A Book is something which involves a raw effort from the writer until it sees the light of the day.It is really easy to lay in your bed read the book and make a comment.
There are two schools of thought. 1) Either you do it better or shut up. 2) You don't need to be the best chef in town to say if it was bit of pepper or salt that made it miserable.As of now I follow the second one.
One of my uncle told to me to read World classics just to have a taste of it. He gave me a list. Well , I bought this book - Crime and Punishment by Russian authorFyodor Dostoevsky.
- may be i am dumb - may be i am blind - may be i don't know how to read - may be i lack something - that the whole other human have ?
But my question why on earth i should call this as a world classic? Describing the pranks of an abnormal man with abnormal fantasies will help something to be a world classic? I don't understand? If anyone know how to explain this better , try me?
Three mistakes in my life. Not quiet auspicious for a name. A tale of three friends. When I read something I used to get something few words or few sentences that I want to type somewhere so that I won’t forget it. Something new, or something unknown to me or something that makes me happy etc. You know that is the only purpose of reading something. You should justify the time you spent on something. Somehow this book doesn’t have it.
It looks like Chetan has got in to pattern where a romantic couple is in the main thread of story and they make passionate love. And, yea it succeeds in its purpose. What else? Nothing more about this.
Pasting the Synopsis from the official website.
“In late-2000, a young boy in Ahmedabad called Govind dreamt of having a business. To accommodate his friends Ish and Omi's passion, they open a cricket shop. Govind's wants to make money and thinks big. Ish is all about nurturing Ali, the batsman with a rare gift. Omi knows his limited capabilities and just wants to be with his friends. However, nothing comes easy in a turbulent city. To realize their goals, they will have to face it all - religious politics, earthquakes, riots, unacceptable love and above all, their own mistakes.”
The way Chetan made different characters was really good.
If we just think their name we could visualize them.
There is something really funny in Acknowledgements:
“On the same note, I want to thank all woman who rejected me; too many to name here. Without them, I would not have known the pain of rejection”. (xii)
But even after working in a technical support center for one year, I feel that his idea of night in call center is not real and it is distorted.
I could not digest the idea of God calling and all but the concepts he try to convey were nice.
And I feel the way the author presented average American was really pathetic.
Yea, it is true there are some dumb in many.
If you look at stats Indians are not going to be different.
Even I had personal experiences with those type of people, you cannot say they all are dumbs.
What if tomorrow some call center agents from other countries portrait Indians in the same way?
I got this book from one of my friend who was never an avid reader.
I never knew who this Chetan bhagat is.
After starting reading it I was so immersed in it and I could get up only after finishing it.
This book made huge influence in my reading habit. This made me rejuvenate reading as a passion than mere habit.
If you can have a scale of 5, I don’t mind giving a 10 for this.
Let me paste the Synopsis from the Official website.
“Five Point Someone is a story about three friends in IIT who are unable to cope.
The book starts with a disclaimer, "This is not a book to teach you how to get into IIT or even how to live in college. In fact, it describes how screwed up things can get if you don't think straight."
Three hostelmates - Alok, Hari and Ryan get off to a bad start in IIT - they screw up the first class quiz. And while they try to make amends, things only get worse. It takes them a while to realize: If you try and screw with the IIT system, it comes back to double screw you. Before they know it, they are at the lowest echelons of IIT society. They have a five-point-something GPA out of ten, ranking near the end of their class. This GPA is a tattoo that will remain with them, and come in the way of anything else that matters - their friendship, their future, their love life. While the world expects IITians to conquer the world, these guys are struggling to survive. “
I got this book from my Brothers shelf. It was old, dusty. I took it partially because of an interesting name and the way this guy sat on the chair itself say a lot of stories. After checking the year of edition I found that this book is as old as me.
Anyway I must say that this is one of my favorite books by the time I finished it. What you say? Roller Coaster Ride? May be not enough. You can roughly say that it is like reading the script of Hollywood action blockbuster. If you are a MBA aspirant, perhaps you may consider opting out of study and then start a business. And at the same time you realize that an MBA degree alone make a successful business man. Not every successful businessman is MBA holder or all MBA holders are successful business men. There is only one thing that makes a business man. Raw guts with common sense.
Let me Paste some things I never want to forget from this book.
1. There are times in everyone’s life when something constructive is born out of adversity. There are times when things seem so bad that you have got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it. (xv) 2. Our family was so close; it sometimes felt as if we were one person with four parts. (3) 3. “You have got to accept a little sorrow in life”, he would tell me when I was upset about a bad grade in school or some other disappointment.” You will never know what happiness is unless you have something to compare it to”. During hard times , he was always optimist.” Just wait”, he would tell me whenever things looked bleak, “the sun is gonna come out. It always does”. (11)
4. If you really want to be a waitress, then you should work at being the best damn waitress in the world. Otherwise, find yourself another line of work. 5. I learned something from that crisis that has stayed with me ever since: it often takes a shot of adversity to get people to pull together. (19) 6. An important lesson in leadership is that you should know how to shake hands and be friendly with others. (18) 7. By the time I got in to college, I knew how to concentrate and how to study without a radio or other distraction. I used to tell myself: “I am going to give this my best shot for the next three hours. And when those three hours are up, I will set this work aside and go to the movies”. (20) 8. Every Sunday night I get my adrenaline going again by making an outline of what I want to accomplish during the upcoming week. (21) 9. If you want to make good use of your time, you have got to know what is most important and then give it all you have got. Anyone who want to be a problem solver in business has to learn fairly early how to establish priorities. (21) 10. Our assignment was to make a diagnostic analysis of each one in few minutes. As a result of this training , I learned to figure people out pretty quickly. To this day I can usually tell a fair amount about somebody from our first meeting. That is an important skill to have because the most important thing a manger can do is hire the right new people. But there are two really important things about a candidate that you just cant learn from one short job interview. The first is whether he is lazy, and the second is whether he has got any horse sense. There is no qualitative analysis to check out whether he has got some fire in his belly, or whether savvy have or street smarts- when it comes to decision making time. I wish there are some kind of machine that would measure these traits, because they are the ones that separate the men from the boys. (24) 11. Charlie Beacham was the closest thing I have ever had to a mentor.(37) 12. McNamara taught me never to make a major decision without having a choice of at least vanilla or chocolate. And if more than a hundred million dollars were at stake, it was a good idea to have strawberry, too.(45) 13. But there is something about putting your thoughts on paper that forces you to get down to specifics. That way it is harder to deceive yourself or anybody else. (50) 14. Management is nothing more than motivating other people. 15. people who visit my office at Chyrsler are often surprised that I don’t have a computer terminal at my desk. May be they forget the fact that everything that comes out of a computer , somebody has to put it in. (63) 16. The key to success is not information. It is people. (64) 17. I have always believed that every operation in c car company could be measured in terms of its profitability. (99) 18. Hal Sperlich is one of those Detroit types about whom people say: “He has got gasoline in his veins”. (128) 19. The Fiesta was his greatest coup, but almost everything he touched tuned in to gold. (129) 20. He tore me up inside. He tore up my wife and my kids. (131) 21. They say that the bigger you are the harder you fall. (136) 22. My father used to say that when you die, if you have got five real friends, you have had a great life. (137) 23. When the times are tough there is no choice except to take a deep breath, carry on, and do the best you can. (149) 24. John Riccardo and his wife, Thelma were two of the finest people I have ever met. Unfortunately the crisis at Chrysler was so severe that I never really got to know them. But one thing was perfectly clear. John was sacrificing himself to save the company. He was over his head and he knew it. Although it meant the end of his own career, he bent over backward to make sure that the transition would go as smoothly as possible. He blew himself out of the water to bring Chrysler back to life. And this is the test of real hero. 25. Nobody at Chrysler seemed to understand that interaction among the different functions in a company is absolutely critical. People in engineering and manufacturing almost have to be sleeping together. These guys were not even flirting. 26. That meant they were dealing with day to day crises always focusing on next month instead of next year. 27. In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people , product, and profits. People comes first. Unless you have got a good team you cannot do much with the other two. 28. Style and value for money are what sells the cars, but quality is what keeps them sold. 29. If everyone is suffering equally, you can move a mountain. 30. I talked tough to them. “Hey, Boys”, I said. I have got a shotgun at your head. I have got thousands of jobs available at seventeen bucks an hour. I have got none at twenty. So you better come to your senses.” (245) 31. It was one of the shortest speeches I have ever given: “You have got until tomorrow morning to take a decision. If you don’t help me out, I m going to blow your brains out. I will declare bankruptcy in the morning and you will be out of work. You have got eight hours to make up your minds. It is up to you. (245) 32. Few taglines : If you buy a car without considering Chrysler , that will be too bad – for both of us. You can go with Chrysler or you can go with someone else and take your chances. Let us make America mean something again. If you can find a better car – buy it. (284) 33. I certainly like being recognized for what I have done. But I am always being reminded that my fame has little to do with my accomplishments. (287) 34. If you are not number one you have got to innovate. (297) 35. I guess imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery. (297) 36. Our traffic death rate is 3.15 per 100 million vehicle miles which is the lowest in the world.
This is the first line of Paulo Coelho’s – The Alchemist.
On the cover it is written like –“A magical fable about following your dream”.
The book is about a boy and his dream.
He had a dream about a treasure and he decides to find it out.
He meets a merchant’s daughter who do not know how to read.
He wanted to marry her.
But he realizes that a shepherd cannot marry her.
During his search for treasure he falls in love with another girl.
At first he thinks she is the treasure but later decides to continue his journey.
If you look for something dramatic or colorful like other novels you are reading the wrong book.
The basic concept is that a treasure is assured for everyone in world.
All you have to do is to pick up the clues and omens from the universe.
And you are a part of universal soul.
There will be troubles, challenges. It goes like that.
Nice to read, nice to hear. Difficult to implement.
What I want to paste from this book is:
1. I wanted to sleep longer, he thought. He had the same dream that night as a week ago, and once again he had awakened before it ended. (പ:3)
He tried to get up. It was around 7 am as usual. He felt the familiar magnetic attraction between the steel cot and the shirtless body.
2. The girl was typical of the region of Andalusia, with flowing black hair. (p:5)
She had long curly hair divided in to two- spread over her shoulders, which gave her an instant Jesus Christ look.
3. With the girl with the raven hair, his days would never be the same again. (p:6)
That was a start. As they often say “The world was never same again” for him.
4. Even me—I have not thought of other woman since I met the merchant’s daughter. (p:11)
He never thought of someone in the place of wife.
5. In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the omens. God had prepared a path for everyone to follow. You just have to read the omen that he left to for you. (p:30)
He watched the hawks as they drifted on the wind. Although their flight appeared to have no pattern, it made a certain kind of sense to the boy. He followed the movement of the birds trying to read something into it.
He was looking for answers. Answers from Almighty, answers for him. In search of it, he looked at the sky for some pattern. Tried to read the name of the shops, advertisement captions, and random letters in newspapers hoping for a direction.
6. When you really want something, the universe always conspires in your favor. (p:38)
7. Every blessing ignored will become a curse.
8. “Never stop dreaming”, the old king had said. “Follow the omens.” (p:64)
The most beautiful romantic part in this book is this:
At the moment, it seemed to him that time stood still, and the soul of the world surged within him. When he looked in to her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke – the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pair of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well.
She smiled, and that was certainly an omen—the omen he had been awaiting, without even knowing he was for all his life. The omen he had sought to find with his sheep and his books, in the crystals and in the silence of the desert.
It was the pure language of the world. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at the moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life and that with no need for words she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than anything in the world.
He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way never learned the universal language. Because when you know that language it is easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it is in the middle of desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning. Maktub, thought the boy. (p:97,p: 98)
9. …and realizing that he had loved her before he knew she existed. (p:99)
10. They became friends, and except for the fifteen minutes he spent with her, each day seemed that it would never pass. (p:101)
10. One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving. (p:128)
11. The desert nights were cold, and were becoming darker and darker as the phases of moon passed. (p:131)
They were standing near an open space, where the nature is lavishly painted in green. It was not a rainy season. It was supposed to be a sunny day and cool night. But it was about to rain.
12. There had been times when his heart spent hours telling of its sadness, and at other times it became so emotional.
“It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it’s become passionate over a woman of desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights when I am thinking about her. ” (p:135)
His life became simple and light in one end but more complicated and confusing in the other end. It felt as if something shameful happened to him, but could not identify what it is. Everyday he got up with her thought, finished the work with it, and went to sleep with the same.
Then she started visiting him in dreams
13. Wherever your heart is, that is where you will find your treasure. (p:138)
14. Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him. (p:138)
15. “Why don’t people’s hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?”
“Because that is what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don’t like to suffer.’(p:138).
16. Your eyes show the strength of your soul. (p:143)
17. “So is that love is?”
“Yes that what love is. It is what makes the game become the falcon, the falcon becomes a man, and the man in turn, the desert. It is what turns lead in to gold, and makes the gold return to the earth”
When someone falls in love, he becomes a poet. When he loses it, he becomes a philosopher. When he matures as a philosopher, he becomes a man again.
All the italics in the above text is quoted from my novel posted here.
