The Green Button – A Short Story

Peter wondered what would happen if he pressed the green button on the device he held in his hand right now. Sally & Ron egged him on to do it but those dumb wits were not in their right senses. Sometimes, in their line of work, extraordinary amounts of patience and character was required. Successes were rare and failure a constant companion. So it was not uncommon for their small group of archaeologists, who were stranded in a deep cave, to have some marijuana to while away their time as they waited to be rescued. And Peter, Sally & Ron were a breed of customers who the peddlers would tumble over to keep happy for their personal business benefits.

Peter had allowed himself to refuse another joint to which Sally & Ron happily obliged. As his head cleared, he took stock of his surroundings and his curiosity instinct took over. It had been three days since

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Private India – Book Review

Book Title: Private India

Author: Ashwin Sanghi

Approx Leisure Read Time: 280 – 320 min

Review:  I have never read a Private’s series book before, so I accepted this book without any pre-conceived notions or expectations. Since I had read all of Ashwin Sanghi’s previous books, I was sure of one thing; that it would be a Page Turner. And I wasn’t disappointed. But writing a review of a thriller book is somewhat tricky. One can’t reveal too much and without revealing a little, a book review doesn’t make much sense. I will try to do justice. Let’s see. Onto the review.

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Business Doctors – Book Review

Book Title: Business Doctors

Author: Sameer Kamat. He is the founder of an MBA Admissions Consulting firm and a site about Getting published in India.

Approx Leisure Read Time: 220 – 260 min

Review:  I came across this book by chance. The author contacted me through Goodreads.com and sent across the book. You see, that got me excited about this experience. But I hope that excitement and enthusiasm will not affect my review of the book. So let’s jump straight to it.

The book’s title Business Doctors is quite an unusual term to represent a management consultant, but that’s what the one of the crime bosses of California’s underworld, Mr Woody calls them. The crime boss is in deep trouble. The crime business empire built over three generations that he inherited is in ruins. His lieutenants who have handled his various businesses since his father’s time ironically have no idea what’s going wrong. His hot trophy wife Angie suggests him to bring in the experts. That’s when he calls in, Business Doctors.

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Be The Master Of Your Life Choices

Is man supposed to be focused on only one task in his lifetime? Can’t he become an artist & a poet? Can’t he be a writer/blogger and a photographer? Can’t he be a salesman and an accountant? Why have we compartmentalized different skill-set and expertise to such an extent that mastering one is enough. Why have we restricted ourselves to only one domain in our entire lifetime? Cant an economist take up, lets say, brand marketing as his next switch?

Our society has been structured in such a way that pursuit of money or materialistic possessions has become the numero-uno goal in everyone’s life. Success is being measured in monetary terms. So there is a mind-block somewhere that once you spent years in a sales domain selling things, you can’t switch to a research role. Ok, one can, but then he has to take a cut in his current earnings. Majority of us are in our comfort zones and are scared to take that leap of faith or in other terms risk. There are the adventurous few who do that and even if they struggle a bit initially, they are happy they improved and learned new skills. But may be the pull of family responsibilities or just the scare of moving out of comfort zones pulls one down in exploring other things in life.

There is another angle to this line of thought that has been developing in my mind. A person can be multi-talented and just because world acknowledges one of the talents doesn’t mean you should stop exploring others. After all, developing skills in different domains is for pursuit of satisfaction and happiness. No doubt that if one of them is appreciated, we tend to focus on them more. But neglecting others is like giving the power of control to the world. World suddenly is deciding what you should do. Leonardo Da Vinci was a master artist. But he was also a futuristic dreamer and a scientist. He is more renowned for his paintings than his scientific advances (oh I may be wrong though). Anyways, my point is Success is when one is happy doing what he wants. If world also acknowledges your talent in that domain, fine, if not, you are still happy. Don’t make the world choose your profession for you.

Whatever be it, its your choice. Play by the rules for a stable life or play the rules for an adventurous life. Both can be utterly satisfying in their own way. So make your choice and sit tight for the ride…

What Defines Him?

Feelings are what drives him. Passion is what drives those feelings. Ambition is what generates the passion. Stretch goals is what fuels that ambition…

The sense of achieving something overrides his every sense, filling every fibre of his body with an urgency of purpose that is so unsettling; only perfection will soothe the ache, the thirst, the longing. Working on his laptop in a small corner cubicle his calm exterior doesn’t give a hint of the fire within, the flame that engulfs him and his every action. Only thing that is visible to his coworkers, friends and relatives is his passion, creativity and enthusiasm.

He doesn’t sleep sound every night. His mind constantly works on trying to simplify things, perfect them. He tries to evaluate everything objectively, but subjectivity does creep in. He tries to live a righteous life, but unfairness does creep in. He fights a battle internally to tame his mind to think rationally, but irrationality does creep in. He has his mood swings, but that is just a fallout of those mind battles. He feels exhausted mentally. He could take it easy and slacken a bit. He does occasionally enjoy the little pleasures of life, but he doesn’t let it take his sight away from his ambitions and goals. The flame within burns continuously, egging him, driving him, defining him!

Guy Next Door

He just feels like climbing the nearest mountain, reaching the top, going to the edge and screaming his loudest for as long as he could. He wants to go and cry his heart out in a place as deathly quiet as the graveyard till he is completely dry inside. He wants to drink the strongest alcohol there is, till the end of the world so his insides would burn brighter than hell. But he hasn’t lost hope completely. No, not at least yet.

He is not what the world expects him to be; what it perceives him to be. And even if he becomes that, world will still not accept him. He is the Outcast. He is the one who doesn’t fit the norm. His thoughts are too piercing and brutally honest. But he fears the unknown just like the others, Ah, he is courageous enough to at least try to face them.

He too has seen lot of failure, but none had caused him as much grief as the last one. This one almost broke him up. But he is still on that edge, shouting; still in that graveyard, crying; still at that bar counter, drinking, but only just, only just. He still has that last ounce of hope and courage to get up and try once more. May be not for himself, but for an iota of acceptance in this world, which churns out heart wrenching quotes about appreciating the quality of life, but doesn’t itself appreciate it and keeps running faster and faster. Well if this guy can…

Story Plots are getting more involving

Today after I finished watching the season 3 episode 7 of Game of Thrones, I was thinking, it is the third season and still the story doesn’t have seemed to moved ahead much considering what can happen in three seasons in other TV series. I know this series is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of high fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin. I haven’t read those and would rather prefer to enjoy the TV series this one time. But this is the background noise. What I wanted to talk about is that it struck me that the story plots that I have come across in recent years, Lord Of the Rings, Harry Potter universe, or even the Christopher Paolini’s Dragon riders universe; all of them are very elaborate in nature of the plot and deeply and minutely painted. These stories present the situations from different character perspectives and that’s what makes them more accepting.

I always had a notion of stories being biased from the perspective of the one character, what that character thinks or how it reacts as the plots of the story progresses. But the stories that I recently have come across as mentioned above, though do have their fair bit of biasness (my heart goes out for the Stark family still and then that Targaryen widow queen from the east), does more justice and brings a balance to the story as a whole and lets the readers decide on their own perspectives. Now that’s choice. And freedom of choice is what I like. Mmmm..

What are your thoughts?

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Approx Leisure Read Time: 300 – 340 min

Review: This is the second book of Ravi Subramanium I have picked up to read, the first being, If God was a Banker (May do its review someday). Devil in Pinstripes is a brainy piece of art. The book has office politics, groupism, powerplay, moles in other departments and favouritism in a banking environment. It is a refreshing story, away from all the love and masala type plots by Indian authors, though sometimes I got the feeling as if I was back into his other book I have read. And this is author’s just third attempt at writing. Without further ado, lets delve deeper into the book.

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