Scribble Shiva

It doesn't have to be crazy at work, is the book with that title. The title is almost clickbait, but the gist is printed straight up on the cover of the book; they didn't even wait for the blurb. Jason Fried, the CEO and David Heinemeier Hansson, the CTO of 37Signals (formerly Basecamp) co-authored this book. This book was gifted to me by whom I'd consider to be a mentor because he caught me working "crazy at work", it is rare to see such people who are more inclined to see you as a person instead of a number, he seemed to have taken guidelines from this book to heart, and I'd say it is a good change in this cut-throat corporate. This is yet another book discussion, it is almost as if I am picking books to only learn and not review them; I'm not a reviewer, and I do not have any affiliate account setup that will earn me commission; I'm just going to discuss the ideas that I grasp from the books I read, on to the book The book is about how crazy the wor...

This is not a book review, rather a discussion or an elaboration of what I understood from this book. The author, Gurcharan Das starts by claiming that his path to this book was rather unintentional since he was only trying to settle into his " Vanaprastha " life. He discusses the  goals of life and how every stage of life connects with many goals at the same time. Head on from chapter 1, we dive into the core of the book, "Dharma" the main goal of a good life well-lived apart from 'Moksha'. The best thing about the book is that the chapters are arranged such that Mahabharata's chronological narration is undisturbed, chapters are character-centric and thus dharma is approached from various points of view and Mr. Das never stops throwing questions at us and subtly answering them.  This book could not have come to me at a better time, I considered it non-intrusive advice from an elderly vanaprastha. The sub-text gives away the plot, almost, "The subt...

I am a straight talker, I proudly wear it on my shoulder. I like it when people can trust my words and identifies me as a person who "talk the talk, walk the walk". A year ago someone in my workplace told me that I should work on being diplomatic since direct communication might hurt relationships. As much as I'd like to argue that I'm not looking for long term friendship in office and I'm here to complete my task, as I level up in the ladder, my vantage point changes and so does my perspective about the workplace communication. Now I find myself in a place where I have to communicate more, about the same thing to multiple stakeholders with different level of business and technical knowledge. It is getting increasingly difficult to continue being 'the straight talker', which I regarded highly in the past. Sometimes it is not just about knowledge of the audience, it is more about the style of communication. I'm Indian, and my domicile has not changed si...

Its been long since I blogged about a book or read any book worth blogging. As it happened, a book club was formed in our office and nominations for your book were given and voted. As fate would have it the book I voted came on top and I was nominated as one of the facilitators to summarize the book for our office audience so they can dwell deeper it they like it. "The Power of Habit", I voted for this book in hopes that it would help me create the habit of waking up early and change my YouTube watching habit. Turned out to be a good choice, I enjoyed this book as much as I'd enjoy a well written fiction! Summary: Any Habit can be better understood when looked through The Habit loop: Cue > Routine > Reward. Cue triggers the habit, Routine is the action performed and Reward satisfies your craving . Habits automates our brain, so we need not concentrate on every aspect of a repetitive action : we are not thinking hard on the route to take, traffic, rules to foll...

I'm crossing off the long pending, strongly recommended book 'Freakonomics' from my 'Books to read' list. This book was first published in 2005, in the sense its published a decade ago and I still find the content fresh and very much related. I pick books after reading blurb, then I will choose to read if I find the preface and introduction interesting. I found this book to be unique at every level. 'The book doesn't carry any unifying theme' which is repeatedly accepted and quoted in the book which I find awkward. But Why should one have an unifying theme? because every other book has one. Both the question and answer is present in the book itself, such is the book. It is fulled with questions that are not asked by everyone and statistical answers (not empirical), this will amaze the ordinary being, as Mr. Confusion I found them legit. The book is actually collection of papers by Steven D. Levitt, economist, it is co-authored by Stephen J Dubner ...

Shiva Trilogy – Tells all the mythologies we already know and poorly explains way that all are humans – what else can you expect from an atheist. Yes Amish Tripathi as we know is not a spiritual guy, he was an atheist but grew faith as he wrote book – an absolute marketing stunt. Thus Lord Shiva smokes marijuana/chillum/meth/ganja or in whichever term you want to identify tobacco. Poor Millennial crowd caught the least message drew tattoo and smoked marijuana. Coming to this book by reading the title I was sure that Vayuputras will have a great role to play in this last book but just one man from their tribe did and we know him by the name Shiva all along. Starting the review with so much negativity gives away all the content that will follow so let’s not do that. Oath of Vayuputras - this time arrow was of use Zipped Plot: Nagas guides Shiva to Vasudevs place, they all join together. Branga, Kashi also forms alliance with Shiva. Shiva sends his sons to conquer Ayodhya; the...

Amish Tripathi , banker turned self-proclaimed successful author’s second book in the Shiva Trilogy is ‘ The Secret of Nagas ’. The book starts with where it left of in first part where a Naga attacks Sati , the wife of protagonist Shiva aka Neelakanth . Then proceeds to reveal the secret about Nagas and secret that Naga themselves guards, and then secret about evil. The Secret of Nagas - Book Cover Content Setting: Upon defeating Ayodhyans of Chandravarshini clan Shiva realizes that they are not evil just that they are different, and Suryavarshinis have misunderstood and Shiva was mis-guided from there on. This makes Shiva to come to a decision that he’d travel to meet every tribe in India to learn who is good, who is evil. He also wishes to meet other tribes who are neither Suryavarshini n or Chandravarshini and for now convinced that Nagas are the source of evil. Plot Summary: Since the book had been around for long, I hope this will not be a spoiler. Shiva with his cl...

Though tagged under review I’m going to try and bring the essence of the book, in no means I have the guts to write a review on a book that’s written on/by Dr APJ Adbul Kalam. Unlike regular biographies the book is filled with information and facts on Indian Space research straight from Dr Kalam’s diary, has very limited information on his personal life. From Preface of the book, we can understand Mr Arun Tiwari co-author of this book had brought up this idea to write a book and put it work. The book is organized in seven sections but the core content is put inside 4 sections – Orientation, Creation, Propitiation, and Contemplation. While the rest cover how and why this book formed and what it intends to convey. Dr Kalam being a spiritual person has quoted poems and lines from the Quran throughout the book. Orientation starts with the birth of the legend Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam in Rameswaram to Ashiaamma and Jainulabdeen, Dr.Kalam’s father is a humble boat owner a...

I don’t do it intentionally but I stand different from my friends when it comes to choosing genres, while they pick action, thriller, horror or romance I stay put with drama, love, comedy and inspiration. While the words ‘choosing genre’ remains vague and open so does the medium I’d be using, could be movie or book or TV show. Somehow at least one of my choices matches with the book collection in library or Books24X7 and I start reading them when I get free time. Though the busiest work life has been and is the last 2 months it has not stopped me from reading books. Have a nice conflict & FISH are the ones that I recently completed. I don’t wanna talk about ‘The Alchemist’ which I read cover to cover cause of honor and appreciation received by the book from multiple sources, of course it had the juice but not enough to be rated as that, in my humble opinion it is overrated. Talking about the last two motivation/personality development books that I read, they both are fables tal...

Who moved my cheese by Spencer Johnson, a fable written to stress on coping with changes. The book's blurb claims that a manager read the book had distributed it to every fellow in the organization, wow!this book must be great. The books has one message 'Changes will be there and you have to cope with them' though for a little fable this message is good enough. The book starts with a get-together of old friends, where one starts talking about this fable which inspired him and many in his office, sooner the eager friends wants to hear the story too. So they all sit together and listen to the story at the end they discuss the above mentioned message again via the characters in the story. Story line: There is a big maze for finding cheese(success), 4 characters are in the maze: 2 mouse Sniff and Scurry, 2 little men Ham and Hew. Everyday they have to run for their cheese, one day they find surplus supply in a station(ref. this a position in real life) little men dec...

The Book I read just is Sari and Sins by Nisha Minhas give to my mom she'd rate is 'X' not even 'A' :P If I can have a conversation with author I would have asked her to concentrate on plot rather than lobbying around $#X. The blurb read 'Romantic comedy, Western Vs Indian Clash' I never thought the debate would strickly end in dress, $#X; marriage dress was discussed but not marriage! love was never discussed sometimes repeated mentioning of lovemaking made blood clot; Author was so much interested in $#X she can't control herself from writing twice or even only about $#X in every chapter. Condensed plot: Samir, Indian boy marries Kareena but he is in love with Cloey; Cloey left her boyfriend Jordan (convit) to live with Samir(richie-rich) but she tells both the men as the other one always abused her for sympathy. Meanwhile Jordan released from jail finds Coley living with Samir and somehow steadies his ship and finds his love Zara. Now Coley robs ...

I never comment about his attitude or his grin face very ill tempered guy… no one wants to mess with him. He was breathing heavy probably he just battled out someone near our lake’s bank or was he resting after his regular practice. Why does the blood stains are still there in his sword probably he just put few life to end, just before I could ask him to wash them we heard some announcement deep from Manasarowar. Couple of strangers were using some bizarre tools to shout, actually they are inviting us to their town. I wanted to warn of letting strangers inside village but Shiva had other ideas, he was sure they are not part of local barbaric tribes. May be our ancestors mustn’t have allowed other tribes to fetch water from the holy lake, their thirst was for blood not water. I thought he can discuss about foreigners to him but he was so depressed about next barbaric attack from local tribes. Before dusk another attack we were not able to prevent the murder of kids and women. Ruthl...