Zen garden - Conversations with pathmakers

I am back to reading physical books and am enjoying  page turning and the feel of the paper on my hand. Both reading on screen and physical books have their own pros and cons. But now I feel the joy of reading physical books outweighs the flickering screen read. Moreover, I  dont strain my ageing eyes anymore.

There are so many writers and books today that one is clueless as to whom to invest time and money on.  At times like these I rely on reviews by voracious readers and bloggers like Shilpa, Swapna and my own sis. I am yet to get hold of some of the books that they have reviewed since my local library or friends from whom I borrow dont’ have them.  But One book I decided I must own and not borrow was  Zen Garden – conversation with pathmakers by Subroto Bagchi which was reviewd by Swapna.

During my last visit to Landmark, I bought the book   zen garden by subroto bagchi.

  

The book is a compilation of  the very best conversations the author had with influential pathmakers and it talks aobut the qualities which sets a pathmaker apart from a follower. Some ot them featured in this garden are very popular and most of us know the famous pathbreaking  stories like that Nandan Nilekani, GR Gopinath, Kiran Mazumdar, Aamir khan, Dr. Devi Shetty, Kris Gopalakrishnan etc.,

But there are stories of lesser known pathmakers who have maintained a low profile. Their stories are mostly that of  people from humble backgrounds who come from small towns  and have made it big. 

The book decodes the qualities that best describe the qualities of pathmaking. The conversations which were a regular feature originally in ForbesIndia for three years has been presented in twelve clusters with qualities that define pathmaking. Like the quality of determination, vision, love and competence, pain, altruism, wisdom etc.,

For instance, in the cluster on innovation, he talks about the people with innovative spirit. What does the innovator do? What makes him or her restless enough to toil, try, fail, then get up from the mud to succeed only a little, before starting all over again.In this cluster, we read about the founders of Neemrana hotels,make my trip.com,biocon,naukri.com etc.

In the cluster on compassionate leadership he features doctors who have made a huge difference to the society. These doctors( Dr. Devi shetty of Narayana Hrudayalaya, Dr. Sharan patil of Sparsh and and Dr. Rao of LV Prasad eye institute have believed that the profession apart from being a source of  personal livelihood is a force of change to deliver long lasting values to the society.Dr. Devi shetty believes that great surgeons come from poor backgrounds as it gives them fire to stay focused.

So many more stories of people whose products we use in our daily life but don’t know the story behind it like Wikipedia(Jimmy wales), Orient craft( sudhir Dhingra), eastern treasure India tours(sanghamitra jena) , Rana kapoor(Yes bank) VG Siddhartha (café coffee day), Patu keswani( lemon tree hotel) cricinfo.com( Badri seshadri),google(Ram shriram)Sujatha keshavan ( indias first design graduate and owner of RAy+keshavan) etc., There are also the pathmaking stories of Cherie Blair, Dalai Lama and Jaggi vasudev.

I did’nt read this book in one go although I could have. I read and re-read because I found some of the lines  powerful  and laced with human conscience. For instance, in the conversation with Nandita Lakshmanan who is the founder of "The PRactice", a Public relation company. To Bagchi’s question on what is her biggest learning she says “ the words of Infosys co-founder Narayan murthy “ a clear conscience is the softest pillow and, when in doubt, disclose’.

Many such nuggets of wisdom and unique insights made me re-read the book .  The book  makes you believe that ordinary people can do extra-ordinary things. It decodes that unique quality that led to the path makers to the  path of success where power and wisdom combines to give more to society than take from it.

That said, one could be critical about the book saying there are many more pathmakers and if a few people like Ekta kapoor, Sanjna kapoor, shashikant shetty deserved to be featured there were many more too. But Subroto Bagchi himself has said these are the people whom he conversed with in the Zen garden. There could be many more pathmakers and perhaps we can await part 2.

Overall, Zen garden is a valuable addition to my home library. 

Ashwin Sanghi's The Krishna key

                       



When  I received this book for review, I thought I did a mistake of picking up a thriller for  I am no fan of thrillers or mysteries. Despite some dampeners, this book kept me hooked  because of the historical and mythological data. That  I prioritized the book amidst a tight personal  & professional schedule shows how engrossed i was with the book last week.  I must also admit that the book which raced through some places was a drag at many places and broke at the end. No wonder, the author asks us not to flip to the end since this will act as a plot spoiler. Nevertheless, a fascinating book.

 India's youngest Linguist and symbolist Anil Varshney  bids for an antique base plate of Raja Man Singh  in Sotheby's  auction and wins the bid. This base plate has grooves for 4 antique seals. The assembling of these seals found at the various ancient excavation sites of India like Kalibangan, Kurukshetra, Dwarka and mathura when fixed  on the auctioned base plate gives way to 'The Krishna key'. This key exposes  an ancient secret  which is Lord Krishna's  precious legacy to mankind. This book also makes you feel that Lord Krishna is not a myth and a reality.

Now, over to the story.  Anil tries to place these seals in the safe custody of 4 of his close friends just in case anything happens to him. So he entrusts the seals to  his friends who are all doctorates in Nuclear science, life science, History and an off shore explorer. The professor in Mythological history  Ravi Mohan  Saini is the protagonist  who meets Anil Varshney before he was killed by a person named Taarak Vakil.  Before getting killed , Anil leaves a  seal and a cryptic message  to Ravi Saini. This message  helps him to piece together the four seals on the auctioned base plate which is safely locked in a safe deposit locker.

Anil Varshney is killed with a scalpel and the murderer marks a shloka on the wall with the blood. Ravi mohan Saini is suspected as the killer since he was the last one to visit Anil. Ravi mohan Saini flees the police custody along with his beautiful doctoral student Priya Ratnani. Priya's father Sanjay Ratnani a lawyer helps fight the case of Ravi Saini and is also instrumental in the escape of Ravi and Priya.

From here on begins the race to trace the three seals. The duo try to meet the remaining friends by dodging the police as they travel to  Dwarka, Porbandar and  Somnath and from here on he splits with Priya. The story takes a twist here  and Ravi travels to  Mount Kailash and finally ends up at Agra's Taj mahal where he finds the answer to Krishna's key.

 The above is the brief of the book which has each chapter beginning with the first person narration of Lord Krishna himself  from his life to death and then correlated to the contemporary story line.

What i liked about the book was the exhaustive research done by Ashwin Sanghi. The list of references and acknowledgements behind the book shows the amount of work Sanghi has put into the book. I am tempted to read all those books because of my fascination for Indian history, mythology and heritage.

Many historical and mythological facts backed with scientific reasoning gives you goose bumps and makes you feel blessed that you belong to a proud race - the Indian race.  I have always believed our ancestors were a treasure house of information and pioneers in many fields. If the theories and data of this book are authentic then this book has some fascinating facts like much before Oppenheimer, Newton,Einstein, Big bang theory our ancestors like the yogis  knew about the theory of relativity, dispersion of light, levitation, atomic energy, nuclear energy etc. It was a revelation  to read about the architecture of Taj mahal which was originally supposed to be Raja Man singh's palace. These were the reasons I held on to the book.

Otherwise, i found the book describing too many killings and many of the character sketches  like Taarak vakil, Sir Khan and too many sanskrit shlokas  etc overly done.

Also, for the amount of research Sanghi has done, he could have proof checked the book with the same zeal. I myself could find two glitches, one is on page 301 where the last para should begin with  Radhika and not Priya. and on page 389 where it should read Saini and Radhika( not priya and Radhika)

It was definitely a good read for me but the tempo petered at many places. What held me to the book was the fascinating  historical , mythological  and the scientific explanation of our culture.

Ashwin sanghi is the author of the best selling Rozabal line and award winning Chanakya's chant. Chanakya's chant - a political thriller  is now on the way to be a movie. Ashwin  is a Yale graduate and is an entrepreneur by profession but writing historical fiction in thriller genre is his passion and hobby.

ETA: THE AUTHOR HAS ALREADY ACKNOWLEDGED THE GLITCHES OF HIS PROOF READER ON HIS WEBSITE AND HOPES TO RECTIFY THEM WHEN THE BOOK GOES FOR A REPRINT

                                                   The Krishna Key
                                                              by
                                                   Ashwin Sanghi
                                         Published by Westland limited

                                                          INR 250  


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Bishwanath Ghosh's Tamarind city - where Modern India began

   

 My fast of not reading  books since long was broken by the above book  which is a first hand account on Chennai by Bishwanath Ghosh (He is also  the deputy editor of the national daily The Hindu).  I was a regular reader of his writings in the Column width of  Saturday's Metro plus pullout and could relate to most of his nostalgic stories, since we belong to the same era. His experiences,observations, travels and research on Chennai as a 11 year old resident of this city  has been chronicled in this book.

   

What drew me to this book was my love for this city where I was born. And like me he is a third culture Indian and so was really curious to know how a Kanpur bred Bengali and now a Chennaite of 11 years perceived the city.He has researched his subject well and visited many places around Chennai and met many people first hand to compile this book.

The author traces the history of Madras aka Chennai and find its roots in Fort St. George.  According to the book, Fort St. George is where modern India began, almost every Institution in India from the army to the judiciary, from medicine to engineering  has had its origin here.

Like every other modern institution he chronicles, even Indian railways originated in Madras in the sense that Madras Railway company was formed way back in 1845, when the first ever train ride in india, from Bombay to Thane had not even been thought of. But only the Great Indian Peninsula company set up much later beat Madras by opening the Bombay Thane line in 1853. Since the original structures of Bombay and thane stations no longer exist. Royapuram station, declared open in 1856 is today the oldest railway station in the entire subcontinent.

Not just Modern India.....

Even the seeds of Yale University  were sown by the nine bales of exquisite Indian textiles, Elihu Yale shipped from  Madras and which were then auctioned to raise the amount for the financial assistance of the University.

This traditional city which has now married technology and being dubbed as India’s Detroit was home to Robert Clive, Wellesley, Warren Hastings and ofcourse Elihu Yale.

He travels to the nooks and corners of Chennai’s two important suburbs Triplicane and Mylapore and likens them to Britain and France. And I thoroughly enjoyed travelling through these paragraphs since Mylapore is my birth place, my  playground and campsite during my  summer and Dussehra vacation(My grand parents home). Still there is more to Mylapore than what he was written but this book I know is not just about Mylapore. Like him, I too as a child have seen many foreigners awe at the Kapali Koil and camcording the history of the place and shooting the colorful exquisitely crafted temple tower. But the author has missed about the “Mylapore festival” which is one of its kind in the world or may be the kolam fest he has mentioned in the  book must be related to this.

The book  kindled so many memories of my own.The author’s father getting him toys from Moore market reminded me of my own dad getting me unique  postal stamps for my philately collection and beautiful colored fishes for our aquarium from Moore market whenever he visited Madras. This big market where you could source from a pin to a machine was destroyed in a mysterious fire accident in the mid 80's.

Every issue and crosssection of life like Social, cultural, political, religious, wellness, medical,civic has been sourced and detailed meticulously with interviews from the citizens of Madras. After reading this book, perhaps my north Indian, Andhraite and kannadiga friends may never ask me why we Tambrahms never have a surname like them and instead tag our husband or father’s name. 

The endearing part of the book was the place where the author meets the editor of his favorite childhood  magazine Chandamama to whom he had written as a nine year old boy but never got a reply from the editor then.

Patricia's story was inspiring. The woman who married a drug addict and disowned by her family. She  owned a kiosk on the shores of Marina once upon a time and now runs a big restaurant called Sandeepha and caters to the needs of many MNC’s. The shores of Marina – the world’s second longest beach(?) is indeed an inspiration for many writers, actor, poets and entrepreneursa and of course fitness freaks.

Like Murugesan street of T.nagar where the author lives, every road and street is built over history and the city bears the foot prints of historical greats whom we keep reading in our school texts. The best illustration of this is when the author says after 11 years, he found that he stays in an apartment which was built after razing an independant house called Sundar Niketan- the residence of Krishnaswamy Sundarji who later went on to become the army chief. Similarly, about the Army personnel working from the room of Robert Clive , he says their children might be reading Clive in their history texts, but would never know that their fathers worked from  the same room as Clive's.

I also found some portions of the book a drag and irrelevant especially the place where it has a detailed account on Gemini Ganesan and Saroja Devi. Films are a part of tamil culture alright, but such long chapters exclusively  on them alone does not define Madras Talkies.

 Also  the author says “ Death by fire (as in immolation) seems to be the norm in Tamil culture” – I would have contested these lines but he has immediately thereafter added particularly in the case of poor women and sometimes to display their love for their leaders like MGR etc.,. So there, not tamil culture but a cross section of people like in other cities too. It happened during Mandal commission in Delhi or any revolutionary movement like the Telangana movement.

But why no grand mention about  The rippon building, ice house, The theosophical society, Kalakshetra, Valluvar Kottam, Mahabalipuram - all these buildings and monuments would speak volumes about the madras culture. Apart from the unparalled music event in December,  It has an active Tamil and English theatre group too.

And no mention about Taramani Tidel park, Mahindra city which are part of  the neon drenched Chennai instead it is compensated with the development of Sriperumbudur and other areas like Oragadam. And there is more to Madras Cuisine than Ratna Café Sambar. The adais. idiappams, paniyarams, Keerai vadai's, thattai’s, murukkus and the signature sweet Aavin’s ‘Palkova’and the  little café kiosks which serve the frothy kaapi in davara tumbler(cup and saucer).

But this beautiful city where traditions coexist with modernity and which is also slightly ahead of its times by addressing and accepting the transgender community cannot be contained in 315 pages.

Perhaps, we can expect part 2 from him if he continues to stay there.

This book would make a gentle and light read for anybody who loves History and wants to know Chennai aka Madras history and culture.  Bishwanath ghosh calls it Tamarind city because as a kid when he travelled to this city he found many tamarind trees in the city and tamarind is an ingredient in most Tamil cuisine and his mom who stayed in Madras during her early days,  often made Tamarind rice. So,  there the tamarind connection. 

 I call this city Thoonga nagram. A city which never sleeps, even much before BPO’s came .

Incidentally, Madras( I like the colonial name) celebrates its birthday on August 22^nd. For more info go here.

This  review is a part of Blogadda's book review program. Thank you Harish and Nirav Sanghavi (Blogadda team) .

                                           

                                              Tamarind city – Where modern India began

                                                       Author:  Bishwanath Ghosh 

                                                             Press: Tranquebar

                                                                     INR 295