by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Ananya Das,
Book: Mind over Mountain: A Corporate Leader’s Journey; Author: Hari Kumar; Publisher: Konark Publishers; Pages: 267; Price: Rs 395
What happens when the body we take for granted turns its back on us? What are the choices a person is left with when life hits him or her hard? Life is unpredictable and can completely turn a person’s fortune in a few moments.
Take the case of Hari Kumar. A successful corporate leader, living a fast-paced life and flying between countries for work, Kumar’s life comes to a screeching halt as he lands in hospital after a paralytic attack. Immobile and in immense pain, he makes a promise to himself that he would fight his condition, get back on his feet and head for nothing less than the Everest Base Camp.
In trying times, we succumb to the pain that we go through and tend to surrender to our situation. However, it takes a lot of mental strength to refuse to give in to problems of the kind Kumar had.
He didn’t let his determination falter and took his pain as a challenge, recovered partially from it and pushed himself to undertake the daunting task of trekking through the Himalayas.
“Mind over Mountain…” is not only about fighting through our pain, however major or minor it might be, but also about believing that the mind is stronger than we give it credit for and how, if we push ourselves, even mountains can be overcome.
The journey wasn’t smooth. “Those days of rehab have been the most tearful in my life, a result of both the sheer physical pain and the emotional rollercoaster I experienced. It was not a journey to getting back to normality. It was a journey of learning to adapt to the new reality and making the best of it,” Hari Kumar writes.
After his partial recovery, he consulted his doctor and chalked out a detailed plan to embark on his journey to the Everest Base Camp, with a team of four companions.
Through his journey, the blinding pain sometimes made his eyes water. The pain, coupled with the biting cold up in the mountains and altitude sickness, made the task unbearable at times and seemingly impossible to complete. But Hari Kumar never gave up and ultimately his hard work paid off.
Though one of his friends gave up almost at the start of the trip, he didn’t get disheartened but made sure that the others, including him, could achieve their goal without further obstacles.
Hari Kumar’s book is, no doubt, an inspiration, but the author tends to philosophise a lot and this is a big distraction as readers would rather focus on his story.
Another aspect that is a put-off is his constant comparison of the snow-capped Himalayas, the freezing weather and the natural beauty all round to places in the US, an aspect that not many readers will be able to relate to.
There is yet another distraction. There are boxes with sentences in bold and way-too-bigger font that occupy a part of the page, hindering the otherwise smooth flow of the story. They are from the story itself and so their presence is unwanted and unnecessary.
But on the whole, the book brims with positivity and could be a genuine inspiration to all who get cowed down by trying times
(Ananya Das can be contacted at ananya.d@ians.in )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Vikas Datta,
Title: Best Before – The Evolution and Future of Processed Food; Author: Nicola Temple; Publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma; Pages: 272 Price: Rs 499
The term “processed food” rings alarm bells for many people, even beyond the health conscious, who wonder what additives it contains and how it compares nutritionally with its “natural” counterpart. But while these concerns about a large component of our daily food intake may seem to be justified, is it required — and is “natural” food even possible?
No, says biologist, conservationist and science writer Nicola Temple — and goes on to show in this book, how almost all the food for humans since the dawn of civilisation has been processed in some form or the other — by fire, fermentation and so on — or has something added for taste, longer shelf-life, etc.
And there happen to be only a few things we can eat directly in our physiological state at the current stage of our evolution, leave alone our busy and complex social and economic lives — unless we want to be hunter-gatherers again or regress evolution-wise. As far as natural foods — fruits and vegetables — are concerned, they start to lose their nutritional value right from when they are plucked and need to be preserved/prepared (respectively) till we eat them.
On the other hand, our growing reliance on processed food has led to a situation where we trust absolute strangers with the key requirement of feeding us — and not all their motivations may be purely altruistic.
However, the first issue, says Temple, is to define some key terms, especially food processing, for this covers everything that is done to food at home — from toasting bread to pickle-making — to what is done by establishments like neighbourhood bakeries or multinational companies.
And then processed foods “are not always the money-grabbing, addiction-forming, obesity-causing products of the big food manufacturers”, though some of them may be either or more or all of the three, she says.
But Temple stresses that her aim is not to hold a brief for processed food or attack it but “to provide a different perspective by looking at how food processing, and more generally food science, gets pushed along the evolutionary path towards the latest new product”.
And in this, she shows how big business, consumer demand, socio-cultural changes, health concerns, scientific and technological innovation, politics, resource constraints or waste and even war, have their roles to play.
“Understanding the journey can perhaps help us identify if and when we started to go a bit off-track. It can help us to become discerning consumers who can identify when innovative ideas might benefit society and our planet, and when they purely benefit company profits,” Temple says.
Beginning with her own childhood memories of “food processing” while growing up in a farm in Ontario, she provides an overview of some of the processes. Temple then goes on to show why food processing became necessary for humans — and what changes it led to in them and their way of living. Here she also deals with the question of which food items are most beneficial — it will help in the vegetarian vs non-vegetarian debates.
Temple then takes up the origins of two of the most ubiquitous processed foods — cheese and bread, and the changing methods of preparing them over the centuries. Next follows how fruits and vegetables too need processing, not only for their demand out of season, but for other important reasons too.
Then she discusses the case of meat, through the medium of the sausage, followed by the critical issue of how salt, sugar and fat infiltrated snack foods (and if they can be removed), the lure of convenience meals, the role of nanotechnology in food processing and preservation and the future of the sector — incorporating both climate change impact and technological advances like lab-grown meat and 3D pizzas.
An accessible account of the biology, chemistry, economics and sociology of food, well seasoned with fascinating facts, perceptive insights — especially about the real cost of processed foods – – and abundant wit, this book is a must read for all those who care what is on their plate and why and how it got there.
(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Kishori Sud,
Title: The Atlas of Beauty; Author: Mihaela Noroc; Publisher: Particular Books; Pages: 351; Price: Rs 1,499
There is an old saying that you should “never judge a book by its cover” and the illustrated book of portraits, painstakingly put together by author Mihaela Noroc, proves this loud and clear.
“The Atlas of Beauty” is a stunning collection of stories and portraits of 500 women from more than 50 countries.
To celebrate women from around the world, Noroc took advantage of her ability to adapt to different environments quickly (growing up, her parents moved often). The images taken are a fruit of her backpacking days, mingling with the locals in villages, cities and cultures.
The women in the portraits hail from different backgrounds and are of different age groups — ranging from a teenager starting life in college to a woman celebrating her 100th birthday.
Some of the stories are motivating, as Noroc was lucky to capture ladies who were braving conservative cultures and judgmental eyes to be who they wanted to be — in her camera lens.
There is a Bulgarian woman with well-defined facial features, sans make-up. She’s rather attractive and could easily pass of as a model, but Noroc reveals she plays for the national ice hockey team.
“Although the sport is expensive and not very popular in her country, she made great sacrifices to follow her dream of playing. She succeeded at the tough sport, and did it without losing her innocent and beautiful smile,” Noroc notes.
Or take Giulia, simple and beautiful, with a few piercings which seem to underline her rebellious nature. But Noroc states Giulia “has felt androgynous — male and female — since she was a child and so, she got her chest tattooed in Greek”.
The story of an old woman in Antigua, Guatemala, reminds you that everyone, even those leading quiet and anonymous lives, want to be remembered. She asked Noroc to send her the images she clicked — she wanted to put them up on her wall so that people would not forget her after she passed away.
There are many inspiring stories here that could prove to be life-changing for some and also give courage to the shackled, who think there is no way out. While an attractive young Brazilian woman is transgender, an Iranian woman featured in the pictorial book went against the religious authorities and embarked on long bicycle tours.
Noroc has also shared instances where some of her subjects needed the permission of their husbands to get themselves photographed — others did not want to be clicked as they thought they were not beautiful enough.
It boasts of images of women who pole dance to gain self-confidence, ladies who carry bundles of brooms on their heads, the adventurous women who ride horses and motorcycles, to the women who have to follow certain norms like the hijab and gloves covering their hands.
“The Atlas of Beauty” is a great gift for all ages, a manifesto for love, beauty and acceptance. The only drawback is the lack of information on several portraits, even as they evoke curiosity.
Nevertheless, what it does is demystify the concept of beauty, encompassing women irrespective of age, colour, race, culture, looks, size, ability and sexual orientation.
(Kishori Sud can be contacted at kishori.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Vikas Datta,
Title: Create Dangerously; Author: Albert Camus; Publisher: Penguin Modern/Penguin Books; Pages: 58; Price: Rs 50
Globalisation’s retreat and the consequent rise of a rather hyper form of nationalism — which even seeks to confine indivisible human endeavours like art and science within borders — is one of the most worrying trends of our time. Equally of concern is the trade-off between prosperity and liberty, and a sense of conformity being forced on us.
How do we face these challenges? One way would be to go back to the thoughts of a charismatic French existentialist philosopher — the man who identified the “absurd” existence we find ourselves in, and suggested ways of escaping it.
But Albert Camus, who staunchly stood for human freedom beyond the constraints of ideology, and opposed totalitarianism of all types, had dealt with these issues in the last two decades of his tragically short life. And he expressed his views not only in his writings but also in public gatherings, from colleges to labour exchanges.
And in this installment of the thin, nearly-weightless, pocket-sized special edition of Penguin Modern Classics, we can hear Camus, who was noted for his incisive thought on serious issues of existence presented in a most accessible manner, deal with matters that were as important in his time as ours.
In “Create Dangerously”, he dealt with the responsibility and the right of artists to their opinion against the backdrop of changing social and political dynamics and pressure — a discourse that will strike a chord among Indian readers given the campaign against intolerance by many writers in the recent past.
Speaking at Sweden’s ancient and prestigious Uppsala University in December 1957, a few days after he became the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Camus, noting that writers attract criticism whether they speak or not, stressed they cannot — and should not — remain aloof.
Beginning in his inimitable style by citing the Oriental wise man’s prayer to be spared from living in an exciting era, he quipped that none in the present age was spared as “our era forces us to take an interest in it”.
Going on to show why this obligation of coming out of their comfort zone was necessary, he skilfully sketches out the major issues — including the purpose of art, the artist’s freedom and, especially, the attitude of the state.
The speech is also replete with key insights on related matters, including the relation between art and wealth, and of life and social purpose, the media through which forms of art are propagated, representation of life, artistic license, the comparative value of the nation and an individual and more that are still relevant now.
In “Defence of Intelligence”, delivered in March 1945 at a meeting of a group seeking accord and amity in a just-liberated France — even as the Second World War still raged, Camus made an eloquent plea against violence, hatred and the divisiveness they engendered.
Mincing no words at the barbarity they had just endured — which he noted had also left its mark on the victims, some of whom retaliated in kind at the first chance — he advocated curing “poisoned hearts” by “saving one’s intelligence”. And intelligence here is a sense of reason, discernment and objectivity, not mere mental capability.
And finally in “Bread and Freedom”, delivered at a labour exchange in May 1953, Camus, who was a leftist but never condoned Stalinist excesses, made a blazing attack on totalitarianism.
Saying that if some trends continued, one could foresee “a Europe of concentration camps”, where “the only people at liberty will be prison guards who will then have to lock up one another”, he sought to nail the pernicious claim that if citizens have their basic, economic needs met, they do not require political liberty.
Though speeches delivered decades back but on issues that have again resurfaced due to our inability to learn from history, Camus proves he is a voice beyond his age by his prescient assessment of crucial matters and passionate but well-reasoned arguments. Hope we can learn from him now.
(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books, Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneur, Success Stories
By Porisma P. Gogoi,
Title: Burn the Business Plan: What Great Entrepreneurs Do; Author: Carl J. Schramm; Publisher: Hachette India; Pages: 272; Price: Rs 499
The entrepreneurial process involves innumerable notions like “starting really early in life” or the necessity of being a “college drop-out”, or even that the whole process requires an actual “written plan” for the idea to flourish. However, neither all successful start-ups are babies of very young entrepreneurs, nor consequences of penned business ideas.
“Burn the Business Plan” busts the common myths surrounding the entrepreneurial journey and should be a must-read for aspiring entrepreneurs. The book is the outcome of Carl J. Schramm’s findings while he led the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation — an institution supporting entrepreneurship — spending time with many successful as well as aspiring entrepreneurs, investors and business visionaries.
Schramm says: “The book is for those who think that they might want to start a business some day. It is for ‘Everyman’, a medieval term describing regular people. Most people who start companies are like you: They have never come close to meeting a venture-capital investor, never studied entrepreneurship in college; never heard of a business incubator; and never wrote a business plan.”
The author, University Professor at Syracuse, describes an entrepreneur as someone who exploits an innovative idea — one that he develops, or copies, improves, or rents — to start a profit-seeking scalable business that successfully satisfies demand for a new or better product.
Describing the entrepreneurial journey, the book’s first four chapters explain the “what” of business start-ups, the next four describe lessons learned by those who have already succeeded as entrepreneurs, and the last section seeks to explain data-derived facts and realistic guidance from successful businessmen.
During the decade spent at the Kauffman Foundation, Schramm realised that there were numerous popularly-held but wrong ideas about how, when and why people start companies and that the real story on start-ups and their success rates have a totally different disclosure.
“Most entrepreneurs never went to college, and most did not start their companies until they were well along in their careers. The average entrepreneur is nearly 40 years old when he launches, and more than eighty per cent of all new companies are started by people over 35,” writes the author.
Data also revealed that the age of more entrepreneurs are between 45 and 55, with those over 55 creating more companies than those under 35, and that the chances of a new company surviving rises with the age of the entrepreneur, says Schramm.
The book recognises that the “mature entrepreneur” is a significant element in the start-up world. The author establishes the fact that a big company can operate as a “de facto” school in which an aspiring entrepreneur can learn about the various facets of the actual market ahead of handing out their innovation.
“Nearly 90 per cent of all entrepreneurs have worked for other employers before starting their companies. Embryonic entrepreneurs cannot help but absorb lessons working for established companies that can prove useful as they start their own,” the author says, citing big names like David Kyle, Fred Valerino, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, among others, who previously worked for other bosses.
A successful entrepreneur charts a different path with innovative ideas that even dismiss the popular myth-making stories of the entrepreneurs of Silicon valley. New businesses flourish with great ideas, not merely planning a business. As the author puts it: “If you have already written a business plan, take my advice: Burn it!”
(Porisma P. Gogoi can be contacted at porisma.g@ians.in )
—IANS
