj barked, leaning forward. Katekar sat the man down, hard, while he still had his mouth open. It was nicely done. Katekar was a senior constable, an old subordinate, a colleague really – they had worked together for almost seven years now, off and on. ‘You like to hit her, and then you throw a poor puppy out of a window? And then you call us to save you?’
‘She said I hit her?’
‘I have eyes. I can see.’
‘Then look at this,’ Mr Pandey said, his jaw twisting. ‘Look, look, look at this.’ And he pulled up his left pyjama jacket sleeve, revealing a shiny silver watch and four evenly spaced scratches, livid and deep, running from the inside of the wrist around to the elbow. ‘More, I’ve got more,’ Mr Pandey said, and bowed low at the waist and lowered his head and twisted to raise his collar away from the skin. Sartaj got up and walked around the coffee table. There was a corrugated red welt on Mr Pandey’s shoulder blade, and Sartaj couldn’t see how far down it went.
‘What’s that from?’ Sartaj said.
‘She broke a Kashmiri walking stick on my back. This thick, it was,’ Mr Pandey said, holding up his thumb and forefinger circled.
Sartaj walked to the window. There was a group of uniformed boys clustering around the small white body below, pushing each other closer to it. The St Mary’s girls were squealing, holding their hands to their mouths, and begging the boys to stop. In the drawing room, Mrs Pandey was gazing brightly at her husband, her chin tucked into her chest. ‘Love,’ Sartaj said softly. ‘Love is a murdering gaandu. Poor Fluffy.’
Business Law for Managers by Anurag K. Agarwal – An excerpt
Even though most business managers have diverse academic qualifications – engineering being the most common, followed by chartered accountancy, economics, medicine, etc. – few come from a law background. However, it is crucial for a manager to understand the nitty-gritty of law. This hands-on guide to understanding business law is for anyone and everyone looking to run a legal-hurdle-free business.
Let’s read an excerpt from Anurag K. Agarwal’s book, Business Law for Managers.
Defaulters List: Exhilarating and Exhausting
Towards the end of August 2017, the Reserve Bank of India had sent a list of more than two dozen defaulters to commercial banks to recover the money that had been lent to them. Recovery was expected to be sought not just through stringent legal methods, but also by using the method of negotiation and mediation even before filing for mutual arbitration through the National Companies Law Tribunal under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). This is both exhilarating and exhausting. Exhilarating, because finally some steps have been taken by the central bank to recover the money lent to thick-skinned borrowers, and exhausting, because it feels like having a déjà vu.
This was rather surprising as commercial banks usually dealt with big business families leniently. Also, as large corporates have a battery of lawyers at their disposal it is not always useful for commercial banks to take the legal route. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code in India is considered as the panacea for all commercial lending problems of big banks to big borrowers.
Was the intervention of the Reserve Bank of India necessary? It is a question that needs to be answered. Commercial banks, as well as other lenders, know exactly how much money has been lent and to whom. This is something very basic for a bank and even in predigital times, accounts were maintained meticulously to get the complete picture in a bird’s eye view. Despite the issues of confidentiality and privacy, big lenders have often consulted each other—usually on the sly— to know the borrowing pattern and paying capacity of big borrowers. In today’s digital world, it is even more natural and easier for banks to share information among themselves. So this step taken by the RBI appears to be superfluous.
How far will this list help in recovering the money? Not much. These borrowers are habitual and thick-skinned, and that is the reason why there is hardly any sense of shame or remorse to make them pay back. The attitude of bankers and banking practices have to be changed. Knee-jerk reactions are not going to work. Recently UCO Bank, which has been suffering losses and facing uncertainty about its future, ordered that some of its employees in the branches that were not performing well would not be paid salaries. Such an order is ridiculous and tells a lot about the negative and sadistic nature of senior banking officers who took this decision. It is extremely difficult to imagine why the lower-level staff in a bank’s branch should be penalized for decisions primarily made by the middle and senior management. Thankfully, this decision was not enforced.
The real question is of fixing accountability and responsibility for the dismal performance of different banks and exploring the real reason as to why banks keep on lending money to borrowers who repeatedly fail to keep their promises.
The legal procedure of recovering money has always been exhausting. Adjournments on different pretexts have typically made a mockery of court proceedings and unscrupulous big-ticket borrowers have the wherewithal to fight the legal battle till the very end. The newly exhibited zeal by the RBI, the government and the banks is truly exhilarating, and hopefully, it will result in a fruition of efforts. Different tribunals and courts are bound by the procedural rigmarole, which becomes stricter and more rigid in case of money.
It is heartening to see that big business names, which were never expected to default and which in public perception would never do anything wrong, are also not being spared. True efforts with good intentions usually succeed. This is not something unique to Indian banks. Bankers elsewhere have on several occasions resorted to irresponsible behaviour, making their organizations vulnerable. Wells Fargo is an interesting case in the United States.
Business Management Books That Will Help You Thrive
Answering some fundamental questions, from signing your first contract to the complex management of VC funding, these brilliant business books are a must read for every working professional.
In this carefully curated list of books by highly accomplished authors, you will learn about the successes and failures of the oldest, most powerful company in the world (East India Company) and the newest multi-million dollar startups (like Zomato).
—————–
Contract Terms Are Common Sense: IIMA Series by Professor Akhileshwar Pathak
It is crucial for managers to understand the terms of the contract that they work with. This exceedingly effective guide helps readers explore and master the many terms and conditions set up for conducting businesses. The book makes the subject readily accessible by employing easy-to-understand and discover-yourself techniques.
Business Law for Managers: IIMA Series Paperback by Anurag K. Agarwal
Even though most business managers have diverse academic qualifications-engineering being the most common, followed by chartered accountancy, economics, medicine, etc.-few come from a law background. However, it is crucial for a manager to understand the nitty-gritty of law. This hands-on guide to understanding business law is for anyone and everyone looking to run a legal-hurdle-free business.
A Business of State by Rupali Mishra
Around 1800, the English East India Company controlled half of the world’s trade and deployed a vast network of political influencers. Yet the story of its 17th-century beginnings has remained largely untold. Rupali Mishra’s account of the Company’s formative years sheds light on one of the most powerful corporations in the history of the world.
Master Growth Hacking: The Best-Kept Secret of New-Age Indian Start-ups by Apurva Chamaria and Gaurav Kakkar
Growth hacking is a combination of coding, data intelligence and marketing. It doesn’t take a lot of investment-just a whole lot of creativity, smart data analysis and agility. It has now emerged as the preferred term for growth used by start-ups and entrepreneurs in India and across the world-the new mantra they swear by, but don’t want you to learn about.
Full of riveting stories, Master Growth Hacking lets you learn from the pioneers of the field in India.
Chanakya and the Art of Getting Rich by Radhakrishnan Pillai
Chanakya’s Arthashastra is an unrivalled political treatise that has been used by scholars, academics and leaders across the world. In Chanakya and the Art of Getting Rich, Radhakrishnan Pillai brings out the inherent lessons from Arthashastra to present a strategic and practical way of wealth creation. This is a holistic study, written for anyone and everyone.
——————-
Chanakya and the Art of Getting Rich by Radhakrishnan Pillai- An Excerpt
Chanakya’s Arthashastra is an unrivalled political treatise that has been used by scholars, academics and leaders across the world. In Chanakya and the Art of Getting Rich, Radhakrishnan Pillai brings out the inherent lessons from Arthashastra to present a strategic and practical way of wealth creation. This is a holistic study, written for anyone and everyone.
Here is an excerpt from the Stages of Wealth:
There are all types of wealthy people: educated, not so educated, large-hearted, miserly, first-generation wealthy, those who inherited their wealth, those who became wealthy at a young age, those who became wealthy after years of struggle, from rags to riches, from rich to very, very rich . . .
The best part about wealth is that there is no one group of wealthy people. They come from all backgrounds, from rich countries and poor countries, they are males and females, they make their money in various fields and industries: food, fashion, books, cinema, science, sports, medicine, real estate, automobiles, computers, technology, art . . . You will find more than one rich and successful person in every field.
There are some patterns common to every rich person’s life. If we understand those patterns, we can identify the principles that are common to the approach of all these wealthy people.
That one underlying rule is: they all loved their work and committed themselves to their work for years before they became rich. They had a long-term approach. Even after they became rich, they continued to work. All wealthy people have enough money to not worry about paying their monthly bills. They might even be able to afford to buy a fleet of limousines with just their leftover pocket money. They can sit by the seashore, sip on a drink and do nothing till the end of their lives. Yet, you will find these people working hard. They enjoy their work and are busy with their teams creating more, better things than what they created in the past. Many can afford large mansions but continue staying in the small apartments they owned even when they were not rich. They have a different mindset, which ordinary people miss to note.
Warren Buffet continued to stay in his hometown of Omaha while he could have moved to a plush penthouse in New York. Steve Jobs continued to wear the black turtleneck T-shirt and jeans till his death when he could have had the best fashion designers at his disposal. Sam Walton continued to drive a simple car though he was among the richest men in the United States of America. Narayana Murthy of Infosys and his wife Sudha Murthy continue to create jobs and distribute wealth the same way they did years ago. The simplicity of their lifestyle has not changed with the fortunes they have earned. The other founders of Infosys sport the same attitude and continue to work in fields they love.
If the owners of Tata group decide to convert their trust’s wealth into personal wealth, they would become the richest people on earth. Yet their commitment to social work and philanthropy continues with the same attitude with which they started over a century ago. They continue to build hospitals, factories, centres of research, along with countless new companies.
The Ford foundation still contributes to unknown areas of education and research. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates give away fortunes in charity and make donations in projects they love. Some rich people donate as individuals, while some donate through their companies and foundations. Yet they give as lavishly as they earn. A study of the lives and the mindset of rich people gives us insights into many such habits, usually not known to others. Once we understand their world, we too can create our world of richness—different, yet similar.
As we read and think about Chanakya, one needs to understand that the world has changed a lot from his days. The world we live in, the twenty-first century, is very different from the world of the fourth century BC. So even the definition of being rich has changed.
During those days the wealth was concentrated with the kings and royal families. Then there could be a few merchants and traders. The occupations were limited and opportunities were few. For someone of the working classes to become rich, he had to fight against established systems of society. The rich and powerful saw this as a threat to their ‘blue blood’ status and would not let others rise. There were many limitations and becoming rich would often end up being just a dream that you would die with—an unfulfilled wish.
Yet all of us living in this generation are lucky. Anyone can become rich. In fact, all of us can become rich. Today wealth is not limited to a particular family or a group of people. You need not be qualified with only a specific set of skills to become rich.
