Wings Of Fire

Wanted to read 'Wings of fire' since long. Finally on demise of A P J Kalam I read it.

It is a story of a boy born in poor but cultured family who went on to become missile man of India, First Citizen of India, and honored by Bharatratna. A story of a dreamer who worked to realize his dreams. A story about how he overcame difficult time, how he faced failures, how he accepted situations beyond his control and moulded himself, how simple and humble lifestyle he had in spite of achieving great heights in life.

The story is real life version of Alchemist boy, how failures or negative forces helps to realize destiny. whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, its because that the desire originated in the soul of the universe. Its your mission on earth. The soul of the universe is nourished by people’s happiness and also by unhappiness, envy and jealousy. To realize once destiny is a person’s only obligation.

He was Karmayogi. He enjoyed his work. All his life he worked for the betterment of society, not for gaining fame or get positions. His achievements were the outcome of his karma.

One can learn many things from his autobiography. His life and his thoughts are truly inspirational. Must read book. It's a guide to live life.

Rats In Cage

A psychologist named John B Calhoun performed a classic experiment with laboratory rats that demonstrated the territorial urge. He constructed a network of cages containing four pens, two with only one entrance which could be defined by dominant male and two in the middle which were difficult to defend. Two dominant males (with retinue of females) quickly established the desirable pens as their own territory, forcing the rest of the males to live in the central pens. The central pens became overcrowded and the rats fought constantly trying to establish territory. As the overcrowding got worse, so did the rats behavior – they formed gangs and raped, killed and became cannibals.
In their natural state, rats have elaborate courtship rituals and rarely fight to death. Overcrowding had induced anti-social or criminal behavior in the rats.

Isn't that explains human behavior as well? Limited resources inducing anti-social behavior in overcrowded area.

Over population is root cause of many of the problems in India. Isn't it?

Reference - Written In Blood

Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs

The first need is food and water. A hungry or thirsty person will think about little else than finding something to eat and drink. They are not particularly interested in philosophy, music or may be even being nice to other people. But having satisfied the first need, people start thinking about the second need – shelter, a cave or a roof over the head. People search for security. Having achieved a food supply and somewhere to live, their minds turn to third need – love and sense of belonging. Humans are social animals; they need to be with other people. We need to feel loved, we need family and community. The fourth need is esteem – we not only want to belong to a family or community we want to be liked and respected. Fifth need is self-actualisation – the need to understand the world, to create or solve the problems just for fun of it.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs helps explain both altruistic and barbaric behavior in some situations.

My observation is some people can not rise ever... eg. few are stuck with their first need for the entire life even if they get plenty of food they are never satisfied... few get stuck with money (could be esteem as money gets you respect in society) how much ever they earn.

However few even if they have no money no food they have need to seek knowledge about the world and curious about the things around them keep solving the puzzles... few earns money so that they can solve the puzzles about the world and help the other.

So the hierarchy explained by Maslow is common behavior of people but there are exceptions. Everyone has different needs.

Reference - Written In Blood

Revolution 2020

Again a good book by CB although climax is not what reader would want to read. Its makes one sad at the end of the story.

Alchemist - Is it only about following dreams?

Alchemist the amazing book. The author has succeeded to narrate difficult philosophy in very simpler words.
Here is the review about the book:
Review 1 Review 2 Review 3 Review 4

But I guess its more than that, its not only about following the dream. “when you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true.” This is not the only thing the author wants to tell the reader. Its much more than that.

The King Plays major role in Santiago’s life. He helps him to follow his dream when he is about to give up. He advices - Destiny is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, they are not afraid to dream and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny.
It’s a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows how to realize your destiny. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet : whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, its because that the desire originated in the soul of the universe. Its your mission on earth.
The soul of the universe is nourished by people’s happiness and also by unhappiness, envy and jealousy. To realize once destiny is a person’s only obligation. All things are one.

Santiago, the boy, opted to be shepherd because he likes to travel whereas the baker also had wish to travel the world decided first to buy his bakery and put some money aside. The boy never thought of peoples’ mentality of thinking bakers are more important to people than shepherd. He just continued doing what he likes without thinking about society.

The king narrate a story which concludes – the secret of the happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and never to forget the drops of oils on the spoon symbolic to purpose of the life.

We should keep listening to Omen, the good signs to find the treasure, our destiny. One should learn the language of universe for the same.
Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.

The boy works with crystal seller to go back but when he collects enough money to return back he thinks for a moment before returning back and decides to head towards Egypt thinking he is two hrs closer to Egypt. That’s a positive attitude.

The Alchemist tells a story about dream of a father, an angel tells him that the words of one of his sons would be leaned and repeated throughout the world for all the generations to come. He thinks it’s the one who is poet. But it happens to be the one who goes to serve at a distant place. So the story advices, no matter what person does, every person on the earth plays a central role in the history of the world and normally he doesn’t know it.

Where your treasure is, there will be your heart. That means your heart will lead you to the destiny that’s your dream.

The peak of the story is when Santiago wants himself to turn into wind.
The desert creates game to nourish falcon, falcon nourishes man and then man nourishes the desert where the game will once again flourish. That’s what love is. It makes the game become falcon, the falcon become man and man in his turn, the desert.

The alchemist’s secret is – we have inside us the wind, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, everything created in this universe. We all are made by same hands and we have same soul. Hindu Vedas talks about same thing everything is made up of panchamahabhoota (five elements), aap (water), tej (fire), vaayu (wind), pruthvi (earth), akasha (sky) and eventually everything turns to panchamahabhoota.

Its true that everything has its destiny, but one day the destiny will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better and to acquire a new destiny until someday the soul of the world becomes one thing only.
This is why alchemy exists. So that everyone will search for his destiny (the dream, the purpose of his existence), find it and then want to be better than he was in his former life.
Bhagvat Geeta talks the same, The God has created everyone for some purpose. When the purpose is fulfilled the life ends and new life is born. The cycle continues till the soul realizes you are same as that of creator.

Love is the force that transforms and improves the soul of the world.
We think the soul of world is perfect. But its also like other aspects of creation and has its own passions and wars. It’s we who nourish the soul of world. The world we live in will be either better or worse depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where power of love comes in. Because when we love we always strive to become better than what we are.

We should realize we are part of god and we have all the power to perform the miracles. This state is achieved when we see no difference in God and us. That’s what is called as achieving Moksha.

For me moral of the Alchemist is :
Everything is created by same hands with some purpose. We should follow our heart, listen to omen to know and fulfill the purpose our life. We should not fear to realize our destiny. We should spread love because that’s the language of soul of the world which is nourished by all of us. If we want the world to be better we need to be better and love is the force which transforms and improves the soul hence the soul of the world.

2 States – CB did not click this time

Well, I got disappointed with the topic CB chose, one more love story in market. For the people who like love stories might have different opinion and would love to know their views on the book. Its just CB’s writing style compelled me complete the book otherwise it’s pathetic, unrealistic. Its high time CB should write realistic stories.
The only good thing about the book is writing style which has already clicked and only one thought in book, the present generation of India should go for inter cast, interstate, inter religion marriage so that next generation of India will be only Indian.

Once again Chetan Bhagat struck : The 3 mistakes of my life

To me this is the best book Chetan Bhagat have written till now.
As it’s a story of a young man who committed suicide, it’s a tragic story.
As the name suggest its about mistakes the man made in his life, its about business, cricket and religion.
Its about passion, friendship.
You get to know more about Gujrath, thinking style of people in Gujrath, how passionate they are about their religion.
The book narrates the pains the Gujrath had gone through during Bhuj Earthquake, Godhra riots, everything is unimaginable.
I literally cried while reading this book.

More about the book
and More about the author

One Night @ The Call Center

Amazing book by Chetan Bhagat, I liked it more than ‘Five Point Someone’. Most of the people liked ‘Five Point Someone’ than this one.

For me the hero of this book is the activist character Varun known as Vroom in his friend circle. I could relate to this character more as I could see Vroom in me. His thought are very much similar to mine.
The guy earlier used to work as journalist trainee. His famous piece was called ‘Why Don’t Politicians Commit Suicide?’. The article said All kind of people commit suicide – students, housewives, businessmen, even film stars – but politicians never do. Vroom’s point was that Suicide is very horrible think to do and one does only because he is badly hurt. But Politicians don’t do. So basically this country is run by the people who don’t feel anything.
I am amazingly impressed with this thought, till now I never thought of this.
This guy is constantly thinking about how India will overtake US, how the living standards will improve in India and how can I contribute to it.
The guy is confused between how much importance he should give to money.. I mean what he should do just think about earning money or doing something which will help his countrymen.
The author has basically shown the problems faced by Indian youth who have just come out of collages and joined the Industry and facing the life. They have dreams in their eyes but realizing the heat in life. They come across with manager who is a loser and how is he ruining the others life in process of making his own.
There is one more character Shyam who is having affair with Priyanka and is almost about to lose her, rather have lost her but at the end gets her back.
The story talks about friendship.
So the story covers almost all the possible problems that young crowd can face in their life.

The story will sound boring but Chetan Bhagat has written it in such a beautiful and funny way, the story is all about enthusiasm as its about youngsters.

The story gets a little unrealistic when they (people at call center)get call from God and the god tell them the key to success. But the author has mentioned in his prologue and epilogue the objective behind this book is – He wants to write something which tells about present Indian youth, probably he wants to guide them by telling key to success.

Friends, its worth reading this book.
Review of the book