Reflections

This promises to be among the bluntest reviews I have written; I don’t mean to state I wont do justice to it – that I will, most certainly so. But in this particular book, there is no scope, to be anything but perfectly honest. Now that doesn’t mean it is a bad book : it is not a bad book by any means. But, as a good reviewer, I need to place both my opinion as well as an unbiased, factual review of the book basis my experience of reviewing books for that past 6+ years and nearly 180 books so far as I can recall. In this, this is an exceptionally demanding task, for reasons that are stated in the next paragraph THE NEGATIVES This is a book that purportedly is based on The Tenth Avatar of Lord Vishnu -the yet to come Kalki, at the end of the Kalyug era. Lets start with the negatives – so that we can close with the positives. My biased rating is 1 star, and unbiased rating will be 2.5 stars, perhaps   3-3.5 stars. Why this difference? First, the concept of this histo...

In the previous segment of this conversation, we took a look at the aspects of a   positive healthy workplace relationship; in this segment, I asked the Senior Mentor / Manager Mr Milind Kher and the Middle Manager RIddhima Dua some questions that put them in a place wherein they had to figure out whether we can implement this in the real workplace, and strategise how this can be achieved. The answers were revealing – Mr Kher with his experience and knowledge producing pearls of Wisdom, and Mrs Dua going into the tactical details – making for a near perfect conversation… Q11: How can you build trust within teams? RD : Trust comes with acceptance . Accepting the individual the way they are, heightening awareness to acceptance and behavior, and communicating it with higher frequency. Our inner energy plays a vital role here. Let us give you an example : A team of 4 working together, all of them has an idea to reach a potential goal of the company; Now they start co...

The Rulers’ Gaze by Arvind Sharma is yet another in the now-long line of books that critically look at, or attempt to look at, the Colonial Legacy. Before I go deeper into the review – let me lay it out : the subject matter is not an easy read; neither is it well presented. This is along the line of those scientific papers that obfuscate everything to the point where it drives even very well informed readers like myself stark mad in frustration. Rated 3 stars : 5 for content, 1 for presentation, average 3 stars. The problem is the vacillating arguments, constant diversion of attention through proofs, links, arguments and what not. That the same proof can be achieved in scientific and research papers without this tardy method has been proven by some excellent papers that cock a royal snook at this style of writing, so much in vogue in The West. High Time we forgot this needless presentation style! THE CONTENT The content is a critical analysis along the Saidian Theory : ...

This is the second conversation I am carrying on my blog; the first one was with Mr Amitabh D Sinha, then the Director-Finance at the SME Chamber of India. That one was around the topic of Development models in Economics; which is a current and relevant topic. The topic for today is another relevant and vital topic – Relationships in the professional sphere. The continuing Economic Distress is throwing a series of areas under the microscope, trying to figure out what went wrong, and how. But it occurred to me that this was obvious to quite a few of us, and yet, this concern was not translated into action. REASONS FOR THE ORGANISATIONAL COLLAPSE This points to several areas of active intervention for individuals, as well as organisations – especially the HR Fraternity. Chief among these are Pure Knowledge, Trend Analysis, Predictive Analytical Capability, Demand Forecasting, Function-Specific Skill Sets, Industry Trends & Technology Developments, Decision Making Capab...

It was a choice between seeing Padmavat and Aaplaa Maanus; while the praise was pouring in for Padmavat, my mind and heart were somehow not entirely convinced. Padmavat was in Hindi,   was a known story, and had nothing new. Whereas, Aaplaa Maanus was in my mother tongue,   had an intriguing story, powerful actors, and a taut narrative, judging from the sparse trailer. The Padmavat trailer just failed to impress at an equal level, seeming overdone and rhetorical. So I chose the Marathi movie – and it was a good choice; yehi hai right choice baby, aahaa! This movie qualifies for elite list on my blog as one of the finest I have seen. THE STORY A man commits suicide {or tries to – see the movie to find out} – has an accident – gets murdered {or almost murdered – check the movie} in pouring rain in a rich neighbourhood. Enter Nana Patekar, the cop who is investigating. He goes straight to Sumeet Raghavan and Irawati Harshe, and starts investigating – being clear e...

This book has been a long time coming; 4 months was much too much a wait, given the cliffhanger exit of the first novel of this series – Harrappa { Reviewed Here }… It closed on a point that had brought us to tenterhooks. Mr Author, when you place someone on any hooks, tenter or otherwise, do remember to take us OFF the hook. The second book just carries on from there, and continues without a pause, without a break – and stops right dang in the middle of…. ­ I don’t want to give spoilers . Yes, you start on Tenterhooks, and stop on them. 5 Stars. THE BOOK This is the revenge of Vivasvan Pujari – intertwined with the rise of Vidyut Pujari in the parallel timeline of thousands of years later. The story revolves around these two primary timelines; and introduces a new segment, that of the slow rise of Manu Pujari, the son of the greviously wronged Vivaswan Pujari. In the ancient timeline, as Vivaswan Pujari takes revenge – the mysterious Matsya prophecies the coming Pralay,...

Ease of Doing Business: we can look at this ranking in two ways : one, as a political tool, analyzing Party A did this so ranking improved; or Party B didn’t do this, which is why we were bad – or indeed, Party A didn’t so as great as they claim for x,y,z reasons. The second way is use it to introspect, and ask ourselves, regardless of ranking, What can we do as a nation along these parameters, and how can we benefit by doing those steps? In other words, let us de-link politics from this exercise, at least for the purposes of this exercise, and go deep into the parameters of what constitutes Ease of Doing Business. EODB INTRODUCED But first, let us settle this Ease of Doing Business matter, and put it in the proper perspective. First, this is a matter of ranking – not an absolute ; your rank can improve by virtue of factors not in your control. Second, this ranking is measured in two cities in India – Mumbai and Delhi. By no stretch of imagination can these two citie...