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Category: Excerpts

The road to scale: challenges and prescriptions for success

Posted on by penguin

From Pony to Unicorn lucidly describes the X-to-10X journey that every start-up aspiring to become a unicorn has to go through. The book effortlessly narrates the fundamental principles behind scaling. Guaranteed to make for a very interesting read, the book will be useful to entrepreneurs, leaders and investors involved in scaling start-ups. Here is an excerpt from the book From Pony To Unicorn:

 

In his epochal book, Small Is Beautiful, Ernst Friedrich Schumacher says, ‘even today, we are generally told that gigantic organizations are inescapably necessary; but when we look closely we can notice that as soon as great size has been created there is often a strenuous attempt to attain smallness within bigness.’ Big companies have tried to act small to preserve innovation. Extreme proportions, whether for a life form or an organization, is not natural. It is only in science fiction that one comes across animals the size of Godzilla. The network of blood vessels and nerves and the bone structures needed to support a life form of this size don’t exist in the real world. Even large organizations need intricate structures, speedy communication channels, an extremely strong foundation and flawless management. From time to time, a few organizations defy all odds and make it really big until a small start-up somewhere ends up disrupting them. However, the quest for scale is never-ending. One of the most enduring human pursuits throughout history has been to create things on a grand scale. Whether it was building mammoth pyramids in Egypt or connecting the mediterranean with the red sea through the Suez, or laying undersea cables across the Atlantic, the attraction for grandeur and scale has been incessant. Despite the obsessive and timeless allure of scale, the failure rate has been high. Failure to scale can be because of many reasons, some of which are quite universal and pervasive. They show up in almost every scaling scenario. An understanding of these reasons can be very helpful. It does not guarantee success but can raise the odds in favour of success appreciably. There are also unique challenges in every scaling scenario. You need to deal with these like you would deal with any ‘first time’ problem. Tolstoy’s quote from Anna Karenina is beautiful and sublime, but there are underlying nuances and variations in its meaning. It is the sheer variety and number of nuances that make universal prescriptions for success and scaling, as much as for happiness, almost impossible and often meaningless. This applies as much to start-ups as to families. The closest universal prescription for success was from Arthur Rubinstein, who once said, ‘there is no formula for success, except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.’ Insights and prescriptions make sense only to individuals who recognize deeply that lessons and wisdom are meaningless in the absence of context, and there is no wisdom or prescription that can’t be challenged. However, given a clear context, an insight drawn from similar contexts can be very powerful, create those ‘Aha!’ moments and help you rapidly overcome the hurdle that is holding you back. Steve Blank, a highly respected author on entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, in an interview with Kevin Ready published by Forbes magazine, defines a start-up as a ‘temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model’. Eric Ries, a successful American entrepreneur and prolific author, in his seminal book The Lean Start-up, defines a start-up as an organization that is dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. He further adds, ‘this is just as true for one person in a garage as it is for a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.’

 

From Pony To Unicorn
By Sanjeev Aggarwal || T. N. Hari

This is a reasonably accurate description of what every start-up sets out to do. However, it is a bit too broad and would include many organizations, such as research laboratories and Fortune 100 companies that wouldn’t be considered start-ups. Therefore, let’s narrow this down by adding three other unambiguous filters before an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty can be called a start-up: a) the founder/s should still be active; b) it should be funded by venture capital (vc); and c) it should still be a private company. if these filters are applied, companies like Amazon, Google, Flipkart, Uber and Lyft would fail to qualify as start-ups, while Bigbasket, Doordash, Rubrick, Dunzo, Paytm and Swiggy would all qualify. While founder/s being active and the start-up not yet being a public company are understandable filters, the additional filter of the organization being VC-funded is relevant because that helps exclude mom-and-pop businesses that don’t have the same appetite for scaling as VC-funded start-ups.

 

Geoffrey West in his seminal book Scale, published by Penguin Press in May 2017, points out that scaling laws, whether for organizations, organisms or cities, are consequences of the optimization of network structures that sustain these various systems, resulting from the continuous feedback mechanisms inherent in natural selection and survival of the fittest. There is compelling evidence, even though there are the rare exceptions, that scaling of organizations follows certain power laws. He also points out that after growing rapidly in their youth, almost all companies end up floating on top of the ripples of the stock market with their metaphorical noses just above the surface. This is a precarious situation because they can drown in the next wave, and they are even more vulnerable if they can’t deal with the uncertainties of the markets and their own finances. While it is important to be optimistic and believe that by doing the right things your start-up could deftly navigate through the labyrinth of challenges, it is equally important to have the wisdom to understand that scale, especially extreme scale, is truly an exception and nature has stacked all the odds against it!

Raja Rao’s Gandhi – A life in words

Posted on by ashmita

In many ways, Raja Rao changed the way Mahatma Gandhi is read and written about. Get a glimpse into the processes of his writing through Makarand R. Paranjape’s introduction to Mahatma Gandhi: The Great Indian Way: 

 

In the symposium on Raja Rao on 24 March 1997, I had spoken on his forthcoming book The Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi. This was a marvellous retelling of Bapu’s life in the form of a modern purana. Rao had called it ‘an experiment in honesty’, adding that the ‘Pauranic style, therefore, is the only style an Indian can use’.

The publisher was Kapil Malhotra of Vision Books, who in 1996 had published The Meaning of India. Malhotra had inherited one-half of what used to be Dina Nath Malhotra’s Hind Pocket Books, India’s first paperback imprint. Malhotra, believing in Rao’s genius, had also published The Chessmaster and His Moves in 1988. That book had won Rao the coveted Neustadt Prize. The manuscript was part of a veritable treasure trove of unpublished material that some of us, who were close to Rao, had been fortunate to be able to see. But there were many more such unpublished works, which I had seen at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, where Rao’s papers now rested.

front cover The Great Indian Way
Mahatma Gandhi: The Great Indian Way||Raja Rao

After the Chessmaster, Malhotra published On the Ganga Ghat (1989) too. It was a unique collection of short stories with the common theme and location of Varanasi. It was clear that we were in the midst of a quiet Raja Rao efflorescence. It would culminate in his being posthumously awarded India’s second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2007, ten years after the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Fellowship mentioned earlier.

What was so special about Rao’s book, yet another of the hundreds written on Gandhi? Why had Mulk Raj Anand called it ‘Among the most authentic accounts of the Mahatma’s life and work’? It was this question that I had tried to answer in my presentation on Rao in the symposium in 1997.

The clue came from Rao himself. ‘Facts of course are there,’ he says in the preface, ‘but facts are shrill.’ Facts, in other words, do not tell the whole truth: ‘They have a way of saying more than they mean, and disbelievingly so. The silences and the symbols are omitted, and meaning taken out of breath and performance.’

What else do we have other than facts? It is, as Rao says, the ‘rasa, flavour, to makes facts melt into life’. The Indian experience is complex and multi-layered, requiring a special style to express it, even in modern times: ‘the Indian experience is such a palimpsest, layer behind layer of tradition and myth and custom go to make such an existence: gesture is ritual, and each act a statement in terms of philosophy, superstition, historical or linguistic provincialism, caste originality, or merely a personal one, and yet it’s all a whole, it’s India.’

Rao, next, makes a very bold statement: ‘Thus to face honesty against an Indian event, an Indian life, one’s expression has to be epic in style or to lie.’ Facts alone cannot tell the Indian story, nor can myths, rituals, or fables by themselves. The two must be combined in a unique manner. That was Rao’s reinvented pauranic style. Not in the manner of the old puranas, with— from the point of modern history—their unverifiable material. Nor the contemporary histories which were slaves to facts. But a unique combination of both.

This is what I called ‘seeing with three eyes’. The first eye sees only facts. The second espies the fable behind and around the fact. It is only the third eye, the eye of wisdom, that can combine both to see into the depths of things, their secret significance and meaning.

This special way of seeing is what Rao calls ‘fact against custom, history against time . . . geography against space.’ In his book on the Mahatma, this is precisely what Rao accomplishes, making ‘life larger than it seems, and its small impurities and accidents and parts, must perforce be transmuted into equations where the mighty becomes normal, and the normal in its turn becoming myth. Prose and poetry thus flow into one another, the personal and the impersonal, making the drama altogether noble and simple.’

An important feature of traditional Indian society, which persists to this very day, is its enormously rich and varied method of chronicling and celebrating life. In rural society, for instance, even humble craftspersons like weavers, potters, blacksmiths and wood workers have a specially designated bhiksha vritti jati, a group of mendicant performers, to record and disseminate their deeds. Thus, all our communities have their own jati puranas or community histories. Likewise, each village, each region, each state has its own legends, songs and stories. All these go into making up our rich narrative traditions.

Raja Rao, as he himself has often reiterated, belongs very much to this pauranic tradition. He has performed his duty as a writer as faithfully and sincerely as our ancient poets, who have told the stories of gods and demons, heroes and villains, apsaras and princesses, sages and mendicants with such zealous relish. A key and recurring figure in Raja Rao’s works is one of the greatest men of our times, Mahatma Gandhi. This book is Rao’s retelling of and tribute to Gandhi’s extraordinary life.

~

Through Mahatma Gandhi: The Great Indian Way, Raja Rao changed the rules of biography writing. The book paints a holistic and in-depth picture of a man who was larger than life.

The cost of freedom – Hamid Ansari’s battle for survival

Posted on by ashmita

Betrayed by his friends, Hamid Ansari found himself labelled a spy by Pakistani authorities. He battled for his innocence, surviving brutal interrogation sessions and long periods of confinement. This is an important read for anyone who wishes to understand the exact machinations of the event, and how state power can irreparably alter individual lives. Here is an extract:

–

It was not as cold as one would have expected on 19 September 2014. Zeenat waited with her mother at the bus stop for her trip to Karak. Her mother blessed her and wished her a safe journey. ‘Be careful, Zeenat. While Fauzia needs you, your family needs you more. May Allah bring you success.’

Zeenat reached Karak and went to Atta-ur-Rahman’s residence. She paid him and he told her exactly what had happened. He mentioned Abdullah Khattak, who was to receive Hamid in Kohat and help him rescue Fiza.

With all honesty, he said that he didn’t know why and how Hamid was picked up but that he had informed Fiza’s father and that is who must have informed the authorities. ‘It could be Abdullah too, you never know,’ he added.

… Since Kohat was an hour away from Karak, she immediately took the bus there and called up Abdullah on the way, introducing herself as a journalist from Lahore, saying she wanted to meet regarding a story. He readily agreed.

They met at the bus stop and went to a dhaba nearby. Zeenat told him why she was there—to track a story about an Indian called Hamid Ansari, who had been written about in the papers. He looked worried and asked her how she knew that he was Hamid’s contact. She told him that she was following up with the family back home and they had a few numbers.

‘How did they get my number?’ He knew very well that he could be in trouble.

Zeenat figured out that he was nervous. ‘Abdullah, consider me a friend. You did what was right so you have nothing to worry about. I am just trying to join the dots. How did he manage to enter our country and what was he up to?’ she said.

Her words calmed his nerves and he told her, ‘Imagine, he thought he could just enter our country and take one of our girls from here. I made sure that didn’t happen.’

Front cover Hamid
Hamid||Hamid Ansari, Geeta Mohan

‘Good. But was she not going to be a victim of wani?’ she asked while she took out her notepad.

He nodded, embarrassed, but went on, ‘Zeenat, whatever may be the case, he shouldn’t have thought that he would get away with it. I did what I thought was right.’

… He told her about Hamid’s plans, how he had connected with him, and of Palwasha Hotel, where he was taken. He also narrated the entire episode of his arrest. Zeenat listened intently and took notes, occasionally interrupting him for details such as the address of the hotel, time of arrival, last call, etc.

…They parted ways. It was evening. But Zeenat knew what she had to do next. She went straight to Palwasha Hotel and asked the boy at the reception to call the manager. A while later, a young man stepped out.

Zeenat asked them about the Indian who had come there on 14 November 2012. The manager looked shocked but feigned ignorance. Zeenat gave him a knowing look and flashed her press card. ‘I am here to do a story and I know everything. So please share whatever information you have. Where is your guest register? Show it to me.’

He hesitated and said, ‘We are a small establishment and don’t want any trouble. Please don’t put this in the paper. We don’t want people thinking we allow shady people or terrorists in. We don’t know who or where the man was from but we did have him here around that time. He was picked up by the agencies, I think.’

She understood their concern and assured them that she was only trying to find out some details. He pulled out the register and showed it to her.

She went to the entries for 2012 and sifted through them to reach November. When she reached 13 November, she saw that the next page was for 15 November. She looked carefully and ran her fingers through the binding of the register to see the remnants of a torn page.

She looked up at the manager questioningly. He understood what she was asking and said, ‘Well, the cops had come to inquire about the man and a few days later some other officers came and tore the page out. They instructed me not to breathe a word to anyone.’

…The man was a hotel manager in a small town. He was straight in his ways and didn’t mince words. He looked down and then turned around and left, before returning with a sheet of paper in his hand.

‘I didn’t throw it away since I didn’t trust the men. In case someone else came asking for him from the agency then I would have had no proof, that is why I saved this paper. Here it is.’ He gave it to Zeenat.

She saw the paper and noticed the name of one guest registered as Hamza. The manager pointed at it and said that that was the guy. Zeenat felt that Hamid obviously must not have revealed his real name. ‘Who was here with him?’ she asked.

The younger boy who stood beside the manager said, ‘I was here that night. There was a local man called Abdullah who had booked the room in advance. This other man looked like an outsider. A city boy from Lahore or Karachi. He checked in and left immediately after. He never returned. Only cops came in late that night to collect his belongings.’

‘Where was he taken?’
The manager replied, ‘Kohat police station.’

–

 

Hamid is a tale of survival, resilience and a relentless battle against the faceless power of the state.

Test Your Attention!

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

Our world today is filled with distractions that demand our attention every few seconds. The constant messages, notifications and pop-ups have a huge impact on our physical and mental health, making it difficult for us to concentrate on any task. In such a fast-paced world, attention is our most important resource. But we are largely unaware of the key role it plays in shaping our everyday lives.

Here is an interesting test, excerpted from How to Improve Concentration, by memory experts Aditi and Sudhir Singhal, and digital wellness coach Bala Kishore, to ascertain your level of attention.

**

In order to complete the test quickly, you must first go through the questions carefully. It’s a very simple test. Your aim should be to complete it as fast as possible.

Let’s start:

 

  1. Without looking at your shirt, count the number of buttons on it.
  2. How many zeroes are there in the number 10000000000086?
  3. Circle this instruction.
  4. How many ‘/’ are there in the following pattern?

\\\////\\\\////\\//\////\//\//

  1. Count the letter W in the group of letters given below:

WMMWMMWMWWMWWMWWMM MMWMMMWMWWWWWWMWM MWMWWMMWWMMWWWMWMW MWWWMWWMMMWMWMWMW

  1. Calculate the answer: 7 – 4 × 2 + 3
  2. Count the number of vowels in the sentences given below:
    • Observation is a skill that takes time to hone.
    • Keep practising, even if you think you will never

improve your concentration.

  1. Draw a star on the upper-right corner of this page.
  2. Convert these four numbers—6, 10, 13, 5—into letters using the coding given below and write the letters in the reverse order.

1=A, 2=B, 3=C, and so on.

  1. Now that you have finished reading all the questions carefully, do only question 4.

SOLUTION

front cover of How to Improve Concentration
How to Improve Concentration || Sudhir and Aditi Singhal, Bala Kishore

 

If you solved all the ten questions, we are sure the last one made you laugh. Just because you did not pay attention to the instructions given at the outset (‘In order to complete the test quickly, you must first go through the questions carefully’) you unnecessarily spent so much time and energy on tasks that weren’t even required.

In case you read and followed the instructions carefully, and solved just question 4 to get the answer ‘18’, then congratulations! You did have your attention focused solely on the test.

 

The fine art of balance – Deanne Panday’s guide to a wholesome life

Posted on by ashmita

Deanne Panday tackles all facets of modern life in her new book, from home-cooked food and finances to spirituality and joy, nudging us towards a holistic approach to wellness. Here is a glimpse into her insights on climate change:

~

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we experience life in so many ways. One of the most drastic impacts was on the environment when half the world was forced to stay home, and reduce movement and travel. All those days, I woke up to a clear, blue sky instead of the smoggy, unclear one I’ve gotten used to in the years I’ve lived in Mumbai. With no vehicles on the streets and polluting industries shut, people were able to breathe probably the cleanest air of their lives. It’s a pity it took a life-threatening virus to steer us to a way of life we should anyway strive for.

Our reckless and ignorant attitude towards the environment has brought us where we are today. We are all guilty of willingly choosing the things that convenience us, no matter how much it endangers others. As long as it doesn’t harm us, as long as our needs are met, we’re ready to turn a blind eye to the destruction we leave in our wake. I see children learning about various subjects in school and then spending more hours gaining more knowledge, but yet not enough to change their lives in a way that they can reduce pollution in their surroundings and work to reverse it.

According to the National Green Tribunal, more than 60 per cent of sewage generated by urban India is untreated and enters water bodies, such as rivers, making the water in them unfit for consumption.1 We somehow think that whatever we throw away will be cleaned by someone else. It’s an ignorant attitude, and we need to raise our children to be responsible for their own actions. Littering, even if it is a small packet of single-use plastic, doesn’t do any immediate harm, but this attitude is part of the reason we are the fifth most polluted country in the world. People blame it on several things, but it’s never themselves. The power to reverse ecological damage lies with the people, but we often forget the responsibilities that accompany that power.

Front cover balance
Balance||Deanne Panday

I learnt a lot more about our impact on the environment when I took up an online course offered by Harvard University  during the lockdown. I discovered just how badly we have abused our planet without realizing that we have abused ourselves in the process. Working out regularly and eating healthy can mean very little when the air we breathe is of poor quality. We are all partly responsible for that unbreathable air. By not taking care of the environment, we are endangering the lives of our children and our grandchildren. If you’re as old as I am, think back to your childhood. Wasn’t the environment much cleaner then? In just thirty to forty years—barely a blip when we consider the age of the Earth—we have damaged our planet to such a grave extent that we, along with other living creatures, are all struggling to live. If just a few decades can do this, imagine how bad it will be in the next couple of decades. I shudder at the thought.

That is why I decided to include this chapter in my book. Turning a blind eye towards climate change does not make you immune to it. I hope better awareness will help you take a step towards a better life for yourself and the coming generations.

…While governments need to bring out drastic changes in policy to go green, on an individual level there is a lot we can do too. After all, when a toxic environment can affect our health so badly, how can we not make changes to our lifestyles? We can all contribute in the simplest ways, whether it is by walking or hopping on to a bicycle instead of taking the car to places that are close to us. Not only will this result in more exercise, but it will also ensure the air we breathe is cleaner.

A clean environment is one of the vital foods of a balanced life. As we work internally and externally on making ourselves happier and our lives more fulfilled, we also have to be mindful that our existence doesn’t impact the world adversely. After all, all that we do today affects our children’s and grandchildren’s lives in the future. I don’t want my loved ones to struggle to breathe clean air because of our ignorance and mistakes. Do you?

… I strongly believe that once our mindset changes, everything else will follow. In school and college, we’re taught about finance, science and history, yet spreading knowledge about the environment is overlooked and treated as less significant. We are raising our children to be intelligent enough to hold top rankings in prestigious universities around the world but ignorant of how the world is inhabited, polluted and taken for granted. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It’s time we inculcate respect for the planet in our lives rather than just our test papers and studies, and understand that every negative action of ours has an equal or more drastic effect on our planet. Climate change is more real than ever now. It is time to act.

~

Balance focuses on thirteen key elements that we all need for a happier, healthier life. It is customized to our benefit, and also serves as a guide to managing the deteriorative aspects of our life – anger, stress and dissatisfaction.

Learning to prepare for death

Posted on by sanjeeta

The one certainty in life, the one appointment which each of us will just have to face, is the one for which we do the least to prepare-death.

Preparing
Preparing For Death

Preparing for Death explores the questions that have puzzled humanity from the very beginning as evinced by the rituals, texts and philosophies that surround death. From the lives and last days of the Buddha, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramana Maharshi, Gandhiji, Vinoba; from our religious texts and teachings of great meditation masters; from santhara to sannyas, Arun Shourie explores all  these, for their  views on how to prepare oneself for the end, and to face death with equanimity.

 

But to get back to the incidents. They are a consolation, they put our difficulties in perspective: if even the Buddha had to contend with such mundane troubles, who are we to complain? In any case, even the most fleeting glimpse of these great souls has always bewitched me. On occasion, therefore, I have included longish extracts from contemporary accounts: we see them in their natural habitat, so to say; we hear them talk, we see how they spent their day, what they ate, sometimes even what they lookedlike. Our Adit is forty-four now, but he is small for his age— bound as he is to his wheelchair, he weighs just about 112 lbs; and so I was astonished out of my wits when I read in Pyarelal’s The Last Phase, that when, just a few days before he was assassinated, Gandhiji was weighed, he was just 109 lbs. A man of a mere 109 lbs—‘a little man,’ as British commentators used to call him, all of 5’4’’—had brought down the imperial fortress. So, I have included extracts that have details which I hope will entrance the reader too. But there is another reason also. At first glance the extracts from diaries and the rest will seem far removed from the subject of this book—death. And yet, one of the exercises for the reader is to always keep asking what that seemingly irrelevant detail or event—the equanimity with which the Buddha bears calumny, for instance—tells us about how the personages attained the way they died.

Final lessons

In our present context, reading about their last days is especially instructive. And it is natural to seek lessons from their dying. Indeed, as we shall see, when their end came, the Buddha, Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana deliberately kept their disciples and even lay followers close by so that the latter may learn the final lessons from their life, that is, from their dying. The Buddha had asked a disciple to fold the cloth in four and spread it on the ground between two sal trees. He lay down. He sent for the disciples. As they stood around him, one of the most revered Tibetan monks of the last century, Pabonka Rinpoche, told the thousands who had gathered to hear him—the Buddha pulled away his upper garment so that they could see his body—‘It is only rarely that anyone gets the chance to see the body of a Tathagata.’ And the Buddha said to them, ‘This too. You too’—this happens to Buddha too; it will happen to you too. So, to the last years and days of a few great men, and one woman who was ‘ordinary’ enough that she could have been our mother. What happened in the last few months and days? What choices had they to make? What painful decisions had relatives, disciples and associates to make? Did they slide into death or did the ‘delusion of reprieve’ alternate with despair? How did doctors respond? Were they of one mind, or did their diagnoses differ? Would new treatments show improvement? Would the improvement last, or would the hopes it had triggered be dashed in a few days?

  • Most important for our subsequent discussion, in those final days:
  • What could they no longer control?
  • Over what did they retain control?
  • What had prepared them for the control that they retained till the end?
  • What stages did their bodies pass through, and their minds, before they eventually died? What decisions did they have to take on the way? That such and thus medical procedure must not be undertaken—in one instance an injection, in another amputation. To take at least water or not even that? For such are the decisions that we will have to take, in some instances to enforce on those looking after us in those final days.

Novoneel Chakraborty’s new thriller is an intricate game of smoke and mirrors

Posted on by ashmita

‘She was a blur when I first saw her.’

No matter how deeply we believe we know someone, there is always something that eludes us. Yahvi eluded Garv, and she’s nowhere to be found. Get a taste of Novoneel Charkaborty’s latest thriller Cross Your Heart, Take My Name with this excerpt:

~

‘Let’s play a game.’
‘Game? Whoa, all right.’
‘Yeah, a game. A game of any sort always makes the moment interesting.’
‘Second that. So . . . ’
‘So, the game is that we don’t give out any details about ourselves. The other person has to guess intelligently from whatever he or she can deduce.’

Impressive, I thought and said, ‘Bring it on.’
‘I’ll start. Then we can alternate.’
‘Got it.’
‘The fact that you haven’t brought your phone out in the last ten minutes or so tells me you aren’t into social media. You are the type who uses it when you need it,’ she said.

Wow! Is the game more interesting or the woman? I wondered and said, ‘Bang on. I really don’t like to . . . ’

‘We don’t have to give any justification or explanations. Just say true or false. Your chance.’

I took a few seconds before responding. I didn’t want to sound dumb with my observation.

‘Since you brought along an old Samsonite, I believe you don’t travel much. Else you would . . . ’

‘True!’ She didn’t let me complete my sentence. But a childlike happiness filled me when she confirmed my guess.

‘My turn,’ she said and added, ‘You aren’t a reader.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Someone who gets a flimsy magazine to pass time before a delayed flight is more about pictures than words.’

‘Kind of true.’ I was looking straight at her and yet wasn’t able to decipher much from her expression. That was a problem with me. I couldn’t understand what a person was thinking from his or her face. I knew a lot of people who could. And it was a helpful skill as it let you get ahead in conversations like these.

‘Kind of?’ She sounded bemused.

‘All right, I don’t read much. In fact, I didn’t buy the magazine for the pictures either.’

‘Ah, you were seeking some kind of company.’
‘Maybe. Weren’t you?’
‘That’s the game. What makes you think I was?’
I knew I had to think on my feet. And I did.
‘Why else would you sit here with a stranger and play a game? You also want to pass time like me. I had my magazine. You have me.’ The remark was a bit flirtatious, and I didn’t know if it was too direct or made her uncomfortable.

‘A magazine can be flipped through at will. Not a human being.’

The change in the tone of her voice took me by surprise. If she was a book, even though I was not much of a reader, this was when I would conclude that ‘she’ was unputdownable.

…‘Time to leave,’ she said and excused herself to join the queue. The way she went off, without a care, told me she was good at severing connections. In today’s times, I thought, that was one helluva skill to have. The ability to detach oneself just like that. I too stood up and walked towards the gate.

 

Front cover Cross Your Heart
Cross Your Heart, Take My Name||Novoneel Chakraborty

… Garv was feeling lonely. The way you felt when you had someone in your mind but not beside you. And then there were questions to make the loneliness worse. What had she meant  by that message? They did meet. They had tea together. She kissed him as well. He couldn’t  possibly have imagined all these things. She told him loud and clear that their plan to disappear had to wait for some time. And he understood. Like he always did, without questioning her.  This was not a Mills & Boon romance. Both of them were married to different people.

The note Garv had written and placed under the vase of fresh lilies was for his wife, Nihira. He’d taken an entire day to think what he could write to justify his act. What could a husband say to a wife before leaving her abruptly for no fault of hers? He simply didn’t have the courage to tell her the truth. That was wrong, he knew. And he’d convinced himself that a note would make up for it. After dwelling on it for a long time, he thought the best thing, instead of a long emotional message, would be to write three simple words: I am sorry. To tell Nihira that he still loved her, he kept the note under the vase with lilies, her favourite. Few words; old- fashioned symbolism—the end of a relationship.

Nihira was supposed to fly back from Bengaluru today. And what did he have for her? A note stating that he was sorry. The more Garv thought about it now, the more ridiculous he felt. How had he come to this decision? Was he simply being impulsive? As he tore up the note and threw it in the dustbin, Garv realized he had something more important to find out: Where on earth was Yahvi? He had been messaging her since last night; he had tried her number twice in an interval of three hours but there had been no response. The first time it rang but the second time the number was switched off. Had the battery drained out or had she intentionally switched it off? Garv wondered but concluded she must be up against some problem. And beyond a phone call or a WhatsApp message, there was no way he could reach her. Yet this was the person with whom he had decided to ‘disappear’ for the rest of his life and create an alternate reality.

… Garv drove to the Pune airport to pick up Nihira. This was the longest they’d gone without meeting. and the first sight of her made him feel guilty.

… Right then, Nihira’s phone rang and she excused herself to answer it. Garv could make out it was a work call. He drove to their apartment in silence.

As they neared their gated apartment block, they saw a crowd gathered at the entrance. Garv honked his way in. He wasn’t interested in knowing what the bedlam was about, but Nihira immediately jumped out once the car stopped and walked to the main gate. Perhaps it was this insatiable curiosity that made her want to get involved in people’s stories. and that is why she was doing so well at the NGO.

Garv was unlocking the main door of their flat when Nihira came up, her eyes clouded over.

‘A woman died in the afternoon. Didn’t you get to know when you left the building to come to the airport?’ Nihira asked.

‘No, I came straight from office.’
‘I see.’
‘Some Yahvi Kothari,’ Nihira said. Garv froze for a second before recovering quickly and turning the key one last time. The news left him numb.

~

The excerpt is not enough, we know. Cross Your Heart, Take My Name will keep you racing through the pages.

 

 

 

 

 

What is the BJP’s economic ideology?

Posted on by sanjeeta

Narendra Modi has been a hundred years in the making. Vinay Sitapati’s Jugalbandi provides this backstory to his current dominance in Indian politics. It begins with the creation of Hindu nationalism as a response to British-induced elections in the 1920s, moves on to the formation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980, and ends with its first national government, from 1998 to 2004. And it follows this journey through the entangled lives of its founding jugalbandi: Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani.

 

Here is an excerpt from the book that talks about BJP’s economic ideology.

 

Balraj Madhok was not the only one within his party critiquing state controls of the economy. By 1970, the economist Subramanian Swamy had been influenced enough by opposition leader Jayaprakash Narayan to give up a faculty position at Harvard University, and return to India. His essay in favour of India acquiring a nuclear bomb impressed the Hindu nationalists, for whom this had been an ideologic fixture. Just thirty one years of age at the time, Swamy says he soon became beloved of the RSS, and was asked to draft an economic plan for the Jana Sangh. His plan envisaged a reduction in state controls, but in a nod to the party’s indigenous hankerings, was called the ‘Swadeshi’ plan. In these early years, Vajpayee and Swamy were not the antagonists they would later become; it was Vajpayee who first taught the ‘foreign educated’ Swamy to wear a dhoti. Swamy remembers: ‘In 1970 and [the] first quarter of 1971, Vajpayee couldn’t spend one day without calling me. He was living in 1 Feroze Shah Road. Mrs Kaul also liked me, because she was thinking, “Since he is from the West, he will understand our relationship.”’ But Swamy’s rapid rise began to threaten a Vajpayee who was still consolidating his grip over the party. Vajpayee’s insecurities were heightened by Swamy’s tendency to speak rashly and promote himself relentlessly.
Yet another factor pushing the Jana Sangh in favour of a strong line against Indira’s socialism were the Bombay-based industrialists who were now funding the party. They were culturally and financially unlike the shopkeepers and traders (and even Rajmata Scindia) who had funded the party in the 1960s. They were against Indira Gandhi’s economics, and had read the 1967 elections as heralding the Jana Sangh as a national alternative to the Congress. These Bombay corporates were, however, motivated by self-interest rather than principle. While supporting free enterprise for domestic entrepreneurs like themselves, they lobbied to keep the external controls that prevented multinationals from entering.

The credit for bringing these Bombay businessmen into contact with the northern Indian Jana Sangh lay with Chandikadas Amritrao ‘Nanaji’ Deshmukh, the incorruptible treasurer of the Jana Sangh. His legend was built on relentless pursuit of lucre for the party, including running on foot after a horse-riding prince to entice him to give money. Nanaji was also uncommonly honest, so much so that the party would send him alone to collect money. ‘After him, two people go now. To make sure,’ N.M. Ghatate says. ‘[But] with Nanaji there was never any doubt.’ Through the early 1970s, Nanaji cultivated the Tatas, Mafatlals and other industrial houses. He also got to know R.V. Pandit. Pandit would himself part with much money for the party—cheque only, since he was against black money—and would become one of Vajpayee and Advani’s closest friends. ‘I used to give the cheque directly to Advaniji and Atalji and George and Jaswant,’ Pandit says, providing his bank statements as evidence for this. Of all these patrician industrialists who gave money to the party, the most prominent was also the most unusual. At the time one of the richest groups in India, the Wadias were Parsis who had made their money during colonial rule. Their flagship Bombay Dyeing textiles was a household name. The scion of the Wadia group, Nusli, wasn’t just uncommonly rich, he was also the grandson of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The founder of Pakistan had disinherited his daughter Dina when she had married the non-Muslim Neville Wadia. When partition came, Jinnah had moved to Pakistan, leaving behind Dina and grandson Nusli. ‘As long as Nusli’s father was alive he forbade him from politics,’ a friend of Nusli Wadia says. ‘Basically, he [Nusli’s father] felt that one politician in the family had caused enough problems. But once he died, Nusli began links with [the] Jana Sangh.’ Nusli Wadia became acquainted with Nanaji in the late 1960s when they were introduced by a businessman friend. It was Nusli who then introduced Nanaji to J.R.D. Tata. And by the 1970s, Jinnah’s grandson was funding large parts of the Jana Sangh. One illustration provides a sense of his influence.

Based on private papers, party documents, newspapers and over two hundred interviews, this is a must-read for those interested in the ideology that now rules India.

 

What would you include in the menu of your life?

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

50 Toughest Questions of Life invites people to have a conversation about themselves with themselves. Deepak Ramola’s quest began after he was inspired by the life lesson of a young girl who said, ‘Life is not about giving easy answers, but answering tough questions.’ Over the years, Ramola has amassed life lessons from inspirational sources across the world: from the women of the Maasai tribe to young girls in Afghanistan and sex workers in Kamathipura; from the lessons of earthquake survivors in Nepal to Syrian refugees in Europe, among many more. The book is a collection of fifty such questions that made him pause, along with a bouquet of answers, anecdotes, stories and notes from his journey of teaching human wisdom for a decade.

From these strikingly fresh, tender yet searing questions, we are bringing you one that made us pause and reflect on our lives and how we could lead it more meaningfully.

 

**

If you could design a menu for your life, what all would it include?

Every time I ask someone this question, two things happen: First, a smile breaks out on their face, and second, they ask me to break it down further and explain.

It’s quite simple, though: If you could curate a metaphoric menu for your life, what all would you include? What would brighten your breakfast, what would you have for lunch, what would dinner be, and, finally, what would dessert comprise of? You guessed right—I am not talking about food here.

I ask this question as an exercise to look for what is most important to you. What truly matters and what can you have more of?

Meaningful conversations, poetry, time with my kind of humans, writing or being in the back seat of a car, listening to a favourite music playlist—all these things soothe my soul. Therefore, the menu of my life would include some soulful personal time at the start of the day, lunch would comprise conversations with people I love, dinner would be peppered with poetry recitals, and dessert would sweeten the deal with a long solitary walk or a quick drive on empty roads with a loved one.

front cover of 50 Toughest Questions of Life
50 Toughest Questions of Life || Deepak Ramola

 

Swimming in the morning, sunbathing, drinking a cup of tea with my grandfather, reading a nice book, meditating, taking short naps, long walks, cooking for the family, daydreaming, playing a game of cards, writing letters, receiving handwritten letters, chatting with my partner, wine tasting, hanging out with friends, watching a gripping movie on the Internet—these are the responses I get from people when I ask them what is on their life’s menu.

Only when you filter the best in your life, take note of its worthiness, can you truly encourage yourself to let go of what doesn’t serve you anymore, or as Marie Kondo, the Japanese tidying expert, says ‘doesn’t spark joy in you’. The question of deciding your menu is an act of gratitude for what exists, and it helps you realize that certain nights should be full of more than the usual. Some days leave you only when you hum your favourite songs as a lullaby or let an old tune fill up the silence. Or you reflect back to the glory of old memories with close ones in full force. A conventional curation runs the risk of making a new ‘hello’ taste drab in the mouth of adventure, while ‘goodbyes’ will undermine the potential of all that you should hold on to. So think aloud and wild.

You know, if I could sit down with you in a café that has white wooden chairs, green walls and small plants cupped in recycled glass bottles, I would tell you that the universe is ready to deliver. It’s you who hasn’t placed the order as yet. And to do so, you often have to ask for a menu or create your own. Weigh your options, see through your choices. You are worthy of being coddled. So sit back in a sunlit patch of your room. Unbutton your happiness. Create your menu. This time!

Your heart, my love, is hungry.

**

 

A reckoning with humanity: The Homecoming and Other Stories

Posted on by ashmita

Sri M’s writings are not concerned with doctrinal teaching; instead, they explore the core of humanity, looking at the nurturing dimension of spirituality. Get a glimpse into his captivating new book The Homecoming and Other Stories with this excerpt.

 

~

 

The well-built, curly haired young man of medium height, dressed in blue jeans, red T-shirt and brown ankle boots, carried only one piece of luggage—a small-sized, glossy black Ecolac briefcase.

Krishna, with his twenty years of experience as a licensed porter at the Bengaluru City railway station and given to watching all kinds of people with all kinds of luggage, noticed that not once since he had entered the platform had the young man put down the briefcase. Unusual, because from the way he carried it there was little doubt in Krishna’s mind that the briefcase, though small, might be heavy.

‘Gold ornaments, may be even gold biscuits,’ Krishna said to himself. He had carried what he guessed was gold many times. Bangaru Chetty, the well-known jeweller, always engaged him to carry his luggage. Chetty trusted him.

Trust. A lot of people trusted him but what had he gained? Nothing.

He rubbed his fingers across the brass badge pinned to his red T-shirt which proclaimed that he was a licensed porter, licensed to carry other people’s luggage all his life, while he himself possessed nothing other than life’s burdens: a heavy load which he knew no one else would care to share. So much for trust and honesty.

Krishna wasn’t the type who coveted someone else’s property but under the prevailing circumstances, in sheer desperation, he was willing to deviate from the principled life he had led thus far. What had his high principles given him, as his wife once said, ‘except poverty, misfortune and eternal sorrow?’

Excerpt from The Homecoming and Other Stories
The Homecoming and Other Stories||Sri M

‘Just this once,’ he said to himself. ‘Let me give it a try. Must be a smuggler. The loss would be nothing to him.’

The station was crowded. Armed policemen stood outside a special coach of the Chennai Mail, guarding some politician, an ex-minister of Tamil Nadu who, for some strange reason, had decided not to spend the taxpayer’s money flying and go by train.

Krishna steadied his nerves with great effort and walked up to the young man with the  briefcase who was standing outside the second-class sleeper coach adjoining the minister’s VIP coach. Hardly ten minutes left for the train to start and he was still outside. Perhaps waiting for someone.

‘Porter, sir?’ said Krishna and gestured towards the briefcase.

The young man said, ‘No,’ and turned his face away.

Under normal circumstances, Krishna would have gone and found another traveller but that day he just stood beside the news-stand nearby absorbed in his own thoughts.

‘Krishna,’ he said to himself ‘You are not made out for that kind of stuff, see? You certainly can’t snatch the briefcase and run. Crime is not your cup of tea. You can’t do it. So, suffer. Be an honest man . . .’

…By now the train had gathered speed and had moved out of the platform. The ticket collector was at the other end and no one else seemed to give any serious attention to his movements. Taking advantage, Krishna jumped out of the train, adjusting his gait to avoid falling…He stood still for a while, briefcase in his hand, taking stock of the situation. It was clear that he couldn’t walk out of there or go home carrying an elegant, new briefcase. He would have to transfer the contents into his old worn-out airbag in which he carried his uniform and lunch-box every morning when he came to the station…He collected the bag from the shelf and walked back to the shed to collect the briefcase, which was locked, just as he had expected it to be. He decided to break it open after going

home, if it could somehow be fitted into the bag.

…He pushed open the door and went in. Apart from the tiny kitchen there were only two rooms. In one of them was an old hand-operating sewing machine his nineteen-yearold daughter used to earn a few rupees doing simple stitching and mending jobs for the neighbours. She had fallen asleep on a floor mat, waiting for him. Beside her was his dinner: Ragi balls, beans curry and tamarind chutney. Meenakshi was smiling in her sleep. Her dream world was perhaps happier than the real world he had brought her into. Tears came rolling down his eyes as he saw her torn skirt, plastic bangles and imitation gold earrings. Perhaps it would all change now. How lovely she would look with real gold ornaments! He was hungry but decided to eat later. First, he had to open the briefcase and he had better do it without waking them up. There was no light in the other room where Ambuja, his wife, seemed to be sleeping soundly, thanks to the sleeping tablets he had managed to get her in the morning. Carrying the briefcase, he tiptoed into the tiny kitchen. The electric light wasn’t working because the bulb had popped. He lit the kerosene lamp, softly pushed the door shut and sat on the floor. Holding the briefcase in his lap he examined the locks, trying to figure out the best way to pry them open with the least noise. That was when he heard the peculiar ticking sound coming from inside the briefcase. What happened next took only a split second. A fire-orange, dazzling flash, followed by an ear-splitting blast! Krishna couldn’t complete the scream that rose in his throat.

 

The same night, just as the train moved out of the station, the young man emerged from the canteen, walked up to the public telephone booth and dialled his boss’s number. ‘Okay sir, all done. Too much security for the minister, sir. Didn’t want to risk getting caught, so planted the briefcase in the next compartment. Range more than enough, sir.’ ‘Thank you, goodbye,’ said the man on the other side and hung up. Then with a smile on his lips, he poured himself a peg of Old Monk rum and drank it up straight, celebrating in advance the death of Enemy Number One.

 

~

 

The Homecoming and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Sri M that explore the impact of human behaviour and the nuances of spirituality.

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