திரு.பழ.கருப்பையா எழுதியுள்ள ”எல்லைகள் இல்லா இராம காதை” என்ற இந்தப் புத்தகத்தைப் படிக்கும் வாய்ப்பு கிடைத்தது. தனக்கு மிகவும் விருப்பமான கம்ப இராமாயணத்தை எளிமையான முறையில், உதாரணங்கள் பலக்கொடுத்து அனைவருக்கும் எட்டும் வகையில் தந்துள்ள ஆசிரியரை நாம் எவ்வளவு பாராட்டினாலும் தகும். நல்லதொரு புத்தகம், அனைவரும் படித்து மகிழலாம்!. புத்தகத்தில் இருந்து சில உதாரணங்கள்: “எவனுடைய ஆட்சியில் அரசு ஒவ்வொரு காரியமும் செய்து முடிக்கும்போது, மக்கள் அதைத் தாங்களே செய்ததாக நினைக்கிறார்களோ … , அவனுடைய ஆட்சியே சிறந்த ஆட்சி என்று சீனத்துத் தாவோயியம் கூறும்!” “இத்தாலிய நாட்டு மாக்கியவேலி உலகப் பெரும் அரசியல் விற்பன்னன். அவன் மன்னன் என்னும் உலகப் புகழ்பெற்ற ஒரு நூலினை எழுதினான். அரசியலில் வெற்றி ஒன்றுதான் குறிக்கோள்; அதை அடைய எந்தப் பித்தலாட்டமும் செய்யலாம்; யாரை வேண்டுமானாலும் பலியிடலாம்; கருவுத்தை எந்த வகையாலும் நிரப்பிக் கொள்ளலாம்; அரசியலுக்குச் சூதும் வாதும் சூழ்ச்சிகளும் தான் முக்கியம்” ”ஏதோ திருவிழாக் கூட்ட நெரிசலில் சந்தித்த ஒருவரோடு பேச முடியாமல் கழிவதுபோல், இராமன் கைகேயி சந்திப்பு கழியக்கூடாதே!ஆனால் அப்படித்தானே நடந்தது” “பழைய ஏற்பாட்டின் (old testament) இறுதிக் காலத்திலும் புதிய ஏற்பாட்டின் தொடக்க காலத்திலும் ஏரோது என்ற மன்னன் இருந்தான். அவனுக்கு ஓர் ஆசைநாயகி இருந்தாள்... ஒரு நாள் அந்த ஆசைநாயகியின் மகள் நடனமாடி மன்னன் ஏரோதை மகிழ்வித்தாள். ஏரோது தன்னிலை மறந்த பெரு மகிழ்ச்சியில் ‘நீ என்ன கேட்டாலும் தருகிறேன், கேள்! என்று பலர் முன்னிலையில் ஆணையிட்டு வாக்குக் கொடுத்தான்” “குடியாட்டிகளிலும் இளவரசுப் பட்டங்கள் உண்டு; மணிமுடி மட்டும் தலையில் வைத்துக் கொள்வதில்லை. குடும்பங்களின் ஆட்சிதான் இப்போதைய குடியாட்சி. குடி என்பது குடும்பங்களையும் குறிக்கும் தானே! … ஆகவே அன்றும் இன்றும் அதிகாரம் என்பது அரசபோகமே!” ”வால்மீகி இராமனையும் சீதையும் முன்கூட்டியே ஒருவரை ஒருவர் கண்டுகொள்ளும்படி செய்யவில்லை… கம்பன் சங்ககாலம் போற்றிய அன்பின் ஐந்திணையைத் தானும் போற்றுபவன். தமிழினத்தின் வாழ்வை ஒழுங்குபடுத்த ஒல்காப் புகழ்த் தொல்காப்பியன் எழுதிய பொருளதிகாரத்தைப் பெரிதும் போற்றுபவன்” “…குடியாட்சி முறைக்குக் கொள்ளி வைக்க வந்தவன் சீசர் என்பதனால் புருட்டசு சீசரை எதிர்க்கிறான்… ஒன்றுக்கொன்று நேர்மாறான வாழ்க்கைப் போக்கினர் குடியாட்சிக்கான போரில் ஒன்றாக இணைகிறார்கள்…. இங்கே சீதையை மீட்கவும் அறத்தை நிலைநிறுத்தவுமான ஒரு பெரும்போரில் சுக்கிரீவனோடு வருகின்றவர்களையோ, தன்னோடு இதில் இணைய விரும்புகின்றவர்களையோ தராதரம் பார்த்துக் கொண்டிருப்பது இயலக்கூடிய செயலுமில்லை; அறிவான செயலுமில்லை” ’குழு அரசியல் (groupism) ஒரு கட்சியை மொத்தமாக வலுவிழக்கச் செய்துவிடும்! எதிர்க்கட்சியின்மீது ஒன்றுபட்டுப் பாயவேண்டிய அம்புகள் பிளவுபடுவதால், ஒருமைப்பட்ட தாக்குதல் நடக்காது” “எல்லாப் புகழும் அல்லாவுக்கே என்று இறைமையைத் துதிப்பது வேறு; எல்லாப் புகழும் தலைவனுக்கே என்று தன் புகழை மட்டுமே பாடியாக வேண்டிய கட்டாயத்தை ஏற்படுத்துவது வேறு!”

After being indecisive for few months now, I decided to buy my first e-book reader last month. I went with Amazon KindleDX – the model prior to the newly released Kindle Wi-Fi (which got released few weeks after I bought KindleDX). I didn’t go with Apple iPad - it doesn’t have e-ink and so not easy on the eye, heavier than KindleDX (iPad is 700 grams and KindleDX is 535 Grams) and is a first generation device compared to KindleDX. I didn’t go with the competition like Nook or the Sony Reader because of my loyalty to Amazon – I am always impressed by their excellent customer service, world class self-service website and above all I believe they will surely survive and continue to grow in the expected churn in this industry. Above all an e-book reader is all about the choice of titles and ease of purchase. And I am not a fan of reading long chapters in any LCD/LED displays.  

I ordered the device from Amazon website with my India Credit Card and had it shipped to my Chennai address. I got the device on July 13th (3rd business day from 8th July when I ordered)) – unbelievable. I was charged in total $530.70 (Device was $379, Shipping $13.49, Import Fees Deposit $138.21) for the device & shipping.

My observations of using the device for last few weeks:

• Out of the box, the device came preconfigured with my Profile (username and password) stored. So nice of Amazon team. I am sure no other OEM does this, even though they know everything about us when we order it on their site. The device came in a minimalist eco-friendly, easy to open packaging 
• Amazon has published clear and easy to understand instructions for customers from outside USA, including India. Every other American e-commerce firm I know of, is focussed only with USA and for them customers from outside USA will be treated as “Aliens” 
• The Text to Speech feature where by it reads out a book – though I was sceptical of it, I found it to be very usable
• The in-built dictionary (Oxford English) is a great feature. Many a times, I am lazy to pick up a dictionary (Even though my firm LIFCO publishes one for last 50 years) and refer for the word I didn’t understand. With Kindle, I just need to move my cursor to any word and the full meaning is shown at the bottom of the screen.
• The device, the feel of it and ease of reading is better than I imagined. I wish the device had touch, the buttons were Car Friendly (especially Text to Speech Pause/Play, Volume), a little bit lighter. I didn’t miss Colour display as the sharpness of the e-ink was as good as printed paper
• The auto-sync feature with the other devices for my account. I got the Kindle App for PC and iPhone installed and I was thrilled by the feature where in the pages I have read to are automatically synchronized between the devices
• The other day I was in a local book store and I liked a book, I could easily browse the same on my iPhone Kindle App (we won’t be carrying our Kindle device everywhere). Then I bought it from iPhone and had it shipped with 1-click to my Kindle device at home. Before I reached home, using Whispernet I found the book already downloaded and ready in the Kindle Device
• NewsPapers and Magazine are priced too high for an Indian customer. Selection of Indian Authors and titles are currently very limited
• Ability to back load (copy) any PDF file from your PC to Kindle using USB. I loaded all my unread issues of IEEE Spectrum and actually read few of them over the weeks
• No native support (Especially in Web browser) for Indian Languages. Indic Unicode displays fine in files saved as PDF (Adobe Acrobat)
• Nil charges for Whispernet Data Transfer for browsing the catalogue, buying and downloading of books in 100 countries including India
• KindleDX doesn’t have a Wi-Fi connection, having it would have made downloading of books and casual browsing faster when I am in a Wi-Fi zone like my office or home (The newly announced model has Wi-Fi feature, but a smaller display)
• The device charges through its MicroUSB Port using any standard USB charger

The title of this book “Veronika Decides to Die” is a sure put-off for many. I picked it up because of the curiosity due to the off-beat title and the book was by the world famous Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho of “The Alchemist” fame. When I started reading this book, my wife looked at me puzzled on what I am doing with a book titled “… to die”. After reading the book in entirety, which was a delight as Paulo Coelho is a master story-teller, you realize the book is all about Life and living it, rather than anything about Death. In a gist, the book is all about following your heart, speaking out your dreams and going for it, mainly living each day to the full.

The story is about Veronika a young, beautiful woman from Ljubljana, Slovenia. As I started reading the book, the first thing that interested was where is this city – Ljubljana (I have to refer Wikipedia on how to pronounce this). The way the author describes about the city, its beautiful city centre and its statue of France Prešeren, you get so impressed with the city which very likely you haven’t heard before.  

After reading the book you will be sure that Hollywood will make it into a movie and they have done that, see the trailer here. I read some reviews on the movie, the plot seems to have been changed to USA, so I am not sure I will like that after reading the book.

I saw this book in a local bookstore the other day and immediately bought it in my KindleDX. With KindleDX I read it in two parts – the first few chapters I had the book read out to me using the Text to Speech while driving to work and back, the second part I read out the text (as a book). Either ways I enjoyed the book “Employees First, Customers Second” by HCL Tech CEO Vineet Nayar. The book talks about the concept of a value zone, the importance of empowering the people in the value zone, how the layers of management in an organization though needed adds little to the end value that goes to a customer, innovation happening from ground level employees, benefits of employee self-service portals and tools. Of all the concepts in the book, the idea of “Value Zone” did capture my imagination.

I always feel that CEOs of Indian Firms are not as forthcoming in sharing the story of their journeys (success or failures)  in form of books as much as their American counterparts. For an Indian business, the story of how a firm in India made it to the top is more relevant than the hundreds of stories of Fortune 100 firms in USA. This book addresses this need quite nicely.

கிரேஸி மோகனின் “கே.பி.டி.சிரிப்புராஜ சோழன்” என்ற இந்த சரித்திர (திரிக்கின்ற) நகைச்சுவைப் புத்தகத்தைப் படித்தேன், சிரித்தேன், சிரித்துக் கொண்டேயிருந்தேன். அருமை! ஒரு விஷயத்தை முழுக்க கதைவிட்டுவிட்டு கீழே அதற்கு ஆதாரம் என்று வேறு மேலும் கதைவிடுகிறார் கிரேஸி.  அதே போல பெயர்களிலே நம்மை சிரிக்க வைக்கிறார், உதாரணம்: கே.பி.டி.சிரிப்புராஜ சோழன்… அதாவது தந்தையின் பெயர் கேணக்கிறுக்கசிம்மன் (முதல் எழுத்து கே) தலைநகரம் பித்துப்பிடிச்சான்பாளையம் முதல் எழுத்து பி), ஆராய்ச்சி மணியின் சத்தம் டிங்டாங் (முதல் எழத்து டி) இப்படி. மற்ற கதாப்பாத்திரங்களின் பெயர்களையும் விட்டுவைக்கவில்லை “ராஜகுரு படுகிழதோப்பனார்”, படைத் தளபதி “அவசரக் குடுக்கை அரையர்” என்பது போலப் பல.

ஒரே காமெடி கதையில் ஒரு போர், காதல், தேர்தல், பழிவாங்குதல், தந்தைப்பாசம் என்று அனைத்துயும் கலந்து அடித்திருக்கிறார் கிரேஸி, நிச்சயம் கிரேஸியானது தான் இது. தற்கால இந்தியாவில் நடக்கும் தேர்தல் குளறுப்பாடுகளை, நல்ல நகைச்சுவையாகவும் அதுவும் ஒரு புராண கதையில் சொல்லி சாடமுடியம் என்றால் அது கிரேஸியால் மட்டும் தான் முடியும். அதையும் இந்தப் புத்தகத்தில் செய்கிறார்.

கிழக்கு பதிப்பகத்தின் ஒரு வெளியிடு இது, படிக்கவும், சிரிக்கவும் – கண்டிப்பாக உங்கள் ரத்த ஆழுத்தம் ஒரு பத்து புள்ளிகளாவது இதை படிந்தநாளில் குறையும்.

Tamil Nadu Government runs “Tamil Nadu Text Book Corporation” under its School Education Department for publishing Text books (பாடப் புத்தகங்கள்) under heavily subsidized prices. The text books are written by experienced teachers and are the official curriculum for school students in the state studying under the State Board Education system. Their Tamil Text Books are also used as curriculum for other board students (like CBSE) as well.

This year I had to buy Tamil Text Book for STD II for my son studying in P.S.B.B.S.S.School and after asking in few book shops got it in a shop[ in T.Nagar. With this background, when I happened to meet our fellow INFITT member Mr.Iniya Nehru, Director in NIC (NIC handles many of the IT Services and Websites for Govt. of India & Govt. of Tamil Nadu) I was mentioning to him that Text Books published by Government can be made available online as a E-Books (say PDF files) for convenience. It will serve as a valuable reference for those living outside Tamil Nadu and studying Tamil. Mr.Nehru replied it is already there, I assumed it will be a shopping cart facility for ordering online or as PDF for electronic purchase. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Text Book Corporation has made all its text books available for free as Adobe Acrobat files (PDF) at its website. Thank you, Mr.Nehru for this information, I hope this post in my blog will help students and teachers who are looking for the books.

Of course, I don’t see in short term the e-books replacing the printed version as they are extremely low priced due to government subsidy. For example, STD II Tamil text book of more than hundred pages costs just Rs.15.

Few months back I read a review of this book “Nine Lives” by William Dalrymple, I picked up a copy in my next visit to Landmark store. Over the next week or so, I finished reading the book, but what an impact this book made on me. I was thinking on it for weeks now, so I got delayed in doing this post.

The book is about “Nine people” and “Nine lives”, the story is about different faiths that prevail in the Indian subcontinent. William Dalrymple, I learned is a scottish born writer who now lives with his family in a farm outside Delhi in India. What was striking to me about the book was the stories narrated in the People’s own voice, rather than the author who tries to stay away for most part and not introducing his judgment, speculation or colour it with his experiences.

The first story on a Jain Nun was very revealing for me, before it I hardly knew anything about Jain Religion other than having visited few of the Jain temples in Rajasthan. The other stories include one about a Buddhist monk who took up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet, a Tantric skull feeder in a remote cremation ground in Kolkata, A Theyyam dancer in Kerala worshipped as a deity for few months returning to his job as a Prison warden, a tribal leader from Rajasthan keeping alive an ancient 4,000-line sacred epic that he knows by heart, a devadasi or temple prostitute called as Yellamma’s children initially resists her own initiation into sex work yet pushes both her daughters into a trade she now regards as a sacred calling, a story of worshippers of of Lal Shahbaz in rural Sindh, Pakistan highlighting the difference between Orthodox Islam vs Sufism.

Overall, a must read book. I was exposed to the various faiths that are being practised in our modern India.

இப்புத்தகத்தின் வலைப்பக்கம் இப்படி தான் தன்னை அறிமுகம் செய்கிறது “உண்மையில் ஒருவருக்கும் பாலியல் தொழில் செய்கிற பெண்களின் வலி புரிவதில்லை. "என்னைக் கல்யாணம் பண்ணிக்கிறியா?" இது வழக்கமாக வாடிக்கையாளர்களில் பாதிப் பேர் கேட்கிற வாசகம். எல்லாமே அந்தப் பத்து நிமிட மயக்கத்துக்கு மட்டுமான பரிவால் வருவது. இது கலைவாணியின் துயரம் நிரம்பிய சுயசரிதை. உயிர்த்துடிப்பு மிகுந்த எளிமையான வரிகளால் இதயத்தை உலுக்கிவிடுகிறார். இந்நூலைப் படிக்கும் யாரும், வயிற்றுப் பிழைப்புக்காக தெருவோரமாக நிற்கும் ஒரு பாலியல் தொழிலாளியை, இனிமேல் மரியாதைக் குறைவாகப் பார்க்க மாட்டார்கள், பார்க்க முடியாது”

இது சென்ற ஆண்டு சென்னை புத்தகக்காட்சியில் நான் வாங்கிய புத்தகம். எப்படி இருக்குமோ என்று தயக்கத்துடன் தான் வாங்கினேன்.  (உண்மை) கதை என்பதால் சன் டிவியின் ‘நிஜம்’ போல மொக்கையாக இருக்கும் என்று சந்தேகத்தோடு படிக்க தொடங்கினேன். புத்தகத்தை படிக்க அரம்பித்து சில மணி நேரங்களிலேயே முடித்தும் விட்டேன். அந்த அளவுக்கு எளிமையான, சீரான நடையில் நல்ல சுவாரஸ்யமான ஒரு தொடக்கத்தோடு எழுதியுள்ளார் ஜோதி நரசிம்மன். இந்த அளவுக்கு ஒரு உண்மை கதையை அதுவும் தன் சொந்த கதையை, வெளிப்படையாக சமுதாயம் என்ன சொல்லுமோ என்று தயங்காமல் எழுதிய கலைவாணி அவர்களுக்கு வாசகர்களின் சார்ப்பில் என் நெஞ்சார்ந்த பாராட்டுக்கள்.  பாலியல் பற்றி புத்தகமாக இருந்தாலும், ஆபாச வர்ணனைகளோ, கதையின் ஓட்டத்திற்கு, நடக்கும் வாழ்வின் நிகழ்வுக்கு தேவையில்லாத எதுவும் இல்லை.

கண்டிப்பாகப் படிக்க வேண்டிய புத்தகம் என்று சொல்ல முடியாது, ஆனாலும் தமிழில் இது ஒரு நல்ல முயற்சி. பாராட்டுக்கள்.

ஸ்டாலின் – “மூத்த பத்திரிகையாளர் பார்வையில்” என்ற இந்தப் புத்தகத்தை எழுத்தாளர் சோலை அவர்கள் எழுதி, விகடன் பிரசுரம் சில மாதங்கள் முன்பு வெளியிட்டது. வடக்கு உஸ்மான் ரோடு ’நியு புக் லாண்டில்’ சொல்லி வைத்து, பிரதிகள் மீண்டும் வந்தவுடன் அழைத்தார்கள், சில வாரங்கள் முன்பு வாங்கினேன்.

நான் எழுத்தாளர் சோலையின் முந்தைய படைப்புகளைப் படித்ததில்லை. ஸ்டாலினைப் பற்றியும் அதிகம் அறிந்திருக்கவில்லை - அதற்காக மற்ற அரசியல்வாதிகளை பற்றி தெரியும் என்று இல்லை, பலரைப் பற்றியும் எனக்கு தெரியாது என்பது தான் உண்மை . என் வாசிப்பு எல்லாம் கணினி, பயணம், நிர்வாகம், நகைச்சுவை மற்றும் பொது தலைப்பு புத்தகங்கள் தான்.  ஸ்டாலினைப் பற்றி  எனக்கு தெரிந்தது எல்லாம் அவர் கலைஞர் திரு.கருணாநிதி அவர்களின் மகன்,  துணை முதல்வர், சென்னையின் முன்னாள் மேயர் மற்றும் “மிசா”வில் சிறைக்கு சென்றவர் என்பது மட்டும் தான். அதனால் எந்த வித பெரிய எதிர்ப்பார்பும் இல்லாமல் இந்தப் புத்தகத்தை இன்று வாசித்து முடித்தேன்.

புத்தகத்தைப் பற்றிய என் கருத்துக்கள் இதோ:

• என் போன்ற இன்றைய இளைஞர்களுக்கு இன்று உள்ள / மறைந்த அரசியல்வாதிகளைப் பற்றி அவர்களின் வளர்ச்சிப் பாதைகள் பற்றி தெரியாது. அவர்களுக்கு ’மிசா’ கொடுமைகளை தெரிந்துக் கொள்ள, அது அடுத்த வந்த பல ஆண்டுகளில் எப்படி தமிழக அரசியலை பாதித்து என்பது பற்றி சிறிது தெரிந்துக் கொள்ள் இந்த புத்தகம் ஒரு முன்னுரை
• 180 பக்கப் புத்தகத்தில் 100 பக்கங்கள் ’மிசா’ சிறை கொடுமைகளைப் பற்றியே ஆசிரியர் எழுதுகிறார், அது முக்கியமான ஒன்று தான் ஆனாலும் மற்றதை சொல்ல அதனால் விடுபட்டுவிட்டதோ என்று தோன்றுகிறது
• ஸ்டாலின் அவர்களின் சிறை அனுபவங்களையே முழுவதும் எழுதிவிட்டதால் அவரின் பள்ளி பருவம், படிப்பு, நண்பர்கள், அவரின் நேரடி பேட்டிகள் இவை இடம் பெறவில்லை
• நடுநிலையாக இல்லாமல் ஒரு கட்சியின் சார்பாகவே பெருவாரியான பகுதிகளை எழுதியுள்ளார் ஆசிரியர், அதனால் பல இடங்கள் நமக்கு திகட்டுகிறது
• சுருக்கமாக சொன்னால், ஆசிரியர் இன்னும் கடினமாக ஆராய்ச்சி செய்து எழுதியிருந்தால் வாசகர்களுக்கு ஒரு நல்ல புத்தகம் கிடைத்து இருக்கும்!

திரு.பத்ரி சேஷாத்ரி அவர்களின் வலைப்பூவில் படித்து விட்டு இந்த ஆண்டு சென்னை புத்தக கண்காட்சியில் வாங்கிய மற்றுமொரு புத்தகம் – “இனி இது சேரி இல்லை”. சென்னையில் சேரியாய் இருந்த ஒரு இடத்தை எப்படி சென்னை விலிங்டன் கார்பரேட் ஃபவுண்டேஷன் என்ற அமைப்பு சிறப்பாக மாற்றியமைத்தது என்பது தான் புத்தகம். நம் ஊரில் போதுவாக எப்போதுமே எதுவும் சரியாக செய்யவில்லை, ஏமாற்று வேலை என்பதைப் பற்றியே படித்து பழகிய நமக்கு இது ஒரு வித்தியாசமான புத்தகம் – எது நல்ல முறையில் தன்னார்வத்தில் வணிக நோக்கமின்றி நடைப்பெற்றது என்பதைப் பற்றி. வணிகரிதியாக அவ்வளவு வரவேற்பில்லாத இந்த மாதிரியான ஒரு தலைப்பை, தைரியமாக ஒருவித சமுக நலன் கருதி பதிப்பித்தற்கு நண்பர் திரு.பத்ரி அவர்களுக்கு தமிழ் வாசகர்கள் சார்பில் என் நன்றி.

சுத்தம், சுகாதாரம் மட்டுமில்லாமல் அரோக்கியம், வாழ்க்கை தரம், அடிப்படைக் கல்வி, சுயத் தொழில், குடிப்போதையில் இருந்து மீட்பு, முதியோர் கல்வி, சேமிப்பு – ஏமாற்று வட்டியிலிருந்து மீட்பு என்று பல வகையில் ஒரு ஒருங்கிணைந்த நடவடிக்கையாக இதை நூலின் ஆசிரியர் திரு.பைரவன் அவர்களும் ஃபவுண்டேஷனின் திரு. நாராயணன் அவர்களும் செய்துள்ளார்கள். மிகவும் பாராட்ட வேண்டிய முயற்சி, தொடர வேண்டிய முயற்சி.  

புத்தகம் ஒரு செய்தி தொகுப்பு என்ற முறையிலேயே பெருவாரியான பகுதியில் செல்கிறது. இதனால் படிக்கும் போதுப் பல இடங்களில் பொதுவான வாசகர்களுக்கு (என்னையும் உட்பட) ஒரு தொய்வு எற்படுவது உண்மை. தன்னார்வ நிறுவனத்தில் பணிபுரிவோர்களுக்கும், சம்பந்தப்பட்ட துறைகளில் உள்ள மாணவர்களுக்கும் இந்த புத்தகம் கண்டிப்பாக படித்து கற்றுக் கொள்ள வேண்டிய ஒன்று என்றால் மிகையல்ல.

”சீனா - விலகும் திரை” என்ற இந்தப் புத்தகம் திருமதி.பல்லவி அய்யர் (இவர் என்.டி.டி.வியில் பணியாற்றி போது நமக்கு எல்லாம் தெரிந்த முகம்) அவர்களின் “Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China” என்ற ஆங்கிலப் புத்தகத்தின் தமிழாக்கம். சாதாரணமாக ஆங்கிலத்தில் எழுதப்பட்ட நூலை ஆங்கிலத்தில் படிப்பது தான் ஆசிரியர் சொல்ல வந்ததை நாம் சரியாகப் புரிந்துக் கொள்ள முடியும் என்பது எனது கருத்து. ஆனால் கிழக்கு பதிப்பத்தின் கடையில் இந்த நூலைப் பார்த்தவுடன் பிடித்துவிட்டது, முக்கியமாக அதில் கேட்டு இருந்த  கேள்வி என்னை சிந்திக்க வைத்தது – “சீனாவைப் பற்றி நமக்கு என்ன தெரியும்? ஒன்றும் தெரியாது என்பது தான் உண்மை”.

பல்லவி அய்யர்  2002ல் இருந்து 2007வரை ஐந்து ஆண்டுகள் பேய்ஜிங்கில் வாழ்ந்த அனுபவத்தில் இந்தப் புத்தகத்தை எழுதியுள்ளார். மேலோட்டமாக சீனாவைப் பற்றிய நூல் அல்ல இது, அவர்களுடன் வாழ்ந்து, சீனா மொழியைக் கற்று அதைப் பேசி, சீனாவில் உள்ள இன்றைய தலைமறையினருக்கு பாடம் எடுத்த அனுப்பவத்தில் எழுதப் பட்ட நூல்.  பல்லவி அய்யரின் சீனா வாழ்க்கை அனுபவங்களோடு, சீனாவின் பல்வேறு மாநிலங்கள்/நகரங்களுக்குச் அவர் சென்ற பயண அனுபவங்களையும் சேர்த்து சேர்த்து  புத்தகம் நகர்வதால் ஆரம்பம் முதல் கடைசிவரைச் சுவை குறையவேயில்லை. ஆசிரியர் ஒரு இந்தியர் என்பதால், ஒரு இந்தியராக எனக்குப் படிக்கும் போது சீனாவைப் பற்றி தோன்றியப் பல கேள்விகளை ஆசிரியரே கேட்டு அதற்குப் பதிலும் சொல்லியிருப்பது இன்னும் நன்றாக உள்ளது.

கடைசியாக புத்தகத்தை முடிக்கும் போது இப்படி முடிக்கிறார் “இந்தியாவிடம் இருந்து சீனாவும், சீனாவிடம் இருந்து இந்தியாவும் கற்றுக்கொள்வதற்கு நிறைய விஷயங்கள் உள்ளன. ஒன்றின் பலம், மற்றொன்றின் பலவீனம்”.

இந்த புத்தகமும் நான்  இந்த ஆண்டு சென்னை புத்தகக் காட்சியில் வாங்கியது. புத்தகம் வாங்கிய இரண்டு வாரங்களிலேயே படித்து முடித்தது எனக்கு ஒரு சாதனை (சும்மா தான்) என்றால் அதற்கு முழுக்காரணம் நூலின் ஆசிரியர் பல்லவி அய்யர் மற்றும் தமிழில் (அருமையாக) மொழிப் பெயர்த்த திரு.ராமன் ராஜாவும் தான்.

[If you are an English speaker, I highly recommend reading this book “Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China”  by Pallavi Aiyar]

இரா.முருகன் அவர்கள் எழுதிய கிழக்கு பதிப்பகத்தின் “மூன்று விரல்” புத்தகத்தைப் படித்ததில் இருந்து நான் அவரின் ரசிகராகவே ஆகிவிட்டேன். கடினமான ஒரு விஷயத்தை மிக இயல்பாக நகைச்சுவையோடு சொல்லும் அவரின் பாணி எனக்கு மிகவும் பிடித்துள்ளது. ஆதலால் இந்த ஆண்டு சென்னை புத்தகக் காட்சிக்கு சென்றவுடன் நான் நேரே சென்றது என் நண்பர் திரு.பத்ரி ஷேசாத்ரி அவர்களின் கிழக்கு பதிப்பத்தின் கடைக்கு தான். பத்ரி கூறிப்பிட்டார் இரா.முருகன் இதுவரை கிழக்குக்கு நான்கு புத்தங்கள் எழுதியுள்ளார் என்று – உடனே என்னிடம் இல்லாத மீதம் இரண்டு புத்தங்களை வாங்கிவிட்டேன். அதில் ஒன்று தான் “லண்டன் டயரி”. வாங்கி ஒரிரு நாட்களிலேயே படித்தும் விட்டேன். இதை படித்தயுடன் எனக்கு தோன்றியது - ஆங்கிலத்தை விட என்னால் தமிழ் புத்தங்களை வேகமாகப் படிக்க முடிகிறது என்று.

லண்டன் டயரியில்  லண்டனின் சரித்திரத்தை ரோமானியர்களின் ஆரம்ப கால ஆட்சியிலிருந்து  நமக்கு தெரிந்த விக்டோரியா மகாராணியின் ஆட்சி வரை சுவாரஸ்யம் குறையாமல் சுருக்கமாக சொல்கிறார் ஆசிரியர். சரித்திரத்தை ஒரேயடியாக சொல்லிக் கொண்டு போகாமல், ஒவ்வொரு பகுப்பிலும் ஒரிரு பக்கங்கள் எழுதிவிட்டு தற்கால லண்டனுக்கு வந்துவிடுகிறார். அதில் ஒரு சுற்றுலாபயணியின் கண்களுக்கு தெரியும் அழகான லண்டனைப் பற்றி நம் கண்முன்னே துல்லியமாக படம்பிடித்து காட்டியுள்ளார் திரு.இரா.முருகன்.

புத்தகத்தின் விமர்சனத்தில் சொல்லியிருப்பது மிகப் பொருத்தம் “உதடு விரிந்த புன்னகை குறையாமல் லண்டனின் சரித்திரத்தை உள்வாங்கவும், உட்கார்ந்த இடத்தில் இருந்தபடியே லண்டனின் குளிரை உணரவும் செய்கிறார் இரா. முருகன்”

Like every year this year too I went to Chennai Book Fair. For last few years it has moved location from Quaid-E-Millath Govt. College for Women campus in Anna Salai to St.George Anglo Indian School campus (opp to Pachayappan college). LIFCO’s stall was in the last but 3rd row. In the older arrangement people had to walk past all the stalls in a serial fashion, but in the arrangement here (indoors) in the new venue people can go in parallel to any of the several rows, this meant not everyone sees all the stalls. Also this year the exhibition got over on 10th January 2010 itself, missing the peak sales window during the Pongal holidays (14-16 January 2010).

In the picture below, see how one of the book stall had arranged books beautifully (my son insisted on taking a photo with the arrangement in back, so it goes)

I have heard about P.G.WodeHouse novel’s in school days, but twice when I picked it up then I couldn’t understand it enough to appreciate it. Now last month when I was travelling to Germany, I picked this book “Right Ho, Jeeves” in Mumbai Airport and finished it immediately. This book was lovely and very humorous, once you start it you can’t keep it down. As one of the commentators have said in the inside cover, the sentences are musical and the characters & scene come live in front of you. I plan to buy more books from “Jeeves and Wooster” collection.

வாங்கி ரொம்ப நாட்கள் ஆயினும் போன வாரம் தான் இரா.முருகன் அவர்கள் எழுதிய கிழக்கு பதிப்பகத்தின் இந்த புத்தகத்தைப் (முன்று விரல்) படித்தேன். அரம்பித்த பிறகு முழுவதும் முடிக்கும் வரைக் கீழே வைக்கவே முடியவில்லை. அவ்வளவு சுவாரஸ்யம், யதார்தம்.

மென்பொருள் தொழில் சார்ந்தவர்களைப் பற்றி சாதாரண நடையில் எழுதியிருப்பது புத்தகத்தின் சிறப்பு. நானும் மென்பொருள் தொழிலில் இருப்பதால் கதாப்பாத்திரங்களின் கஷ்டங்களை உணர்வுகளை நன்றாக உணர முடிகிறது.

ஒவ்வொரு காட்சியும் என் கண் முன்னே நடந்ததுப் போல உணர்த்தேன். நான் நாவல்கள் அவ்வளவாக படிக்க மாட்டேன், இருந்தும் ரொம்ப ரசித்தேன்.

நாய் வளர்ப்போர் சங்கத்தின் மென்பொருளை லண்டனில் கதாநாயகன் நிறுவும் போது நடக்கும் நிகழ்ச்சிகள் நல்ல நகைச்சுவை, ரொம்பவும் ரசிக்கும் படியிருந்தது. கதையின் முடிவு முற்றிலும் எதிர்பாராதது.

தமிழ் தெரிந்த அனைத்து மென்பொருள் வல்லுனர்களும் படித்து மகிழ வேண்டிய ஒரு புத்தகம். 

Free is the new book by Wired Editor “Chris Anderson”. His earlier book “Long Tail” was an acclaimed work that is quoted in almost every conversation with the word “Web” in it over last few years.  This book’s title though had the potential to capture the same level of imagination, unfortunately doesn’t.

First, Chris Anderson should be congratulated for handling such a controversial topic like “Free”. Each of us have our own understanding of the word, how it works, whether it works or not and so on. In trying to answer these questions he has done a good job. He writes his findings on “Free” from history, culture, marketing to economics. He does a great job of explaining how “Free” became popular in modern days, its power and potential. He does a fine job of categorizing various near-zero business models and how they work with examples. He clearly disambiguates English word “Free” into “Gratis” (free of charge) and “Libre” (freedom), often people confuse between the two, especially in the software world. His re-quote of “Information wants to be free” is certainly true and thought-provoking.

Where he falls flat is in his generalizations and in his examples of success stories. For examples he repeatedly points only to Google and in few cases of open source software & Web 2.0. I am unable to shake off the feeling (of-course unfounded) the book could a PR campaign sponsored by the Mountain view chocolate factory (thanks Register UK for the term) Google. For me, Google certainly is not the epitome of “Free”, it makes its money by selling advertisements for hard-cash and that’s not free. Wikipedia and FireFox would have been more befitting candidates, but probably Chris Anderson felt obligated to Google – as he was using their free Google Docs to write this book (as he says himself).  To be fair to the author, he does quote in two places where Microsoft offers “Free” through its BizSpark program and Internet Explorer. I also fail to understand how he says Apple through its iPod wants content to be free so that it gets paid for the device. iTunes through the sales made from iPod and iPhone are the big money earners for Apple and it is not free!

The other area where I disagree with him is on what seems to be his attempt at equating “Piracy” to “Free”. “Piracy” is stealing, plain and simple. Though many of us may be guilty of the crime (knowingly or unknowingly) to various degree, it can’t be praised or supported. If in China music piracy is rampant, then it is the mistake of pricing, distribution and education. It is certainly not that people there will not buy Music. If Hulu.com and CBS.com today are making some money out of their advertisement driven site it is because the money from advertisements comes to the producers who made the shows, not to the pirates and other video sharing sites. If everyone in the world moves to “Pirated” version of watching TV shows from YouTube, then soon there will be no new professional TV shows to watch. Google too is very much aware of this threat, that’s why it is trying hard to woo producers into building legal channels for them on its site and share revenue with them. The real question is whether this money alone will be sufficient for producers to compensate for their investments. Even in the example the author begins his book, MontyPython group deciding to put their clips legally free in YouTube – they too made their money by selling legal versions of their CDs and DVDs. If their entire collection is made “free” in YouTube HD then how will they survive to make new episodes. The author leaves us with many of these questions unanswered.

A disclosure: I listened to the Audio book (unabridged) version that was offered free of charge by Wired from here. The e-book download seems to be time-limited (for a month and that’s over) and geography limited (US only) from here. Though I got the entire book free as an audio book, this limited free distribution of the e-book seems to be more a 20th century free, than the 21st century free that the author preaches throughout the book. He should have known better, he says repeatedly that “Free” is the most powerful marketing tool ever invented and he should have known to handle it with better for his book.

My recommendation: If you are in the Internet/Software business then this book is a must read, but for others you may want to think twice before opening your wallet to buy it. You may want to listen to the free audio book like I did

I read a review of this book in Business Week and purchased the book some months back. Over last two weeks I finished this book - Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good  by Sarah Lacy. The title made the book appear to be an interesting read on how the web 2.0 businesses have fared compared to the ones that came up and died quickly in the dotcom burst.

On reading the book, it turned out to be a coverage of the story of Jay Adelson (Revision3), Kevin Rose (Digg), Max Levchin (Paypal and Slide) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and passing coverage of Marc Andressen (Netscape), Ben & Mena Trott (Six Apart), Chad Hurley & Steve Chen (YouTube) and of Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn). At the end of the book, I felt I have learned little about the business of these companies than I know before reading the book. The book is more about which restaurant in the valley is frequented by these people and their VCs, their likes and dislikes and so on. Though the author has tried to show the individual/human side of these people, it somehow iconizes them more than ever. If you are living in the Bay Area and want to have topics to discuss (and names to throw in between) in the Tech party circuits this book is a must-read, for rest of us I will rate it average..

The Author (Sarah Lacy) is a reporter on startups and venture capital in Silicon Valley and writes a biweekly column for BusinessWeek and co-hosts Tech Ticker on Yahoo! Finance.

பொதுவாக எனக்கு கதைப் புத்தகங்கள் நாவல்கள் படிக்கும் பழக்கமில்லை. அவ்வப்போழுது ஆனந்த விகடன், குமுதம் போன்றப் பத்திரிகைகளில் தொடர்களாக வந்தால் படித்ததுண்டு. மறைந்த எழுத்தாளர் சுஜாதாவை நான் சில முறை அவரின் ஆரம்பக்கால தமிழ் இணையத்தள முயற்சிகளுக்காக சந்தித்திருந்தாலும், அவரின் நூல்களைப் தொடர்களாக தான் படித்துள்ளேன். அப்படி தான் அவரின் 'என் இனிய இயந்திரா' ஆனந்தவிகடன் பத்திரிகையில் தொடர்கதையாக வெளிவந்தபோது அவ்வப்போது படித்ததாக நினைவு. அதன் தொடர்ச்சியான 'மீண்டும் ஜீனோ'வைப் இதுவரைப் படித்ததில்லை.

சமீபத்தில் நண்பர் ஒருவர் புண்ணியத்தால் “மீண்டும் ஜீனோ”வை மின் புத்தகமாகப் படிக்கும் வாய்ப்புக் கிடைத்தது. அமெரிக்காவின் சான் ஃபிரான்சிஸ்கோவில் விமானத்தில் ஏறியச் சிறிது நேரத்தில் படிக்க அரம்பித்து ஹாங்க்-காங்க் சென்றடையும் நீண்டப் பயணம் முடிவதற்குள் நேரம் போவதே தெரியாமால் படித்து முடித்தேன்.  அவ்வளவு சுவாரஸ்யம். விஞ்ஞான சமுக-அறிவியல் அடிப்படையில் நடக்க முடியாத கதை, ஆனாலும் அருமையான கற்பனை, வளமான எளிமையான எழுத்து நடை.

Few weeks back while at my US trip I read this book "Notes from a Big Country" by Bill Bryson. Like his other books, Bryson's humour is unmistakable in this book as well. Like others have said in the Amazon's book comments you will find yourself laughing loud in many places.

  

The book is a collection of a weekly column in Mail on Sundays Night and Day magazine in UK. So this book has been written more for an international audience who will find things different in USA from their country. Having visited USA many times I can say I was baffled too at many of similar scenes observed by Bryson. So in many places of the book I could relate to his experience and enjoy the scene. Commenting on common American living habits, you might be mistaken like some Americans (who have commented in Amazon) that Byrson is making "fun" of Americans at large.  This being my fourth book written by Bryson, I can say that he has nothing against America, this is his style -  It is the same when he writes about UK, Europe or even Shakespeare, so nothing different here. More than the scenes described, what I really liked is Bryson's extraction of Humour from all the weird situations like the once I have mentioned below:

• Picture ID to be shown in US Airports (Bryson calls this as Permissible Visual Cognitive Imaging)
• Junk Food Heaven - "We don't usually clean our fridge - we just box it up every four or five years and send it off to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta with a note to help themselves to anything that looks scientifically promising"
• The countless forms used by American Immigration - "You can spend days repeatedly dialling a phone number that is forever engaged, only to be told when you finally do get through that you must call another number, which the person tells you once in a mumble and you don't quite catch before you are cut off"
• Commercials - "The new Dodge Backfire. Rated number one against the Chrysler Inert for Handling. Rated number one against the Plymouth Repellant for mileage"
• Cupholder Revolution - "But our computers don't come with cupholders"
• Why no one walks - "Not long after we moved here we had the people next door round for dinner and - I swear this is true - they drove"
• The great indoors and the obsession for living always in a climate controlled environment - "Skywalks - enclosed pedestrian flyovers"
• Abundance of choice in American super markets - "Thirty five varieties of Crest Toothpaste"
• Spinning the truth - how the "special offer" advertisements exasperates the truth

If you have visited USA and felt things are different from your country then this book is a must read for you.

Truly one of India's 20th and 21st Century industrial success story is of Tata Steel. The first time I read about them was in the earlier book of R.M.Lala "Creation of Wealth", which was more of an overview of entire Tata Group. In his new book "The Romance of Tata Steel" Lala has focused only on Tata Steel. The author traces a hundred years and more of exciting history of Tata Steel—from men searching for iron ore and coking coal in jungle areas, traversing in bullock carts before the site was found, to the company’s modern status as a world-class company.

Though the writing style makes it appear like a Textbook, you can still enjoy it. You learn that though the initial crew of the plant in Jamshedpur was of a medley of nationalities, it worked well to a great extend  - the Crew of Steel works and superintendent were Germans, the English worked in the Ring Rolling Mills, Clerical Staffs were chiefly Bengalis and Parsis, a certain number of Austrians, Italians and Swiss worked in other departments, and the Chinese worked as carpenters and in pattern shop.  One of the interesting quotes in the book is made by R.D.Tata on 4th June 1925:

"We are like men building a wall against the sea. It would be the height of folly on our part to give away any part of the cement that is required to make the wall secure. That is why we and you have to use this money ... to build this great industry"

For any entrepreneur like me, it is inspiring to read the innovative HR practices that Tata Steel has pioneered over the years. After finishing the book we are left with true admiration for the vision of Jamshedji Tata in setting up Tata Steel and Jamshedpur city.

I have never been into reading poetry, poems or other forms of heavy literature. I have only read Shakespeare's works in few chapters in English textbooks and seeing the plays in few movies. So why did I pick this book, which is a biography of Shakespeare - simply because of "Bill Bryson" name in the title. I have enjoyed so much his previous books "The Thunderbolt Kid" and  "Neither here Nor there", that the minute I saw his name I bought the book. Anyways after buying it, I decided to read it. And in the course of reading I learned a great deal about Elizabethan times and of course about Shakespeare. Of course, Bryson with his signature humour has handled the subject very easy to read and enjoy.

Little is known about Shakespeares life, and in this biography Bryson makes no attempt to expand on the known details. Starting by presenting the paucity of facts, he goes on to sketch the life of the worlds greatest playwright, from Stratford to London and back again. He also discusses the theories suggesting that Shakespeares works were written by someone else, dismissing them as ludicrous. We learn a great deal from the book:

• That Shakespeare names is written with different spellings throughout his life and after. Oxford English Dictionary endorses the spelling Shakspere.
• He created the most number of un-prefixes words including unmask, unhand, unlock, untie, unveil and more
• He created numerous new words in English including excellent, extract, frugal, critical, antipathy, hereditary, assassination, lonely, leapfrog, well-read, indistinguishable and others. Imagine an English language without these words!
• In his works, Shakespeare is known to have used over 29,066 words
• If we take Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as our guide, then Shakespeare produced roughly one-tenth of all the most quotable utterances written or spoken in English. These included Vanish into thin air, budge an inch, bag and baggage, cold comfort, flesh and blood, foul play, tower of strength, foregone conclusion and many others.
• English was rising in his times as it is telling, that William Shakespeare's birth is recorded in Latin but that he dies in English as "William Shakespeare, Gentleman"

The New Imperialists (How Five Restless Kids Grew up to virtually rule your world) by Mark Leibovich is a book I read recently. Though the book that talks about 5 technology leaders and visionaries is little old (it was written in 2001/2002 and a lot happens in technology industry in 5 years) I still purchased the book as I got it for a steal in Landmark sale last year (Rs.149 against the original price of Rs.1025, a saving of nearly $22). 

Leibovich a technology reporter for the Washington Post sets out to explain why he selected this particular 5 people whom he calls "The New Imperialists". The list of 5 are AOL's Steve Case, Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, Cisco's John Chambers, Oracle's Larry Ellison and of course Microsoft's Bill Gates. Leibovich tries to show throughout the book that these men's ruthless drive must stem from childhood and the reason he calls them imperialists are because they are near equivalent of modern-day emperors. Leibovich's narrative style which makes the reading very lively and you can't keep the book down without completing it. If you thought you know a lot about these 5 people, Leibovich tries his best to show a side of them public haven't seen before. At the same time the book is not imtruding their privacy and most of it seem to be written with the individuals (or their PR) permission. 

He talks about Ellison's Larryland near hills of Woodside designed by a Japanese Zen Monk; about how Jeff Bezos wrote the business plan for Amazon on a car trip with his girlfriend to Seattle and about Jeff's thing; How John Chambers battled dyslexia and for a time believed he was stupid; The equation and friendship between Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and how the loss of his best friend Kent Evans 30 years affected Bill Gates; How Steve Case saw with clarity what was happening with the connected world.

Two weeks back on my way back to Chennai in Mumbai Airport I picked up this book - Cold Steel "Lakshmi Mittal and the Multi-Billion-Dollar Battle for a Global Empire" by Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey. The book is about the story of the world’s biggest and most hard-fought industry takeover of recent years. It is the story of Lakshmi Mittal taking over (or merging) with European steel giant Arcelor to form ArcelorMittal.  What I liked about the book was that it is told in a thriller fashion on what happened each day of this six month battle. Each day is being narrated by the authors in a scene by scene fashion including dialogs spoken. Once you start reading the book you can't keep it down.

I always admired Mr.Mittal for his humble beginnings to become the "King of Steel" and for his vision which he followed to grow his company at unprecedented rates. His growth story is something that is made of numerous acquisitions of assets around the world which have all been successfully integrated. My admiration keeps growing as I read more - all his ventures have been outside his home country (India) in all far off places of the world and he still proudly sports an Indian Passport.  This book goes into detail of all the things (Politics and Racism) that happened behind closed doors to prevent him from taking over Arcelor. As the book says it - Mr.Mittal certainly is someone who is "Stoic" - a term meaning someone who just puts up with whatever is thrown at them. It is a very apt term to summarize what Mr.Mittal had to put up with during this battle - right from Racist like comments to protective behaviour of several European governments and finally the unprecedented stone-walling by Arcelor board for every step of Mr.Mittal.

The takeaway for me as a Corporate head from the book was how the entire team at Mittal Steel worked together as a single team to triumph over the fragmented Arcelor team. Consider the fact that Mittal Steel team was not composed of one organization but it nearly a dozen entities from Investment bankers, lawyers, PR Agencies, to Mr.Aditya Mittal and Mr.Lakshmi Mittal himself. The whole battle is pure project management brilliance of how all of them were kept in sync, said the same story, were in the same page all the time. Add to that the fact they used modern communication tools (Email and Blackberries) for effective collaboration increased my interest on reading the book fully.

I highly recommend this book for any one wanting to survive in today's globalized corporate world.

The other day in a dinner conversation the topic was on how India has a nation has grown in spite of everything - Corruption, Inefficient bureaucracy and all the differences. That's when this book came up "In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce". I bought the book immediately and I finished reading it during my travel now.

The book is an excellent work done by Mr.Edward Luce, who is a journalist with Financial Times. During his various assignments he had worked in London, New Delhi and now in Washington. Mr.Luce  is best suited to do this book because of his long stay in India, his wife being an Indian and finally he being a Britisher (lot of things in India are still colonial hangovers). Without these background he couldn't have done such a wonderful job.

Mr.Luce finely balances a westerner viewpoint and Indian insight in a lucid manner - you don't see contradictions anywhere. Many things about India is puzzling to understand even for Indians, and many times you have to go back to long gone history to truly understand. For doing this Mr.Luce start with detail of larger than life figure of 3 modern day Indians - Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and BR Ambedkar. People who know India know that North India is very different from South India and so on., so Mr.Luce seems to have done extensive travel to report both sides.

I was happy to read about the good things he talks about the work of my state (Tamilnadu) government. I learned many things from the book about India that I didn't know before or haven't seen it that way. One observation I really liked is Mr.Luce's case on how several welfare programs in India like anti-poor program, literacy programs, free power, labour laws which are all created with good intentions are not effective because of the very bureaucracy that is created to run it.  Mr.Luce talks with ease of both India's strength and weakness.

If you are an Indian or someone interested about India, this is a must read book. Thank you Mr.Luce.

Last month before boarding my long return flight from Seattle to Chennai, I checked out Borders store for some reading material to keep me occupied. I picked this book  - Think Big and Kick Ass by Donald Trump. I have heard about the US TV Reality Show - Apprentice but I didn't know anything about Trump. So I had no expectations and didn't buy the book for Donald Trump's name. I wanted an interesting lite reading book and found this to fit the bill. I finished a portion of it in the flight, but managed to complete the entire book in my vacation last week in Kodaikanal.

I don't like Copy-Pasting from other sources into my blog, but this time I am making an exception. The below snippet from a comment in Amazon for the book captured exactly what I wanted to write, so even if I had written myself it would appear to be a copy - "...Trump is an egotistical, self-serving man, no doubt. But let's be totally objective, as I was that day: good advice is good advice. And, most writers do not have the courage to dispense such advice in such raw terms as Trump does. This book holds nothing back. Trump lays it all out on the table with blatant opinions, ideas and thoughts about those who've crossed him, helped him, etc. He tells you how you need to be (not just what you need to do - read that again!) to be successful. However - and this is the most important point of my review - there's truth to so much of what he says. It's helpful. You'll look at yourself differently. You'll gain insight, and you'll learn things about yourself that you did not previously know. You might even be vaulted to a new level based on what you read; I don't know - that depends on you, the reader, and your potential application of what Trump discusses. I'm not a huge fan of Trump, the man, but I cannot argue with his success. Forget those who claim he was born into money; that may be true, but he continues to make headlines with regularity..."

I have been enjoying "Archie" comics for over two decades now. I was introduced to them during my high school days by my cousin "Anand" who is now working in USA. Those days (and even now in Indian Rupees) they used to be very expensive and not available in Chennai. So the option was to rent them from book lending libraries and my favourite was Raviraj Lending Library in Usman Road (Opposite to first GRT Thanga Maligai). Those days the membership was like Rs.25 or Rs.50 and even if you take half-a-dozen books for reading you paid only few rupees (which itself was got after a big fight with my mother). Nowadays whenever I take my nephews to "Eloor" lending library in North Boag Road I still take few of them and I still enjoy reading Archie comics once in a while.

And whenever I travel to USA and shopping in Safeway I end up buying the latest issue. At $3 per issue they are expensive but then cheaper than a Starbucks coffee, right?. Last week when I was there I bought Feb '08 issue of Pals 'n' Gals double digest. What pleasantly surprised me was seeing the main theme to be "Raj" an Indian Student whose parents where Dr. Ravi Patel and his wife Mrs.Mona Patel. The character "Raj" is shown as a tech whiz taking a school film for fun.

ஓவியர் மதி அவர்களின் “அடடே” புத்தக வெளியிடு நேற்று மிக பிராமாண்டமாக “Music Academy"யில் நடைப்பெற்றது. இந்தப் புத்தகத்தை வெளியிடுபவரான எனது நண்பர் திரு.பத்ரி சேஷாத்ரி அவர்களின் அழைப்பில் விழாவிற்கு சென்றிருந்தேன். இப்படி ஒரு பெரிய விழாவைத் திட்டமிடுவது, இவ்வளவு எண்ணிக்கையில் இத்தனை சிறந்த முக்கியஸ்தர்களை சம்மதிக்க செய்து அழைப்பது, கடைசியாக அரங்கம் நிறையக் கூட்டத்தை வரவழைப்பது என்பது மிக மிக கடினம். எங்களது புத்தக (லிப்கோ) நிறுவனத்தில் எனது தந்தையின் இது போன்ற உழைப்பை நேரில் பார்த்தால் எனக்கு இந்த சிரமம் நன்றாகத் தெரியும். இவ்வளவு பாடுப்பட்டு  மிக சிறப்பாக செய்ததற்கு எனது நண்பர் திரு.பத்ரி சேஷாத்ரி நிச்சயம் சந்தோஷப் படலாம்.

Though I purchased the book "The HP Way" long time back, I just managed to finish reading it few weeks back. The book is written by HP (Hewlett Packard) co-founder & Silicon Valley legend David Packard. This small book of 200 pages is a must read for anyone in High Tech Industry. David talks about their early days around starting HP, how it got named and their initial challenges. One of the common business management myths the book dispels is that you need a clear laid out Vision and Business Plan to run a successful business.

Though the book talks in detail about early decades in HP, it has little information on modern day HP as we know it mainly because David handed over the reins to John Young as CEO in 1978 itself.

I recently finished reading "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. The book reads like a novel of a story of a Spanish Boy who follows his dreams (or listens to his heart) and finds his love and treasure by venturing into the unknown in the middle east deserts. Nice self-motivating book which is fun to read and as well encouraging. Must read.

I finally finished reading the book "It happened in India", the reason I am saying finally is because that I have been reading this book for nearly 2 months but managed to complete the last 30 pages only today. The book is kind of an auto-biography of Mr.Kishore Biyani on the story of Pantaloons, Biz Bazaar & Central retail stores.Let me say at the beginning, I am a little biased in favour of Indian success stories - apart from being an Indian, the reason is because I feel there is a dearth of good books on Indian business stories.

The first thing that you notice when you pick the book is a close resemblance of the title It happened in India with Made in America (Sam Walton's classic book). When you start reading you will continue to see the unmistakable resemblance in the presentation format as well. The chapters are presented in a fashion of first person voice intertwined with quotes from various stake holders (business partners, employees & friends of the author). While reading the first few chapters this resemblance put me off a little as I thought Kishore Biyani had nothing original to say. Only after I finished nearly half of the book I realized how mistaken I was, the chapters starting to get interesting and the experiences outlined are very much India specific and original. Definitely Kishore Biyani and his team have to be congratulated on their exciting journey in the world of Indian retail and for brining many of the now common innovations. I was happy to read in pages 116-199, Kishore Biyani quoting Chennai's own Saravana Stores as the inspiration behind their Big Bazaar venture. He writes on how his team camped in Chennai visiting Saravan Stores every day for weeks in understanding their merchandise mix and pricing. The book tapers off towards the end where the author starts talking about his personal philosophies & beliefs on business.

Overall, a good book to read at an attractive price of Rs.99 (~USD 2.5)

I just finished reading Men of Steel by Vir Sanghvi. Vir Sanghvi should be appreciated whole-heartedly for two things - first for writing a very needed book that compiles the stories of India's most successful business leaders and second for writing it in a lively, enjoyable format. The book is a result of compilation of Vir Sanghvi's articles that appeared on Hindustan Times Mumbai HT Leadership series and so each of them are not more than 2000 words.

The book covers well known people like Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani, Azim Premji, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Sunil Bharti Mittal & Vijay Mallaya. Apart from that about people I knew very little before - Bikki Oberoi, Uday Kotak, Rajeev Chandrasekha, Subhash Chandra & Nusli Wadia. It was revealing. Every aspiring Entrepreneur in India should read this book once.

One spelling mistake that caught my eyes - Airtel's Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal was spelled wrongly with his middle name as "Bharati". See the screenshots below - the left is from the book (wrongly given in that fashion throughout the chapter) and on the right is from their website.

Last month I attended a SPIN Chennai program on Balanced Scored by Mr.Sudipto Marjit. Offline when I was speaking with Mr.Marjit he noticed the book I was reading (while waiting for the talk to start) - Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business by Mr.Ram Charan. Immediately he recommended that I also read Ram Charan's What the CEO wants you to know?. I did exactly that this week and here is the review.

The first thing that strikes about the book (USD 20, INR 428) is its attractive title and the second is its thin size (about 140 pages). Before I say anything about the book I must say that this is a must read for anyone in any Business and it doesn't matter whether you are working, managing or leading a business. Having said that the book can be a let down if you had focused too much on its lofty title. The book should have been titled "What everyone in business should know" or better "Quick start manual for businesses" . Let me give you a brief review of the book's coverage:

• If you were wondering for a better term for saying "Business is in her blood" or "His gutfeel on business" Ram Charan has coined a beautiful phrase "Business Acumen" and he introduces the term and what it means very well.
• Introduction and simple english explanation to business speak like P/E Ratio, Return on Assets, Sales Turnovers.
• He introduces an simple formulae of R = M x V, where R is return on assets, M is After-Tax Margin and V is Velocity or Inventor turn. I found the way he talked about Velocity as a very useful idea.
• Need to have Right People in Right Job, the importance of Coaching
• Ram Charan introduces one more term "Social Operating Mechanism" which basically is how to motivate people at all levels and have them connected seamlessly as a team all the time

Overall a must read for every business person. Thanks Mr.Marjit for recommending this book.

கி.மு. கி.பி., இது மதன்  அவர்கள் எழுதி குமுதத்தில் வெளியான ஜாலியான சரித்திரத் தொடர்.  எனது நண்பர் பத்ரி ஸேஷாத்ரி அவர்களின் கிழக்கு பதிப்பகம் இதைப் புத்தகமாக வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.  நான் இந்தப் புத்தகத்தைக் காசுப் போட்டு வாங்கவில்லை, போன வருடம் கேஸவன் கம்புயூட்டர் நிறுவன விழாவில் ஓசியாகக் கிடைத்தது . அதனால் தான் என்னவோ இதைப் படிக்க இவ்வளவு நாட்கள் ஆயிற்று.    

சரித்திரத்தைக்கூடச் சுவையாகக் கொடுத்துள்ளார் மதன். அதற்கு அவரை நாம் பாராட்ட வேண்டும்.   ஆனால் தலைப்பை கி.மு. கி.பி. என்று வைத்துவிட்டு கிமுவில் நடந்ததை மட்டுமே எழுதியுள்ளார் மதன்.  அடுத்த பாகம் வருமோ என்னவோ யார் கண்டார்?

நியாண்டர்தால் மற்றும் ஹோமோஸேபியன் என்று மனிதன் தோன்றியக் கதையில் ஆரம்பித்து, பாபிலோனியா, எகிப்து, கிரேக்க நாகரிகங்களை விலாவாரியாகச் சொல்லி இந்தியாவின் மௌரியர்களின் வீழ்ச்சுயில் புத்தகத்தை முடித்துள்ளார் மதன்.

I just finished listening to this Audio book. The book is by former CEO of IBM Louis Gerstner - the outsider who was responsible for IBM's spectacular turnaround in 1990's.

The first time when I read the paper edition of this book was soon after its release in 2002. Those were early years in Vishwak, when I wanted to be more of hands-on in technology and I was reluctant to take up management responsibilities that were being thrown my way everyday as CEO of a company. This book along with Jack Welch's (Jack: Straight from the Gut) definitely stirred up my interest in management, growing and winning. When I graduated as an engineer just like every other fresh engineer I thought all managers are like Dilbert's Pointy Haired boss. This book and several others I read during the time, certainly demystified and clarified to me that management is also a science that can be learned by reading & practice.

If you are a manager of a division or a CEO this book is a must read and I am sure it will inspire and motivate its readers, just like it did for me.

During my christmas vacation now, I just finished reading the book "Five Point Someone" by Chetan Bhagat. Few months back I read the author's (Bhagat) second book "One night@the call centre" and was interested to read his first book "Five Point Someone".

The book is a story on life in IIT campus and what not to do at IIT. Though the story is somewhat usual, the author has a fantastic way of narrating it in first person. Certainly a good read to pass time.

Last week just before my Sri Lanka short visit, I finished this audio book. It was "Tough Choices" by Carly Fiorina who spent nearly twenty years at AT & T and Lucent Technologies before working as CEO for HP from 2000 to 2005. The book is a must read (or listen) for people starting their career in a large organization and especially Women Executive's will find themselves relating well to Carly's experiences. The initial chapters are definitely inspirational for fighting against the odds in modern businesses.

If you have read Who says Elephants can't Dance Audio book by Louis Gerstner Jr., the former IBM CEO on how he transformed IBM, you will expect similar material here on what happened in HP. In which case, you will be disappointed. Though there are elaborate coverages on her interview process for the CEO post and her firing from HP board, there is little coverage on her job as CEO. I was surprised to hear her bold statements about few executives who she comes across in her career, some of them quoted by her with actual names I am sure are still around in the industry. She raises strong criticisms about Michael Capellas (Ex-CEO of Compaq) and David Woodley Packard (son of HP co-founder David Packard) in the book.

The title Tough Choices indicates the tough one's Carly had to make in her personal/career life as an individual. I liked her repeatedly used quote in the book about "my soul is still with me".

On being selected as Fortune magazine Top Woman CEO she had the following to say: “After striving my entire career to be judged by my results and my decisions, the coverage of my gender, my appearance and perceptions of my personality would outweigh anything else”

I just finished reading Richard Branson's book "Screw It, Let's Do It", for the ignorant Richard Branson is the Founder and Chairman of Virgin group of companies. The first thing that strikes when you pick the book is the title, especially the first part that is unconventional and bold. Just to see how people are feeling about the first part, I tried saying to few people that I read Branson's book  "Let's Do It" and I didn't say the first part; immediately all of them corrected me saying isn't it "Screw It, Let's Do It". So I guess Branson has proved even by the name that he is a master of branding and publicity.

We all know Branson to be a flamboyant publicity freak. The book tries to portray a related side of him that his daring, scientific and caring. His earlier book "Losing my Virginity" was his biography so this book is about the lessons he learned from life and business. The book starts with how his mother braved the odds against Women in workforce in 1950s Britain, then moves on to his business moves from a magazine "Student" he started as a drop-out, then on the launching and selling Virgin Music, Virgin Airlines and BA's tactics to kill it and finally on his new space travel venture Virgin Galactic. In between he talks about his daring balloon trips, going to prison for customs violation, buying an island in Virgin island, his affair with his principal's daughter and finally ends the book by his call to save the environment.

I will not classify the book as a  business or a management title, but certainly I will encourage it for Self-Help light reading.

Landmark bookstores in Chennai is running a super sale of selective books with discounts up to 60% till October 2nd 2007. I was there shopping yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to see few good books worth buying offered in the sale. (Disclaimer: I don't work for Landmark or getting paid to post this)

Here are the books I bought (with the original price in brackets):

1. The Seven-Day Weeknd by Ricardo Semler at Rs.199 (987)
2. Bad boy Ballmer by Fredric Alan Maxwell at Rs.299 (1159)
3. Men of Steel by Vir Sanghvi at Rs.199 (295)
4. The HP Way by David Packard at Rs.199 (643)
5. Dilbert: Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies by Scott Adams at Rs.99 (509)
6. Dilbert: Thriving on vague objectives by Scott Adams at Rs.199 (471)
7. Dilbert: Random acts of management by Scott Adams at Rs.249 (471)
8. Dilbert: Dilbert and the way of the weasel Audio book by Scott Adams at Rs.225 (944)
9. Free Prize Inside /Purple Cow Audio book by Seth Godin at Rs.250 (1589)
10. Tough Choices Audio book by Carly Fiorina at Rs.350 (1503)
11. Who says Elephants can't Dance Audio book by Louis Gerstner Jr. at Rs.399 (1288)

In the next few months as I finish reading (or listening) to them, I will post my reviews here. Stay tuned!

Update 2/Oct/2007: Not being satisfied with the above, I went again today and bought the following titles.

1. Blue Streak by Barbara S.Peterson at Rs.225 (1073)
2. The Dragon and The Elephant by David Smith at Rs.250
3. Buddha by Deepak Chopra at Rs.395
4. The Romance of Tata Steel at Rs.495
5. Profitable Growth by Ram Charan at Rs.249 (946)
6. The new imperialists by Mark Leibovich at Rs.149 (1075)
7. Managing a time of great change by Peter F.Drucker at Rs.299 (1073)
8. Blog! by David Kline at Rs.299 (1073)
9. The story of My Experiments with Truth by M.K.Gandhi - Audio book read by Shekhar Kapur and Nandita Das at Rs.200 (250)

Yesterday I finished reading the book "The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson who is a popular writer of travel books which are very hilarious. In this latest title, Bryson writes about his childhood days in IOWA, USA. Don't be fooled or put off, this is certainly not his biography - obviously who will pay money to read about a writer. Like other books of Bryson, he doesn't attempt to make the events and stories told factual and accurate. Instead he takes a jovial approach and makes fun of him and the 1950's America in his classic style. The sections on US obsession in the 50s over Nuclear Bombs are very hilarious. 

In page 208, Bryson writes "Two deep drafts of a freshly run-off mimeograph worksheet and I would be the education system’s willing slave for up to seven hours". I didn't know what was mimeograph so I searched in wikipedia for it. To my surprise the wikipedia article on mimeograph quotes the same line from the Bryson's book . By the way, Mimeograph is nothing but what we call Stencil in India.

Footnote: One thing I don't seem to get is why the titles from US or UK most of the time have a different cover design in India (where I buy the books) than the one you see at stores in US or in Amazon. Are these publishers customizing the colours and designs to cultural / national preferences?. Even this title has a different cover design shown in Amazon (see right) than in the book I own (see left)

I have been reading this book on and off for last few weeks, finally finishing the last 100 pages yesterday night.

The book was "The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson (Editor Wired Magazine). The book talks in detail how the Long Tail of endless choices is reshaping the world economics by creating unlimited demand.  It talks about how the Digital World like Amazon, eBay, Rhapsody, iTunes and others are changing the fundamentals on Music and online industry - they have Zero cost of holding inventory which allows them to carry unlimited choices. So customers now have a choice to get music hitherto they could not have found in a mainstream store. It adds how consumers are now becoming Tastemakers and Buyers snatching the power of selection from Magazine Editors and Walmart Buyers.

The book closes with talking about 3 types of hits:

1) Type 1: Authentic Top Down hits: These are like your World Cup and Olympics

2) Type 2: Synthetic Top Down hits: These are lame products that are marketed and hence created to be hits

3) Type 3: Bottom-Up Hits: These rise on word of mouth and community support

Out of this, Type 1 will continue to do well. Type 3 will do even better, but it is Type 2 that will suffer.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the book and will recommend it for anyone connected with Online Industry and with Retail/Consumers. I just wish Chris Anderson using 50% less of 230 pages he currently used to talk the same concept repeatedly at many places in the book.

In a recent visit to Landmark, I purchased an audio book titled "Built to Last". At the time of purchase I didn't realize it was the Audio version of the famous book by James C. Collins & Jerry I. Porras. Anyway after listening to 6 hours plus of the audio I think it is one of the best purchases I ever made. The Audio book turned out to be a more convenient format than the paper book, because I could listen to it in portions every day while I drove my car. A best use of the traffic jams that are now becoming common in Chennai.

This book is a classic and reviewed many times on the Internet over the last decade, so I will keep mine very brief. The book is a result of six years of research on what makes great companies great. It does this by identifying 18 "visionary" companies and compares them systematically with "successful-but-second-rank" companies over nearly 5 decades or more of data. I wonder with the power of Internet and access to more data, what the authors could have done more (I am yet to read their sequel Good to Great). The book shatters the core myth that visionary companies must start with a great product and be lead by charismatic leaders. The book talks on these main concepts:

• Preserve the core, stimulate the progress
• Other than your core purpose to exist, everything else can change - have to change
• Follow Darwin Survival Theory, try multiple things and quickly kill the non-prospective one's
• Have BHA (Big Harry Audacious) Goals one after the other to keep the motivation and juices in people flowing

This is a must read textbook for anyone running a company or managing a sizeable team in an organization.

 My title summarizes the experience of reading this book. I picked this book a few weeks back, I started reading it immediately during my travels and I finished it yesterday night. What a book, the style and language is so well written and direct, that you feel Mr.Sam Walton (Founder Wal-Mart) is actually speaking to you. 

If the numbers that Wal-Mart have achieved ($53 Billion Annual Sales) when Mr.Sam Walton wrote the book was impressive and unbelievable; it is even more staggering now ($310 Billion Annual Sales, 1.6 Million Associates).

There are some ideas of Mr.Walton that needs a little fine tuning for the 21st Century, but the basic ideas he outlines are still very much relevant. His experience on how he built Wal-mart is a fascinating read. This is an excellent book that must be read by every entrepreneur - especially those who are thinking of starting a business. It should be (if it isn't already) made a textbook for all business education streams. My sincere thanks to Late Mr.Sam Walton for fighting his disease in his last days and managing to write this book. I am afraid to think the amount of wisdom that woud have been lost if he succumbed to death (which happened in 1992) earlier and never completed this book

I was reminded yesterday while reading Economic Times paper, of a book "Far from the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy. The book was in my 12th Standard syllabus and our English Teacher "ShantiShri" was very fond of the book that she made us read it umpty number of times. The most likely question on the book was to be on "Chance Happening" - on how few of the unplanned events resulted on big turning points in the characters lifes.

(Scanned copy from my XII school book)

Anyways, the reason for me to be reminded on "Chance Happening" and hence the book, was a piece on the paper's ViewPoint section. The piece was an extract from a lecture given in New York University-Stern by Infosys Founder Mr.N.R.Narayana Murthy. The lecture was titled "Learning from experience: Some lessons I have learned from my life and career" where Mr.Murthy talks about "Chance Events" that changed his life and hence Infosys. What I enjoyed most was his first paragraph where he talks about the impact role models or a one-off speech can have on an individual. I could relate to that in an indirect fashion.

"The first event occurred when I was a graduate student in Control Theory at IIT, Kanpur in India. At breakfast on a bright Sunday morning in 1968, I had a chance encounter with a famous computer scientist on sabbatical from a well-known US university. He was discussing exciting new developments in the field of computer science with a large group of students and how such developments would alter our future. He was articulate, passionate and quite convincing. I was hooked. I went straight from breakfast to the library, read four or five papers he had suggested, and left the library determined to study computer science."

LIFCO's (our family publishing firm) guide to Far from the Madding Crowd (Published:1957)

Few years back when I read a book about Tatas I realized that we know little about Indian Achievers, I got interested in reading more such books.

Recently I bought from Landmark a book titled Vikram Sarabhai "A Life" by Amrita Shah. Before reading it, I knew little about Dr.Vikram Sarabhai other than he was a popular scientist and father of Indian Space Program that too by reading about him in Dr.A.B.J.Abdul Kalams' Wings of Fire book. As the book says I too had vague remembrance of him and confused his achievements with Dr.Homi Bhabha - the father of Indian Nuclear program. Please don't ask what happened to reading about these people in my School days, I honestly remember nothing of that   

The first thing that struck me while I started the book, the short life the man has lived (1919-71) and within that 50 years of life the amazing number of things he has achieved. He has founded numerous organizations - ISRO, IIM-Ahmedabad, ATIRA (Textile Research), PRL apart from running successfully his family business Sarabhai Chemicals and other business houses. He was also a successful scientist with many papers and a PhD on Cosmic Rays.

What a life this man has lived, which every Indian has to be proud of!

A must read book for people interested - but this book is not a complete biography, skips on his college days and the author Amrita Shah has put together pieces from her own research, what she heard from others and joining the dots on what could have been Dr.Sarabhai's thinking at various points.

I recently read Bill Bryson's book "Neither here Nor there" - travels in Europe. A very hilarious book. Bill has made little effort to make it a travel guide, so you will learn little about Europe. Bill's style was very lively, once I picked the book, I couldn't keep it down without finishing it.

This probably is the first book that I finished with in days of buying it.

I bought the book "One Night @ the call center" by Chetan Bhagat during my visit to the Annual Chennai Book Fair 2007. Bhagat is a graduate from IIT Delhi and author of Five Point Someone. Though I haven't read his earlier book - I got interested by the story line which as the name suggests is about working in a call center and a phone call from God.

With in days of the book fair, I had two long flights [Chennai to London, London to Seattle]. I finished most of the book in the two flights and the balance pages over the first day in Redmond, WA. Completing a book is probably the only good thing for me of doing these long flights. If in town, I would have never finished a book so quickly.

Anyways, coming back about the book. This is a light reading book and I liked the way the author has made no attempt to make it a literary work. Bhagat has tried and captured largely the pulse of India's call centers - though he has dramatized by a bit of artifically added romance and sex. The phone call from God, was more an anti-climax for me, I wish Bhagat could have continued the tempo by handling this bit a little better.

A enjoyable read and definitely worth for Rs.95 (Two Dollars) !

If you have watched Ray Romano in his popular Everybody loves Raymond, you will know how funny he can be. His comedy is most of the time clean, everyday family happenings. I love this serial that I have the entire DVD collection with me.

In this book titled "Everything and a Kite" Ray narrates with his usual humour about Wifes, Kids and more. When reading the book as a Married man with a Kid, there were many sentences that I could relate to my life and at the same time laugh on them. A good read over a long flight.

This week I was mildly infected by Conjunctivitis (Madras Eye) and was quarantined by my family in my sister's house. This gave me two days to do some peaceful reading apart from the occassional office phone calls. I picked up this book iWoz from my bookshelf - long abonded and read it. The book is about the co-founder of Apple "Steve Wozniak" who is an engineer who designed the original Apple-I and Apple-II computers.

Disclaimer: Though I have used a Mac Mini and love its Hardware Design, I grow up in a PC environment, that makes me a hardcore Wintel fan. So before this book I had little idea about the story behind Apple and its investors other than reading occassionally about Steve Jobs.

Wikipedia carries here a brief on what this book talks about and a positive review of this book is at a blog by Guy Kawasaki (Apple Engineer), so I will skip the basics.  

The simplest way for me to describe this book is a bell curve . A bell curve just like the one in the image on left shows, peaks in middle and tapers at both ends, that's exactly how the book was for me. The initial chapters were boring, where Steve is talking in detail about his childhood and his father (as hard as I try I am unable to remember details other than the school and few friends of mine in LKG to Sixth Standard, but Steve remembers everything).

Then the interesting part about his designs, Apple-I and then Apple-II. Apple-II is covered in few pages, then few chapters on non-apple passions and then when you are expecting more on Apple the book ends abruptly - not even a brief mention of his next 20 years of his life (Post US Fashions till date). As an engineer myself and who has been through the second half of PC revolution, I felt Steve is incorrect to miss completely the IBM PC and DOS Story - it is as if he and Apple-I/II existed in a world without any competition.

If you are an Apple fan, please buy a copy of this book for your own collection. If not please read it only if someone lends a copy, don't waste your own money.  

I had bought this book sometime back, but didn't proceed more than few pages at that time. This week I took it again from my bookshelf, I became interested on the topics discussed by the Authors (Economists) - Steven D.Levitt and Stephen J.Dubner. With reading for few days - few hours every night I finished the book.

The book has a good followup resources including website, a blog and a wikipedia entry - so I will skip the introductions and details about the book. Instead I will just list here on what I liked/learned from this book:

• US Crime rate falling and connection with Abortion made legal two decades back (I think I have read this somewhere earlier as well)
• It is a fact that Real Estate Agents do sell for more there own properties
• Cheating happens even in a disciplined elite group like Sumo Wrestlers
• Drug dealers (other than the big bosses) don't earn great monies
• Sudhir Venkatesh (An Indian born American Citizen) had the courage to spend considerable time with Drug groups in Chicago in order to understand their behaviours.
• 50% of a child's chance of success is determined before its birth (Genetics, Family Income, Parents Education, etc.)
• The name of a child does make a difference in the chance of success, but that's more a side-effect and changing a name doesn't have a proven effect for reversing fortunes.

Though the title may make the book sound serious read, in reality it is not. It is a light reading book that can be enjoyed over a long journey.

It is rare for me to finish a book that I started till the end. Though I love to buy books (as I grow up among books - my father runs LIFCO Books) and a bookstore is a place I can spend hours, I am hardly into big fat books like novels and fictions. I am puzzled on how kids can finish the 500+ pages Harry Potter Books. I buy a book, take a snapshot, read the first few chapters in one sitting. Then the book goes into my personal library - hardly taken out again (with few exceptions). That's why you see my posts under "Books" Category in this blog less populated - I keep waiting to finish a book before posting, but finishing never happens.

This post is about an exception. Early last year I bought the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. Immediately in that trip I finished the first chapter, then in few trips though I took the book I could never read more than few pages. Last two weeks due to trips to New Delhi (3 Hour Flights for each leg and then all the Airport waiting time) I re-started this book and finished it easily.

The book is about how our SubConsious mind processes informations differently than our Concious/Scientifc mind; it covers how at times this can be used for effective decision making. This book proves the statement that you might be using many times "I have a gut feeling that this works only like this".

I will certainly recommend this book for anyone interested.

I have been a reader of Reader’s Digest for several years. They claim their success to “selection of nothing but the best articles from around the world, condensing it, recondensing it without missing any of the fine part” – which time and time I found to be 100% true.

In this month’s issue I read about “Dare to Dream” by Michael J.Weiss where the author unravels the mystery/superstitions of dreams and explains the benefits of dreams and the use for recalling your dreams. I found it very interesting to know that Dreams can be used for your improvement and they can find answers to your difficult situations.

Highly recommended article to read; of course read it not in your dreams but when you are awake.

Many people in the IT Industry and beyond respect Nicholas Negroponte (chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Laboratory) for his deep clarity on the power of "Bits" and "Digital" Technology. But for me, from the day I read his classic "Being Digital", I have been curious on what this genius is up to now.

Couple of years back, he announced his dream of a "One Laptop per child"; To make it true was the idea of a sub $100 laptop. Everyone in the industry (including me) doubted whether this was ever possible - with Intel brushing it away even now. But alas, last month in the Tuniasia World Summit he unveiled it and also selected Quanta (Taiwan based World's Largest Laptop Manufacturer) as the OEM. 

The plan is to distribute several million of these laptops to underprivileged childrens in China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand. The laptops will be Linux based, full-color LCD Display, 500MHz CPU, 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory, built-in wireless to find near by laptops ad-hoc. It will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. What I found as the most interesting feature was an innovative power - a manual wind-up (shown in yellow above). This is very important because the places it is being planned to be used are most backward areas where there is no power source and the laptop might even be the only light source during the night.

Using the laptops it is hoped that the children who before this couldn't even afford paper textbooks - will now have access to all materials that they need to complete their education. All this with little or no further costs being spent by the local governments, after the first US$100 (for the laptop itself). A noble cause, hope it works and eradicates illeteracy in the world.

நான் எழுத நினைத்து, சோம்பேறிதனத்தால் மிக தாமதமான வலைப்பூ இது. இந்தாண்டு ஜனவரி மாதத்தில் வழக்கம் போல் சென்னை புத்தகக்காட்சி நடந்தது. 27 ஆண்டுகளைக் கடந்து, இது 28ஆவது ஆண்டு. சில வருடங்களாய் இங்குவரும் மக்களின் எண்ணிக்கை அதிகரித்துக்கொண்டிருப்பது புத்தகத்துறைக்கு நல்ல ஒரு விஷயம்.  

புத்தகம் வாங்குவது (படிக்கிறேனா இல்லையா என்பது வேறு விஷயம்) எனக்கு மிக பிடித்த விஷயம். அதே போல இந்தாண்டும் நிறைய வாங்கினேன். அதில் நான் ரசித்த புத்தகம், சரியாகச் சொல்வதென்றால் ஒலிப்புத்தகம் - குடியரசு தலைவர் ஆ.ப.ஜெ.அப்துல் கலாமின் "அக்னிச்சிறகுகள்" ஒலிப்புத்தகம்.

ஆ.ப.ஜெ.அப்துல் கலாமின் வாழ்க்கைச்சரித்திரத்தை மிக அழகாகக் குறுக்கி, தனது கம்பீரமான குரலில் அற்புதமாக படைத்துள்ளார் கவிஞர் வைரமுத்து. கலாமின் முழுப் புத்தகத்தை படித்திருந்தாலும் நான் இந்தளவு ரசித்திருப்பேனா என்பது சந்தேகம். பல வாரங்கள் என் காரில் இந்த ஒலித்தட்டைக் கேட்டுக்கொண்டே இருந்தேன்.        

ஒலிப்புத்தகத்தில் பல நல்ல விஷயங்களிருப்பினும் என்னை மிக பாதித்த வரிகள்

"சரிவுகளின் அழகைப் பருகியவாறே மலையுச்சியை நோக்கி நடப்பதில் தான் ஒரு இனிமை இருக்கிறது. 
சரிவுகளில் ஜீவிதம் இருக்கிறது. சிகரத்தில் அல்ல.
சரிவுகளில்தான் எல்லாமும் வளர்கின்றன. அனுபவம் கிட்டுகிறது. நிபுணத்துவம் சாதிக்கப்படுகிறது.
சரிவுகளைத் தீர்மானிக்கிறது என்ற அளவில் சிகரத்தின் முக்கியத்துவம் நின்று போய்விடுகிறது." 

டாக்டர் அப்துல் கலாம் போன்றொரு வெற்றி மனிதரின் சரித்திரம் கேட்கும் ஒவ்வொருவரையும் சாதனைச் செய்ய மட்டுமன்றி தினம் வரும் சோதனைகளையும் கடக்க ஊக்கப்படுத்தும் என்பதில் ஐயமில்லை. 

Microsoft India conducts periodically a day of intensive technology onsite seminars for India’s Software biggies. MSDN calls these engagements with SI (System Integrators, as they are known in the Industry) as “MSDN Day”. I have known for years “Jonah Stephen” who is currently the MSDN Enterprise SI Manager in India. In the last few months for Jonah, I have presented in many MSDN Days in Chennai on “ASP.NET 2.0 & Visual Studio 2005”. This included MSDN Day for CTS, Satyam & TCS in Chennai.

After the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) program, I was given a very thoughtful gift that I have received for a presentation. It was a book titled “The Creation of Wealth” – The Tatas from the 19th to the 21st Century, by R.M.Lala. As with many books that many of us have, this too lied along with many of the other books in my bookshelf. This was until I took it along with me in my recent trip to USA. I was very apprehensive whether I will read even few chapters of this book in my flights. But the book was so interesting, I finished the entire book before I landed in Los Angeles. Thanks to TCS Chennai for presenting me with this book.

The book is an enjoyable light-reading material of how the Tatas build their empire. Though the book is a chronology of Tata's history, Lala has brilliantly camouflaged it in an interesting novel format.  Only after reading it, I realized how ignorant I am about Industries and Business Houses in India. We seem to be more informed about American companies like – Walmart, Microsoft, GM, GE, etc. May be this is because of excellent reading materials available about them. I am sure management books on how Indian Industry has performed Post Liberalization – Their Right & Wrong moves, will make interesting reading. I hope some writer is reading this blog!.

But for many of us, we should take a leaf from this incident and start giving Books as gifts to our friends and business acquaintance. Coming from a Publishing House myself, what else you expect from me to end this with?