SBenegaL

Category: Thoughts

  • Sea of Poppies – Amitav Ghosh

    It has be a long time since I have blogged anything here. I just completed reading a book and thought this would be a good starting point for this year’s blog posting.
    I had begun reading Sea of Poppies quite some time ago… donot remember when exactly. However given the pressing demands I put on my time, reading this had taken a back seat. I finally completed it yesterday night!
    While I began reading the first two sections of the book which were named – Land and River, the pace was pretty slow. Starting with different themes, and moving pretty slow, but as Amitav Ghosh builds it up to the end in the “Sea” section, I found the book most engaging. It was also a reflection of the distances between the stories during the initial phase that probably didnt get me that pushy into completing the reading in one sitting, but as I began the Third section, I just couldnt wait to finish and see what next. 
    Another aspect of the book was the use of Hidustani to highlight the conversations between the people. I was really interesting to know the usage of this language and how it relates to various dialects that were found during the time…
    A wonderful read, and definitely this book has made me a fan of Amitav Ghosh and his righting. A very good read…. pick your copy and get to reading…

  • Exploring Uncertainty and Unknown – Conquering My Fear


    [I do not intend to talk about the general phenomenon in this blog; this is only sharing a few experiences which helped me conquer my inherent fear in unknown places. I hope this could encourage people sitting on the fence to move on, and not be paralyzed by the internal fears they cultivate.]

    I love working in an uncertain environment – I have realized, it keeps me awake. Yes, when in an uncertain territory it requires us to be alert – possibly the best state anyone could be. May be you do not agree, but being one who loves to learn and finds motivated with the insights gained by these experiences I would say I enjoy uncertainty.

    It is not once but numerous times – though my treks and escapades from the city that I have found I enjoy this state of alertness arising out of facing uncertainty. My experiences are not just in the forests where I got lost, but even while in an urban jungle; not just in India also in the unknown country of USA. Though not exhaustive, these I believe definitely are worth sharing.

    I prefer public transport to travel during by escapades originating from cities, but on exploratory treks I would prefer either a private vehicle or shared vehicle some last mile exploration. I have already shared quite a few of these trek experiences and wouldn’t talk about them here but would suggest the readers check in on these trek blogs.

    The escapade from an Indian City – Mumbai to Shirdi:
    I feel quite a few of you reading this wouldn’t find it really a escapade, given that there are a lot of buses that travel between these cities. Following is a short narrative which gets me to call this an escapade –

    I am a Bangalorean, who possibly has spent most of my life in here itself – a cozy city that makes you fall I love with it! Yes I have spent my childhood here when the city wasn’t congested with the traffic and was lot greener. I would reserve the discussion on how the city has changed for the future; and only highlight that I had not grown familiar with any other city!!! Yes my bad – but it is ok to accept it and go ahead that think about it.

    It was the first time I had come to Mumbai for my internship at a Start-up. I was staying at the IIT-Powai campus a few minutes from the Vikroli station. I did a quick Google check and decided to plunge on this journey – it wasn’t that I had an internal awakening, but during one of the sales calls that I was attempting and traveling through the city locals that I found a couple of co-passengers conversing about the recent trip to Shirdi – a place or religious significance to we Indians.

    At the spark of a moment, I decided to trip to this place with the only constraint of using the public transport all through. A few queries to the localities and the Google search got me to realize I could expect buses from Dadar in Mumbai.

    I moved on a Friday night to Dadar and caught a late night bus to Shirdi. Before I could wake up I was as at Shirdi in the wee hours of Saturday. I hadn’t booked any guest house or hotels to stay and sneaked into a small hotel backyard and completed my morning chores. I then visited the temple, by 10 am I was out of the temple and didn’t want to return to Mumbai the same day – I turned my head and found some small shared taxis shouting they would go to a place called – Shani Singnapur. I decided this would be excited and went along. A couple of hours of journey and I was at the place, visited the temple there too and by 2 pm I had nothing to do again! I decided to take the shared cab back to Shirdi and then take a call. I reached Shirdi and found a few cabs going towards an industrial town called Nasik. I decided to take this and figure out a place where I could spend the night. I reached Nasik around 6pm – here I was in a completely different town with no clue of where to go. I found a government guest house and try my luck there – there were no rooms!!! I asked an employee to suggest if he knew any guest house and instead of guiding me to one – he asked me to wait, and said he would accompany me!

    I wasn’t quite sure what to expect next – an unknown city, a stranger willing to help; but haven’t I read a few newspaper articles that talked about travelers being looted? Lurking I this fear, I followed him … Around 20 minutes later he took me to a “shady” looking guest house – ensured I had a place/shared room for the night and then said – “come with me I will show you some good shopping spots!”. By this time – I has mentally accepted any result and just believed I would get the night through.

    I had on an earlier trek lost lulu route and gained crucial insights of the triviality of human life! But this experience was something different… What was I to expect next?

    This stranger takes me to a store – a resin vendor store and says. These are Nasik special, take as many as you want before you leave – I need Rs 30 for my drink tonight. It would be a compensation for the help I provided you with. I for some time had all sorts of thoughts running around I my mind and this is how it is to end?

    “Life is like a box of cookies, you never know which one you would get” said a learned person – it sounded so true. This experience got me to also realize the importance of trust – Both in people and in GOD.

    I moved around the town, checking on the places to visit and the departure time of the buses from the station.  I followed this up with dinner, but there I had to spend the night in an unknown guesthouse room with unknown strangers? Well I didn’t know if it was “safe”, I just decided to sleep and worry about what happens later.

    He while day of fatigue got me in no time and I was snoring to glory – willing to accept the reality and not lose sleep over it. And lo I woke up on the alarm at 4 am, completed my daily chores and was ready for another day of exploring the uncertainty of life.

    I caught the 6am bus to Triambakeshar – another place of religious significance – This also happens to be the birth place of river Godavari (I didn’t know this before I reached there!). I took the trek to the peak close to the temple and returned from there to visit the temple. After the sacred Darshan of the Lord Shiva who is the deity of the temple I decided to get back to Nasik and check out the mythological place of Panchavati. It is believed that the incarnation of Lord Vishnu – Ram, along with his consort Seetha and brother Lakshman had stayed at this village.

    After the tour of Panchavati, I decided it was time to get back towards Mumbai and rest the night out before I could get back to work the next day.

    While there were a few buses which could take one to Mumbai, none were available around 2 pm when I left the town of Nasik, so I decided to use take the bus that could take me to the last station of the Mumbai local on the central line!

    Wow that sounded awesome! Right I go, when I reach the station – I looked at the map and decided to visit another place – Titwada which is famous for its temple of Lord Ganesha. I didn’t know if I would have a second chance to do this visit and for what Ever reason and possibility I decided to visit the place – in 45 minutes I was done and ready to get back to Vikroli.

    Having reached the Vikroli station at 5:30 PM and took an auto-rickshaw. As I reclined on the couch – I relived this experience. Definitely it was a lovely experience, balancing on the fence of uncertainty and safety. This gave me the confidence in my ability to explore completely unknown locations

    Following this, I haven’t tried any major escapades per say in India owing to the time bound nature of the work that I do, however I have tried to innovate my travel route to have some adventure with uncertainty yet complete the task taken up in time.

    Possibly there was something the first escapade would have been the only one if I hadn’t tried this on the recent travel to Berkeley.

    Second escapade:
    Berkeley to San
    Jose

    “Silicon Valley” the name is almost synonymous to innovation and a highly thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. San Jose is part of this ecosystem and houses a lot of companies working on cutting edge technology.

    The valley also has a bay – San Francisco Bay, which opens up into on the Northern side. The mouth of the San Francisco bay has the monumental Golden Gate Bridge, which in itself is a symbol of engineering excellence. Being on the west coast of the USA, the bay opens up into Pacific Ocean.

    The Silicon Valley being on the southern side of the San Francisco bay is also called as the South bay area.

    Berkeley is a city known for it open culture, in fact there are possibly representations of all cultures here! The University of California, Berkeley is an institute of international repute and attracts the best of the students from across the world.

    I was in Berkeley for a brief period of 1 week and didn’t want to miss catching up with some of my friends who stayed at San Jose; however commuting to the southern city wouldn’t be easy without being able to drive in your own car! I was in here for a short while and the taxis would be costly mode to travel – lo here comes public transport for the saving!

    I prefer trains to buses when it comes to traveling in unknown journeys – they reduce the uncertainty and also could give you an option of easy retracting in case you aren’t successful; but the complexity increases with the buses and the one ways etc making it chaotic for a newbie like me. Compounding the problem would be me not carrying a cell phone!!!

    A frantic Googling attempt gave me a simple clue of how I could reach San Jose from Berkeley using the BART and Caltrain. I was now venturing out on a trip which I knew wasn’t very risky, but lack of s constant mode of communication could be crucial.

    I took the BART to reach Millbrae and used the attempt to learn a lot about the stations on the way – the cost is extremely reasonable ($4.8 – now don’t get in the exchange rate shock in here – this is a completely different economy here!

    I exchanged to the Caltrain at the Millbrae station, however given that I has just missed a train – I had to wait for nearly an hour here. There were people who were dressed differently at the station – each almost in a very different style of his/her own – carrying the baggage of imagination and the news that creates stereotypes, to be frank wasn’t very comfortable with the variety I saw here.

    45 minutes of waiting got me into the train that had its last destination as San Jose – I was remember, I didn’t have to change any more buses in here.  There was rather not much of an excitement until reached the destination.

    Wow! I land up in this station which looks like a film shot from the early 1990’s and with very few people! I had to make a call and so looked out for some change – I went to the vendor who I guess spoke Spanish. I asked if could get some change and got a reply which was incomprehensible!  She probably was saying – I cannot give you a change unless you purchase something. I decided instead to try my luck with a few denominations and surprisingly, this worked for me.

    I met the fee friends at San Jose and returned to Berkeley. There wasn’t anything very exciting about this, but this experience gave me a lot more confidence in exploring the unchartered territory of life.

    It is not uncommon for us to be trapped in fear. Each one of us is gambling with one fear or the other. Some are frightened of losing their reputation, while others are frightened of taking risk. One could easily look back and realize, each one of us have one fear or the other that we engage with and attempt to outdo.

  • Scuba-Sutras – Guhesh Ramanathan

    “Scuba Sutras” – Guhesh whom I have known for just over an year now is a diving enthusiast and an executive coach + a mentor to many companies has written this book! Well very few times do I get to say I know the author of a book in person isnt it! The last time was with “Plunge” – Rakesh Godhwani.

    In the book Guhesh talks about 10 lessons he has learnt from under the sea and shares his experiences from the real scuba diving to instances from business that we see every day. The 10 Scuba Sutras are:

    1. I will never dive without a check
    2. I will maintain neutral buoyancy
    3. I will enjoy the dive, not just the fish
    4. I will be a good buddy
    5. I will not confuse expertise with certificates
    6. I will respect the currents around me
    7. I will remember that trigger fish can be more dangerous than sharks
    8. I will remember my 50 bar limit
    9. I will pass on my enthusiasm to a non-diver
    10. I will remember there is always another ocean to dive
    This extremely simple read is an engaging one and one could finish it one sitting. Read it on…
    Check the Facebook page here
    Here is my pic with the Author 🙂 

  • The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

    Just as I completed reading this book – “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out – The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman” I went on to reflect on some of the learnings I have had in my life and how I could improve having read it. The book was extremely interesting, in that I didnt feel like leaving it unfinished once I had taken it up. 
    Having worked in the field of education, it was extremely relevant – expecially the sections where Feynman discusses his thought about how science needs to be taught and how his initial foundation was set up by this father at an early age towards becoming a scientist. The thought kind of reflected some of the methods I have been pondering about over the last few months and possibly the reflection of these thoughts as I read through the book was something that might have biased further. 
    Some of the sections of the book were a repetition for me having read the book – “Surely you must be Joking Mr Feynman” – blogged earlier. 
    I loved reading this book and guess you too would enjoy reading this book where one of the greatest scientists of the recent past shares his thought on a variety of things from education to science to philosophy and religion. I would suggest this is a must read for all those people who would like to hear someone really engaging.

  • ReWork – Jasyon & Hansson

    It has been more than a quarter into the current year, and I haven’t really written anything! Some times you get so involved in your work that you don’t take time out for something that you value a lot!
    I recently completed reading this book – “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Hansson. The book is easily one of the best reads I have had about working. It really changes the way you work if you implement it in real.
    The logic of the argument put forth by the authors is something that would get you to move towards looking at an alternate way of approach towards working itself – hence the name – Rework. 
    Very simple ready – you could finish this off in a couple of hours straight. A must read for a all the IT tech savvy people. 
    The book as such cannot be used for people in the manufacturing sectors and SMEs… that’s something one needs to adapt from this book.

  • Chunchi Falls

    It had been over a month and half since I had been to Kudremukh along with a few of my relatives, this time I was looking for something closer, something that could be done within a day.

    I had been to Mekedatu and Sangama while at school, and while searching for some places to visit around Bangalore, in addition to these I found this place – Chunchi Falls.
    Chunchi Falls is lacated around 75 km from Bangalore. This falls is formed by the river Arkavathy which has its origin at Nandi Hills. With the rapid urbanization of Bangalore, the catchment area of the river is seriously affected.
    This river joins the River Kaveri at Sangama and later flow through rapid stone gorge called Mekedatu. We shall discuss this in some other blog on travel and trek. Today’s blog is about our journey to Chunchi Falls and the experience there in. 
    It had been long since I had spent time with my family and so decided to get going on a trip with family. The location choice was mine – Chunchi Falls. I had heard about the falls a few times when I was planning some treks, trips over the last few years but had never made the move to reach the place. 
    From the blogs I had read, I had gotten to know that the falls would be around 75 Km from Bangalore and one had to cross Kanakapura Town and move in the direction of Sangama. 
    We set out on 24th December around 11 AM from our home towards the falls. It was car drive and together with me on the trip were my parent, my spouce Sahana and my cute niece – Pratiksha. We drove pretty steadily through the traffic in bangalore before we hit Kanakapura road. 
    It was probably the first time my parents had driven out in our car on the Kanakapura road. We moved past the Metro, before the traffic began to subside. The rest of te drive was pretty peaceful. You move in front of the Art of Living campus, then beside the campus of APS College of Engineering etc before we reach Harohalli. 
    Another 20 minutes drive from Harohalli we reach Kanakapura. Just as we enter the town of Kanakapura, we cross a bridge across the River Arkavathy. All along the journey this far, we find hills which appear to recemble various creatures – depending on your imagination!

    We reached Kanakapura a few minutes after 12:00 noon. We moves through the town’ main road and then came to the road taking us to Sangama. We move for quite some time on this road till, we find an arch (not in the general sense of the word – but more to indicate an entrance). This is where we need to take a left turn and drive down the narrow road till we reach the parking lot. (The roads are bit narrow and its good to keep an eye for the vehicles coming from the other side).

    The falls is supposedly best between early winter and early summer. One has to keep in mind that the falls is no perennial, and it is the rain-fed river which forms Chunchi falls. We reached the parking lot, just on the banks of River Arkavathy, when we found a localite run towards us with a receipt book – the parking fees for a car is Rs 30/-
    Just as we move towards the river, we first encounter a channel with water. This channel takes water from the small dam upstream to the power-station a short distance ahead. 
    We crossed the channel and began defending towards the river – The river flows along rocky bed of Arkavathy. At various points you would find small deviations from the trek route that take you down to the river. Any point would take you to the big heart shaped pool that the river creates before it decided to take a leap downstream. 
    One can reach to the top of the point where the falls finally makes it leap! The only precaution one would need to take is the smooth surface of the rocks. While the smooth surface is just one of the issues to take note of, the other challenge is that of  broken bottle pieces which the weekend parties of the bangalore crowd leave behind. 
    I still wonder, why we literate people do not understand that they have to be socially more responsible. The various waste that we produced as part of our joy is also our responsibility to dispose them without creating trouble for the others who too visit the place for enjoyment. 
    I some how wasn’t very happy with having visited the top of the falls, I could still see faint strains of another falls close by and being the fall lover I am, I would love to get a view of the other one too. I spotted a view point on the opposite side of the falls. I quickly realized that would give me a view of both these falls.
    We got back onto the return ascent to the channel and then took the jeep track to the view point. Its around a kilometer from the channel, and is relatively undisturbed. 
    The view of the 2nd falls from the view point was something that gave me a good satisfaction. The falls had 2 cascades and had a lot more water flowing when compared to the mail stream flowing.
    We reached the view point, munched the junk food we carried and had some snaps clicked before we decided to return back.  The view point however is not well maintained and if I could say is almost neglected. 
    This place too like many of the other places in Karnataka, has enormous potential but doesn’t get the required attention and dedication towards ensuring that the potential is expiated and also gets little maintenance.
    With these thoughts in the mind we began the return journey, when I woke up to the reality at hand. We had skipped lunch, so we had to get back to a good hotel to have some food that was to get us going back home. 
    We reached Kanakapura, had our lunch at a Udupi hotel that was at the entrance of Kanakapura just after having crossed over the bridge across the River Arakavathy when coming from Bangalore. My parents purchased some vegetables on the way back and we resumed the drive back home.
    The journey was pretty simple till we reached Metro, the rest was a drive through the city traffic and we finally reached home at 7:00 PM. 
    After many days it was a time well spent with family, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I would repeat this and get it to be a routine.

  • Trek to Kuduremukh 2

    It had been quite a long time since I had been on a trek. The last trek I had been in 2011 was some time in March. This was also to be my first trek after marriage. This time I decided to make it a closed group for the trek, including my wife – Sahana, uncle – Manju, sister – Shwetha, and my cousin -Ramya. Shana, Shwetha were to leave from Bangalore, while Manju Uncle and Ramya were to join from Udupi in the morning. 
    Our initial idea was to reach BalGal via Kalasa, however dude to prior booking of seats we had to get back to using the route we chose the last time via – Karkala. We were to travel from Bangalore to Karkala and then take the local service buses to reach Balgal. 
    We had booked a bus to Karkala, starting from the KSRTC Majestic Bus-stand at around 9:15 PM. We reached Kakala inspire of the pathetic ghat roads around 6 AM in the morning. Manju uncle and Ramya had just reached the Bus-stand a few minutes before we reached there. 
    We got down and enquired about the first bus that was scheduled to reach Kalasa via Kudremukh. The first such bus leave from the Karkala bus-stand around 7:30 AM. We still had nearly an hour and half to wait for the bus. 
    This was my second trek to Kudremukh, so I suggested we get to the hotel close by and have some “avalakki” and some other breakfast before we being the journey.  We sat back for the breakfast and enjoyed it before we got back to the bus-stand. 
    The bus that was to take us to Kudremukh was a bit delayed and reached the bus-stand at 7:45 AM. A short while after the bus left the station, we reached “KinnigoLi” where the bus halted for breakfast. The bus stood here for around 10 minutes before it began the journey, the next major stop was at Kudremukh township. Another half an hour’s journey from the township, we reached the point where we had to get down – Balgal. The time was around 10:15 AM.
    Before we had left from bangalore, we had reached out to Arun who runs a home stay (I had taken his contact the last time I had come down here). He had organized a jeep to pick us up from Balgal. The jeep however wasn’t there when we reached there! We checked with the localities and got to know that driver had just gone to the closest major town – Samse to pick up some of the daily grocery that was ordered by some of this relatives. 
    The driver was back in around half an hour, and we left towards our home stay at around 11:00 AM. The road towards the home stay was all wet and slippery, thanks to the rains. Yes, it had rained pretty heavily the last few days (unlike the last time I came here when it was in the hot summer) – this means there would be leeches for company through the journey 🙂 It wouldn’t be new for many of us, but for the first few times it would definitely keep any one paranoid! All this was to just the right build up for the adventurous trek we were to have. 
    The Jeep journey was just the beginning of the adventure – road was completely slippery and it requires great skill to drive on these narrow track.  What made the journey even more challenging was that the sides of the road were dug up for some pipes laying. These pipes were built to store water for the proposed horticulture project. The construction of the storage tank was pretty bad, and the water would leak as if from a sprinkler! All along the track we had coffee estates and provided a very memorable scenery. After this long journey, we reached the home-stay at around 12:00 noon. 
    We were already late, so dumped our luggage and had a quick brunch before we began our trek to the peak. Arun decided to company us to the peak. The last time we had been on the trek, we began the trek at 1 PM and retuned by 6:30 PM, so I definitely believed it would be possible. 
    The climate this far was pretty good, with the sun shining. It looked like the ideal weather for the trek. I was pretty sure we would have a good trek to the peak. The only thought I had at the back of my mind was being able to really get the ladies in the team constantly moving and keeping their stamina ready.
    We began the trek at around 12:15 PM, and steadily moved through the track. The initial track was pretty good, not too slippery. There were very few leeches at these initial parts of the trek. The first break that we took was around 20 minutes into the trek just below a tree – we called it “Bodhi Tree”.
    A 5 minutes break and we continued our trek to the beak, we resumed the trek. The next phase has many streams and – this time the streams were flowing with lot more force. We moved on to the lobo-house. I could feel the steam in the team slowly receding, we just took a short break before we continued the trek.
    From the last trek, I remembered the next phase was going to be pretty challenging. – It required us to climb a steep slope. The team slowly geared up for the climb but it took longer than expected. We reached a camping point which had manifested itself to a leech removing venue for most of the trekkers. We had our lunch at this spot before we resumed the trek. 
    The next phase of the trek was the actual climb of the Kudremukh peak. The Camp-spot is just at the base of the peak and generally involved a pretty steep climb to the peak. When I looked at the watch, I realized we were slower than the last time and we would have a challenge at hand if we wanted to make it back by 6:30 PM like the last time. 
    Ramya and Shwetha were already completely drained of energy, so we were pretty slow in our progress.  We began the last stretch around 3:30 PM and after consistent pushing and coaxing, we reached the plateau at the peak around 4:15 PM. The walk to the peak from the point we reach the top is around 10 minutes – one could find a ruined church on the right. 
    We reached the edge of the peak from where we could see the plains of the west coast. We spotted a few notable landscapes, completed another set of snacks we had carried along. and by 5 PM we decided to resume our return trek. The joy of having reached the peak had in fact completely gotten us to forget the strain we had put to get to the peak.
    Just as we began the decent from the plateau at the peak, we could see the clouds forming pretty quickly. We had to rush through the remaining trek if we intended to reach pretty quickly – Just a few steps into the trek and we had a quick shower which got us completely wet. The initial drizzle just got heavier and we found it just hard to see the route more than 3 meters ahead of us!
    The heavy rains of the slope, got the complete slope flowing with water. We found it hard to even lift our foot and put it to the next one. This was just the beginning of the adventure at hand! The light faded away very quickly. We could also spot lightning ahead. With the state of the team at hand, leeches, water, lightning, and many more we were here for something memorable for a life-time! It was pretty common knowledge that the heavy rains at the peak would generally flood the stream on the return path – that is the last one we would expect!
    The steep decent, combined with the rains was just making the complete journey a hard task at hand. A Slip and a fall was something that had become an common seen on the way back. The umbrella, raincoat and jerkins we wore were no protection form the rain. The rain would subside for 4-5 minutes but it wasn’t enough to hold the ground against the wind. The wet dress only made it chiller than usual. We had 3 torches with us and we were completely at their mercy. 
    Our Guide Arun, was pretty patient and helped keep the pace constant. He was the last person till we got down to the Lobo house, and then took to being the first in the line. The route was pretty clear till we reached Lobo house but then it was hard to find the remaining route in the tall grass and to add to it, it was the possibility of wild animals. 
    We steadily made progress and kept moving towards the home-stay. In the dark, we found  a few rabbits, some bats and some others which we couldn’t identify in the dark. This journey in the dark on the boundary of the National park, is definitely something that was to stay with us for long time in memory.
    Ramya and Shwetha were pretty tiered and only when the reached the homestead did they realize that they had really done it. The strain of the travel, trekking, darkness in the forest and the fear of leech had gotten the better of us all. We reached the home stay at 9:30 PM. 
    The next 30 to 45 minutes were spent to finding the leeches that had climbed all over us. We then freshen up and finally had dinner at around 10:30 PM. 
    We took a sound rest before we had we woke up for the next day’s return journey. We had asked the jeep to come down at around 7:30 AM so that we catch the bus at around 8:45 PM. 
    We reached Bajagoli at round 10:30 AM, had our breakfast. Manju uncle and Ramya returned to Udupi; Shwetha, Sahana and I returned to Beltangadi before catching the next bus to Dharmasthala.
    We reached Dharmasthala and booked our tickets to Bangalore. We reached Bangalore at around 9:00 PM. 
    This was a memorable trek, thanks to the nature’s forces. It always reminds me of one thing – Man only proposes and it is God who disposes. The Nature – a form of God has a lot of lessons to teach the student who is ready to learn. The absolute bliss is felt when you surrender to it, live through the experience.

  • From a Bound Glass to the Free Air


    Deep within the monotony around me;
    All I see is many like me!
    Compromising with the routine and the emptiness of daily life;
    The water looked calm from the outside, but there lived a void inside.

    Every new person walking in to the routine,
    Like a colored drop, was lost,
    Either being one of us,
    Or occasionally, when many colored drops falling in
    Painted us in a new gloss!

    Everything around me was changing, yet there was no fulfillment.
    Trapped! I felt in all this coloring and slow change.
    Bound I felt like the millions around me;
    It was the glass that held the water – that bound me.

    The tranquility broke, as tough the hidden hand; had shaken the glass.
    All the people felt the shake; it was only for a few who were now awake.

    I was one of the few, whom the agitation drew,
    Unhappy with the state around me,
    I moved from wall to wall, bottom to top; In search of that inner peace.

    In my confused search, I found –
    A bubble – A bubble that grew out of the agitation around me.
    On which I decided now to ride.
    From the random motions – I was now moving to the top.

    It had now opened up a new horizon to me,
    As I raise to the surface;
    The inner dissatisfaction, calms down,
    With a larger view around

    I sensed a new beginning,
    With the mental agitation calming down
    I was bound no more by the walls of the glass,
    Or the image that stuck with many of the coloring around.

    Freed from my bound; I moved on…
    Liberated by the bubble, from the mental agitation,
    This was now a new beginning – unbound, undisturbed.
    I moved on…
    Awaiting a new role – a new place.
    I had but found in myself an inner peace,

    – Chi

  • The Polyester Prince – Hamish McDonald

    I had got hold of this book from Mumbai road side when I was doing my internship, but had never set reading it until the beginning of this year. And even after I began reading this, I had a lot of distractions which hadn’t let me complete the book earlier. Again the long weekends and frequent travels I have been doing off late have given me ample time to really spend time with my books, and that is how I got to complete this book.
    The book talks about he era of – Dhirubhai Ambani. One of the icons of Indian business. What I loved the most was not the narration, but the links I could see to the history of India post Independence. Having born in this country with rich traditions approximately 35 years after we had gained independence, I have for a long time missed knowing how this country functioned and operated before my birth. I had another agenda when I began reading this book which is about the life of another entrepreneur.
    This book has got me to realize not just the hardships Dhirubhai had to face, but also got me to realize how it was to live in an era of license raj. This book also gave me a peep into the importance of policitical back up for a business when its in a phase of scaline up.
    Over all an interestin read! You would enjoy it, if you are interested in the business-politico history of a country.

  • Plunnge – Rakesh Godwani

    When I completed reading my last book – Simply fly; I was looking for something light and quick read. I had borrowed this book – Plunnge by a collegue of mine at IIMB – Rakesh Godwani, so began reading this.
    The long weekend was an ideal time to start off a this book and I must admit, its a pretty engaging read! I was quick to acknowlege it to him on his Facebook wall saying I was enjoying the read.
    Given that the book as a set of 15 short real life stories about people who dared to “reinvent” themselves by taking the “plunge”. The short crisp stories with a learning that Rakesh has picked up was very usefull to reitererate the lessons learnt – a good style!
    I also see that Rakesh has made an attempt to creating a theory here, and has used the different stories to evolve the theory. This differentiates it from just a lot of stories of people who took a differnt path or plunge; there are numerous lessons that Rakesh has put across in the book, and I wouldnt break the suspense out here.
    For a first book, I must admit this is a great start – waiting for more Rakesh. When is the next one coming up?
    Go grab this book and read it!