Tag Archives: blogadda reviews

7 Secrets of the Goddess by Devdutt Pattanaik #bookreview

Book Reviews, Books Reading / Read, Spirituality, , , , ,

7-secrets-of-the-goddess

Publisher Westland
ISBN-10 9384030589
Edition 1st Edition
Book Type Non Fiction Book
Number of Pages 270 Pages
Publication Year 2014 October
Language English
ISBN-13 9789384030582
Binding Paperback

Once again the master mythologist, comes up with a great story telling with facts and illustrations that support every word that he writes on.

The third in the series of 7 secrets – of Vishnu, Siva and now the Goddess, the author takes us through the historical evidence that suggests how the society had turned itself from matriarchy to patriarchy.

Add to that the influence of islam and Christianity the need to be seen as a patriarchal in the context of subservient women characters and other factors when the invasion happened.

Perhaps it’s the keen eye to detail and the ardous task of seeking our definitive evidences which make Devdutt Pattanaik the man he is as he revels in his unravelling the myths and making meaning out of them.

The structure of the book and the layout should make it easy for the reader to assimilate each idea and also appreciate the way how things have turned around and the interpretations have started happening.

Quite a few times it is the story lost in translation and quite a few times its interpretation that mattered according to the context and the times they were in.

The way how the once fierce and independent womanhood has now given way to a submissive and more enslavend being is very well captured and the best part is all how they got into these submissive overtones simply because its in the nature of human beings to be seen as controlling rather than be the likes of animals which have just their wants and need fulfilled to the extent they are required not a penny more or a penny less in financial terms.

The journey into the grama devi concept is worth remembering since they give a nice understanding of folk way of celebrating womanhood and they are going strong day by day.

I think this was a long overdue in the way that he has put things in perspective the ideal situation of stories being a mirror to the context and how it has to be interpreted and how it has long lost it to chanting tradition and more so people just chanting them even without knowing their meaning.

Apart from that he also has taken on the Western philosophers for their very minimalistic view of the Hinduism that they talk of and never having tried to read the real meaning of the rituals and festivals.

A lot of specifics on the southern traditions being discussed is welcome addition and the Mahabharata character of Draupadi being accorded an Amman Devi status is an interesting one.

A must read for everyone interested to know the significance of Goddesses in the Hindu tradition. The many stories of Brahma not being accorded the temple status is a revealing one. The relationships with the trinity and the devis are a great read.

My only addition if I could suggest would have been the pointers  to look at the picture with a subscript when they are discussed in the opposite pages would have had a nice way to add to the flow, otherwise they pictures are read at my convenience and paragraph breaks.

As in all his works this will be read again and again for the insights that his subject revels on, and a one time reading of a topic is like the tip of an iceberg.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

Business Sutra – a very Indian approach to Management! – a book review

Book Reviews, Books Reading / Read, Just about it, Management, Spirituality, , , , , ,
Business Sutra by Devadutt Pattanail
Business Sutra

Business Sutra by Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik at first instance, is an exhaustive read I should admit, but in case you have seen the videos it should be easy to relate to.

In another plane, there was this evident need of unravelling the Indian Business, especially why is it the way it is. Dr. Pattanaik answers this unassuming but significant question in his book.

As always dotted with this unique and easy illustrations, Business Sutra comes with a nice interface if you ask me and also with a easy to go through format, in the sense that you can read anywhere, though it would be nice if you read it in the sequence presented.

So it starts with Business is Yagna, the description from the Hindu scriptures. We can easily compare every business activity to a Yagna where in the Yajaman initiates the ritual and makes offerings into agni and hopes to please his deity so that he gets what he wants from the devata.

The explanations are extensive taken from all the Hindu scriptures and quoted widely to impress upon a point. Our outlook to business has been moulded unknowingly by the our early formative years and also by what we have seen and experienced, but the whole point is that the Western and Eastern philosophies have different take on how business is run.

It is quite possible to see the Trinity in action – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and also the three devi’s of Saraswati, Lakshmi and Durga in all the activities of the business. So we are taken on a trip across Indra’s heaven to the Vishnu’s abode to days of sages as we see how their actions and relationships depict the way the business is done.

Then you have a modern day decription of what is said and you can easily relate to our own business or the way the corporate corridor behaves or works.

This book is like the churning of the milky ocean and then you get so many things coming out of it. We need the devas and asuras in realty to make things happen for the businesses.

On a personal note, I have always wanted someone to give this outlook on management from Indian perspective in a way that it gets to the layman’s idea and am happy it is clearly achieved in this book.

A beautiful read and an exhaustive mythological resource in a way almost 400 plus pages of sheer storytelling, he has a nice ending with a ‘How to reject this book’ which has this ideas why you should reject this book. One which left me laughing loud was this – This is a right wing propaganda!

On the book design it was a designer’s delight and a reader’s delight combined into one. Perfectly crafted and presented in a neat manner, is sure to be a great handy resource for management.

R Senthilkumar

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

PS: My sincere apologies to Blogadda, since I had some problems with my blog and took long time to get this review up.

The Devotion of Suspect X – a Book review….

Book Reviews, Books Reading / Read, Just about it, , , ,
the devotion of suspect x
Book Cover: The Devotion of Suspect X

First things first, the Japanese names sounded similar and took me few minutes to get them right to the story. Once I was familiar with the characters then sailed pretty fast.

The author Keigo Higashino makes an excellent portrayal of human sensibilities and frailities without much of the fanfare that we get to see in these kind of books. You already know you are reading a movie script when the story is fastpaced, has a lot of twist and turns and the protogonist is painstakingly methodical. Add to it he is a mathematician will only make it more intense, he has a way he lives on or is immensely calculative for his own worth.

A tragedy by pure circumstances forces the mother Hanoka and daughter Misato to take Ishigami’s ( the mathematician) help after a simple tiff between the now divorced husband and wife turns nasty with the man attacking the daughter, the brawl gets physical and takes a nasty turn with the man’s death and then the story unfolds.

Our mathematician and the hero who has a logical and intuitive mind extends his help to cover up the event and most importantly create alibi as much as possible so that the mother and the child are always out of the police radar. A classic case here of making the police think of what they see and what they might not really want! A very rare turn of events which is statistically close to zero makes it a story to read. Possibly the mathematician Ishigami would not have thought that the detective in question could have been an alumni of his university or that the detective was good friends with his former college mate.

Now the police could have their way and Ishigami almost calculates as much to get close to their thinking and makes the plot fittingly look believable and trace it to the dead end as he might want to and he almost comes close to leading the police to his end. But there are things which go wrong, probably he takes things for granted or putting it mildly some variables he is not able to control.

The arrival of his erstwhile college friend Yukawa and the friendship of the detective and the professor of physics takes us through the minds and machinations if I may call it. Just as he keeps rolling out plans perfectly there comes a time when his friend comes across to read his mind. Its no more mathematics alone that makes him do it, under the motivation lies the most innocent and important life saving factor of the smiles of  two women known only to his heart.

The author also plays the poverty card very well in a sense how the poor are just statistics and how even a professor could use them to his advantage so much so that they will never be cared in a society so much full of contradictions inside out. Could that be author is trying to show the mirror to the world outside in this case how the life lost doesn’t count at all because its nowhere in the picture till someone decides to look into suspect’s mind.

Loved the characterisation like I mentioned the few characters symbolises the society in action and how people are generally simple and with inborn traits.

I am going with the author on all the way he wanted to be saving the two un-intentional killers but the way it ended put me off to be frank. That little girl Misato deserved much better than the burden of having to live with something that happened because she was a girl.

Somewhere it looked like the women are same all over, giving in to the reckless behaviour of the men that they care and love with all their heart and only to be betrayed and then there is the way destiny is supposed to behave irresponsibly, just when she thinks all are fine with her, comes the biggest shock for her life.

Yes, alongside it reminded me of my classes in physics and yes like the professor says physicists have a way with life and its not easy getting over them. It is always good to have physicists around, except when you have actually murder someone to create an alibi for already killed person. In this case it wasnt reasoning because love is beyond that and when you are in love you will do whatever it takes to prove yourself.

A good fast paced read and you cant live without maths and physics, though you might detest the fact that you are not going to use them but even a car race driver ( being Indian F1 fan I needed to add this) would need to know how to extract maximum from his car, well Ishigami did give this answer in one of his classes.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

R Senthilkumar

I am not 24… by Sachin Garg Book Review

Book Reviews, Books Reading / Read, Just about it, , , ,

As the book arrived, I was looking at the cover, already familiar with the image, I was expecting a college fest and a romantic saga and may be some fashion statement to be made. To start with this is a story of a girl and slice of her first career spanning over 3 months or so.

As I started reading the first few pages, it was a bit different in the sense the narrator of the story herein Saumya lands up at a Steel Plant, for her first job after her MBA. Thus the setting had gone for a toss for Saumya who had thought of a corporate career in a five star setup or atleast in a city environment. So welcome to Toranagallu.

Once there, she is taken by surprise at the being so rural and has no choice but to appreciate the positives wherever she could think about. She has no other go but decides to make amends and starts liking the place on some of the most appreciable things she comes face to face in life.

At her age and in a male dominated workplace, she is a sort of out of place. She takes the challenge head on and makes head turn literally at all places so much so at one instance a worker fatally falls in Sulphuric acid.  The storyline also has some characters in Malappa, Amit and her boss.

Another character who influences Saumya is one Shubro who she accidentally meets when she is on her leisure trip to Hampi. Though we get to see some glimpses of Shubro at their meeting and a bit of his past, it is not until he comes into her life while she decides to quit the company.

What we see in the rest of the story is a blossoming and untold love between these two and may they think the other would make the first move.

In all this there are characteristic display of wantonness of being the person they are, the author takes liberty in portraying their weakness too.  On the other side he makes it up with some of the most positives we tend to normally ignore because we take them for granted or may be we see it as we already knew this person was going to be so.

Saumya gets a chance to impress her peers as also Shubro in his time at the social club when he changes the life of almost 10,000 people in this tiny village in Karnataka.

Shubro lives by what he calls ‘Lets move on’ theory a fascinating aspect in reality because we would love to do it, and it keeps him from staying at one place, but as we see it it clear in the later part, he is there to make the change that he wants.

So we get to see how they were so close yet far.

In the end we get to see Saumya make up her mind and taking off to live what Shubro had believed in as his dream and reality.

Its a fast paced book, but then there are breaks which the reader doesn’t quite expect, the blog at the end is a bit long, and thats too late for the reader to say something so important about the character.

A nice read and I dont know if the readers think the characters are different from who they are since all the youngsters, given a chance could tread Saumya’s path without blinking an eye.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!