iReview: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Rich Dad Poor Dad is built around a premise that none could possibly disagree with - that it is highly essential to build financial intelligence early in life. The author, Robert Kiyosaki is pretty much convincing in his explanations mostly by comparing the financial dealings of his rich dad & poor dad.  Large part of his recommendations are fundamental financial principles; learn to define assets / liabilities, Increase assets, keep expenses to the minimum, have an alternative source of income, spend on luxuries last and only after  accumulating good amount of assets, and maintain financial discipline. He actively encourages his readers to take actions involving money and investments, also warning that there would be failures along the way, while assuring that it is also how we are programmed to learn. These universal tenants of finance draw little controversy.  However, the methods he suggests adopting in order to amass wealth, is what I am not exactly sure about and that's where the agreement ends. My first problem with the book is that it's way too repetitive & doesn't move on or conclude when the point is already made. It could very well have been wrapped in half the number of pages.  Secondly, the over emphasis on the taxes. Though I do not subscribe to the philosophy of very high tax regimes, I am also not as against it as the author seems to be, recognizing well that as a contributor to social costs it is only right that each individual owns a part of it. Then  comes the idea on real estate as an investment vs mortgage as a liability needing a more elaborate explanation as categorizing 'owning a house' in the liability column is too generic and thereby might not be relevant across the board. Aside from the security it offers the owners,  it is also the same sentimental value that in some cases pushes the prices up for the so-called investors to bank on! Finally, owning corporations is not an idea that seems practical for everyone or even the majority to follow. It is an idea that completely ignores the entrepreneurial gene and individual interest.It is like expecting everyone to do well at Maths because it is supposed to be beneficial.  However, in spite of the disagreements, the book can be considered a primer in emphasizing the importance of acquiring financial knowledge in the least. Choosing methods is anyways up to the individual circumstances, appetite for risk, strengths and so on. 

iReview: eat, pray, love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Just as Elizabeth Gilbert suggests that there is usually a word for every place and person in this world, "witty" is the word i choose for this autobiographical story, eat pray, love. Despite the intense emotions this book sets to deal with, it is the refreshing style of narration and tone that is mostly witty even though appearing to be slightly influenced by the Wodehousian humor, is precisely the sole vehicle that deports the reader through the three parts of the book.  Aside from a few short yet oh-so real and familiar characters Liz etches out and her description of the factual, spiritual and cultural dimensions of the three countries, Italy, India and Indonesia that she sets to travel in the span of one year, there is little else to this much hyped book. In contrast to my initial curiosity to understand a foreigner's perspective of spirituality based on the Indian philosophy, this is the part that I liked the least as it was quite concise and dwelled no further than the basic karma principles.  Unexpectedly though, this disappointment was more than made up by the mysticism surrounded in the third part although the turn of events and the fairy tale ending only let the book become all the more predictable, and enjoyable only in parts yet leaving it worthy of a read. 

iReview: My Learnings from the book 'India unbound' by Gurcharan Das

I couldn't have timed finishing this book better than now, with the ongoing tussle on the matter of FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in Retail, for economic policy forms a substantial part of Gurcharan Das' 'Unbounding' of India. Even as I write this, the matter is "suspended" or at least put "on hold" by the government and situations similar to this form more or less the plot of the book unleashing the economic reality of the post-independent India. Without ever sounding pedagogical, the book echos the anguish and reasoning of the many growth oriented Indians.

Unlike this note, Gurcharan Das, the author, follows chronologically, the story of India since her democratic birth through the stages of economic incubation, stagnation and turtle movement each representing the eras of socialism, license raj and pre-liberalization respectively. The mood of the book shifts from 'hopeless' to 'hopeful' as it reaches it's destination, the post-liberalization phase, consuming over three decades of history and a third of the book just to describe the struggle undergone by the business power houses including the likes of the tatas, the birlas & the new entrants, the Ambanies and Subhash Chandra - with everything right from entrepreneurs to raw materials being sparse commodities back then - in attaining licenses, setting up industries, expanding them and so on, while opening the harsh realities of a closed economy. However, the number of success stories & growth, multiplies just under a decade of liberalization, accelerating the pace of narration. In fact, the last section reminds one of Thomas Freidman's 'World is Flat' despite it being differently themed and published much later, as for once, India appears to be on the global road map running  alongside the rest of the world in terms of economic growth. 

As one would agree, India represents the extreme ends of a spectrum, whether it's the urban-rural divide or that of the haves & have nots, educated & illiterate, upper vs lower castes. Gurcharan Das resonates both voices mainly of the rural-urban with authority due to his urban upbringing and exposure to the hinterland early in his career. Das, maintains an easy to understand tone throughout and shares anecdotes  being a theory-Y manager himself. It therefore sounds as much a story of the author as it is of his motherland, brilliantly syncing his personal experiences and the historical milestones of the nation. 

Given his academic and professional background, I am not amused by the language of economics, business and  common sense that he speaks but it is his ability to string together several pieces of political, economic and industrial  developments or sometimes even absence of the latter and in connecting them with India's unique cultural, social and philosophical background that appeals to me the most. For instance, he hypothesizes on why Indians in general and those belonging to the higher castes in particular are good in IT, pointing out that because of their philosophical roots are known to understand and internalize abstract concepts. Also, the upper castes had better access to education and were the first to grab opportunities in education. This he argues, also explains why there were no significant achievements in product development, since the upper castes were never into doing or creating anything on their own and that they were always used to getting things done. 

While the theme of the book could have easily made it sound quite factual it's his analysis and style of narration that guarantee a steady flow of ideas, some of them borrowed from elite researchers. The book therefore also doubles up as a tablet sort of compilation of research findings of several sociologists on India.

Maneuvering with the language just as the industrialists did during the license raj, the author neatly packages the book in line with what is deemed to be politically correct also ignoring for a  large part the irregularities committed by the business classes as if such cases never formed  a scope of this book.

In conclusion, as Das declares, it's individuals that create history without ever realizing and he himself creates some by writing this book and making it a single point of reference on India's business environment after her independence. 

LateReal thinking

Thus goes a scene from the movie Rocket Singh, salesman of the year - Interviewer for a sales position: 'sell this eraser ripped pencil', to test the candidate's ability to think out-of-the-box. The Interviewee played by Ranbir Kapoor, a wanna-be sales guy, tries desperately  to hard-sell by enlisting the ways in which the pencil could be used only to come up with mere 'order qualifiers'. However, i feel that he would have fared superlatively in his little test had the character been a parent. Now, at this point you (especially those that have never been even remotely involved in raising children) might stop reading further thinking that I have totally lost the plot as you can't quite find any correlation between parenthood and management skills. Well, then, let me tell you, there is and here's how (hoping that the already initiated will rally around in legoing my case).

That we get inspired a bit from children is a fact many acknowledge & hence let me start off from this common ground. While their innocence, joyous state of mind, carefree attitude & ability to live in the present & short memory might sound like 2g material for the not so-philosophical minds (moreover, with the duration of this phase shortening with each generation, does anyone really seem to bother?), their ability to think laterally can be highly motivating for the worldly 'we'. For instance, my toddler son finds multiple uses  for simple everyday things such as an Umbrella, his current favorite showcasing his wide power of imagination just like an open umbrella held up high; It's his tag along toy, aside from something to swing & swirl or play peekaboo with, in addition to being his instantly fixable tent or even a house, an extended arm, a bat and a stick amongst many others. 

Before long  he will learn its primary use, and there is a chance that he might be tripped into conventionality with his thinking getting narrowed and finally tied down - just like a closed umbrella. 

However, as we get inspired by children & their oblivious  teachings to us, we know better to help them keep their minds open - a challenge to be geared up for!

iRelationships are here to stay!

Here goes a list of my constant companions off late - ipod, iphone, ipad, kindle, macbook. I guess it is common for many of us. Although we might replace apples with the soon to follow Mango from Microsoft or Icecreams from Android, the central idea is that we all definitely share a deep relation (however one-way) with smart phones, tablets and notebooks more so than with our fellow humans.  I know we are in for a consensus on this statement & I will not need to prove it, but just for the record let me settle it for once and for all.

The smart thingies are so smart that they could just sort our lives, entertain, educate and guide us, all at once. I am sure everyone knows how. Simple, just by beeping - one beep and we are up, the next reminds us of the tasks we have set for the day, another buzz when a departmental stores is around to shop for items on our shopping lists and one more to enter the corresponding expense, if one uses a tracking tool. Personally, the only task my gadgetry doesn't perform for me is to help me locate my reading glasses of which I have a habit of misplacing way too often (wish the iGods incorporate some feature to track such personal objects as well, the way for instance, an iPhone's location can be pointed out exactly).  I certainly do not have to get into elaborating on how they entertain us - music, videos, books, or a peek into the lives of friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues without ever talking to them directly, and if boredom strikes us still, an update on the general bufoonery (what else can we term Rs.32 being the upper limit for Below Poverty Line in India or the sandal throwing incidents) that usually passes off as news is all that we might need to further spice us up. Moreover, they also provide us with various alternatives - hungry? little short of cooking a meal and eating it on our behalf, we are offered help in every possible way. They could surely search for a recipe or at least recommend a good eat-out place based on our personal preferences, on-going promotions, distance and so on and even direct us to it. Their usage at work is so much for granted that I have almost missed pointing it out. Thus fulfilling the roles of personal assistant, friend and mentor much effectively.

No wonder then that we spend almost all our spare time with these gizmos than with people. How could people ever match up to the skills that these smart thingies are booted with? Also, people could get boring after a period of time because of bugs in the internal coding and also because of the difficulty in re-programming with new interests, experiences and conversations. To top it all, the gadgetary is not built to question us or expect anything from us beyond some electricity. Where else could one find such unconditional relationship these days and why wonder that today we are a generation of gadget/gizmo loving people. In fact, I would even like to nominate them for the Nobel peace prize, reason being that, when each one of us gets so involved with the machinery, there is absolutely no chance of direct interaction with people and therefore zero incidence of disagreements, fights or other such unruly behaviors. So what if we have to trade-in some silly inter-personal relations for lack of spare time,  we at least, have perfect iRelationships. 

An ode to IT

A parallel post to the one on Social Media, this is an ode of sorts to the Information Technology Industry in India. Without dwelling on the so called other side of the coin, I want to conveniently look at one of the many & perhaps the most important positives that this burgeoning, nothing short of a phenomenon has brought about not just to the youth of this country but to their families - confidence. 

While a majority of the previous generation's thinking class, as I prefer to call it or the middle class, as more commonly termed, was mired with their own set of financial burdens aside from the numerous non value adding & highly time consuming transactions, including something as basic as paying bills. IT has played a significant part both in clearing mind space by reducing routine transactions just to a click of the mouse and more recently to that of a tab in applications & providing much needed & relatively better economic sufficiency thus aiding this class to move one level up in the Maslow's needs hierarchy and thereby clearing the way for social causes to adorn at least our walls.

Although, a lot of this can be considered just an arm-chair movement, (a genuine wink if the term looks borrowed or may be not,  for all I care or remember) we now have a tool to not only air individual views for the consumption of larger audience and to connect to similar minded people but are also able to walk the talk although giving due weightage to the interplay between people's values, principles and circumstances. For instance, the anti corruption campaign is just one of the many social issues that has gained mind space in many of us. Courtesy the IT jobs, the confidence and the monetary benefits such jobs offer are aiding at least some of us to pay up legally for the government wherever required instead of looking for self gains by resorting to malpractices.

Seriously hoping that this trend trends!

What draws me to social media?

Off late I seem to be spending a lot of my spare time on social media - not just me but a lot of my friends as well, I would think. No, not just for being current with the lives of my family, friends and acquaintances, but for something more than just that. As the divide between social networking and social media reduces and one engulfs the other, I would rather bring them under one umbrella and call it 'social media'. Thanks to this revolution, I do not have to rely on the news channels with apprehensions on their very content. As a lot of traditional news channels take seemingly one sided stance on various issues, finally there seems to be an alternative for knowing the pulse of the people that truly matter. Therefore, with a customary glance to the headlines, I straightaway head to the blogs section of any news channel or to the tweets that not only provide me with the updates but also complement me with individual opinions.

Not only that, with 'group-think' at play, we get to see 'collectivism' as is evident from the on-going Telangana movement or the still in news Anna Hazare campaign. For a routine individual like me, there are more attractions to this system than the one off incidents of mis-use at least till the time even this gets completely corrupted like what has happened in the case of print revolution. Till then, happy tweaking - sorry tweeting!