From an underprivileged kid in a non decrepit town of Titlagarh in Orissa who once ran 7 miles with a friend just to see a steam engine ("aag gaadi") to a disruptive technologist with over a 100 patents and 15 honorary doctorate degrees to his name, Satyanarayan Gangadhar a.k.a 'Sam' Pitroda has come a long … Continue reading Dreaming Big: My Journey to Connect India by Sam Pitroda

A raw story of resilience, rapaciousness and revenge, "The Revenant" by Michael Punke, although fictional, is based on the real life experience of an intrepid American trapper, Hugh Glass. In the year 1823 a group of hunters led by Andrew Hunt embark on a hunt for pelts in the Northern Plains. A brutal and unexpected … Continue reading The Revenant by Michael Punke

A first hand account of how India's iconic car manufacturer embellished the image of the functioning of a much maligned Public Sector Undertaking in India. The book contains invaluable insights regarding the pernicious working of the erstwhile License Raj which led to ridiculous levels of customer service (or the lack of it). Established as Maruti … Continue reading The Maruti Story – How a public sector company put India on wheels by R.C. Bhargava

At the entrance to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp was inscribed the phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei" literally translated to mean "Work Brings Freedom". There could not have been a more sadistically brutal paradox between the said phrase and the dignity stripping heinous activities that were forced upon the pitiful inhabitants shepherded into the camp by … Continue reading The Drowned and the Saved (Auschwitz Trilogy #3

The only way to describe the unsurpassed beauty of this book is to warn that it has the power to serrate the reader for life! If you are expecting a seraphic pastiche to this astonishing masterpiece then stay forewarned. What you instead experience is a raw, uncensored and uncluttered story that has the sheer power … Continue reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy

A poignant and mesmerising work that captures the myriad patois of a city considered by many Indians to be the holiest of places on Earth. Benaras, Varanasi or Kashi is home to the imperial sweep and magnificent scope of the Ganges. Benaras is also home to a whole spectrum of vertiginous culture that both scars … Continue reading Kaleidoscope City: A Year in Varanasi by Piers Moore Ede

The gestalt underlying the terrible financial recession that rocked both sides of the Atlantic in the year 2008 was unrivaled greed. A petulant greed that sacrificed prudence at the Altar of Mammon. A greed that brought many a prospering economy to its hubris. No case epitomised this greed better than the ugly fall of an … Continue reading Making It Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men Who Blew Up the British Economy by Iain Martin

Expanding upon a fascinating experiment conducted at the Bing Nursery School in Stanford University many decades ago, Walter Mischel expounds on the benefits derived by delaying instant gratification for future success. The famous experiment, now popular as "The Marshmallow Test" primarily aimed to put to test the will power of little children who were asked … Continue reading The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control by Walter Mischel

With Anna Hazare's stirring clarion call for rooting out corruption as the back drop, Gurcharan Das ruminates on the contradiction that is India. Ruled by a deficient and flailing state (the Congress Government with the helpless Manmohan Singh at its helm), India still has managed to carve out a unique niche in the Global Economy … Continue reading India Grows At Night by Gurcharan Das