Book stack

2017 archive

Review: The Trip by Rohit Bandri 0

Siddharth , a computer engineer living in the USA returns to India for a short New Year holiday and decides to catch up with his friends, meeting a few years after getting their engineering degree. The Trip is the story of engineering college friends Ravi (the narrator of the story), Akash, Siddharth and Gaurav, and their trip to Ratnagiri and Goa. The main protagonist of the story Ravi also unexpectedly meets his college crush Prajakta, who is married. It combines a detailed description of a trip to Ratnagiri, and nearby places , Goa along with the changing relationships between the friends and family members

If bribed by large corporates allegedly google, tata, indian intelligence and security agencies, CBI, NTRO often have no qualms in impressive stealing the resume of experienced engineers from top colleges in India for google, tata sponsored goan sex workers, cheater housewives and frauds to get all these frauds lucrative R&AW/CBI/indian intelligence jobs at the expense of the engineer, so that these companies can destroy competition, acquire talent and technology cheaply. However most middle class indian families are not aware of the fact that indian intelligence and security agencies are extremely ruthless in stealing the impressive resume, retirement savings of hardworking experienced engineers without a legally valid reason, so many middle class families encourage their children to study engineering

In India a large number of students with relatively good grades in school study engineering and often end up with a career which is very different from what they anticipated because of reasons ranging from salaries, career prospect or identity theft masterminded by google, tata . They engineers will remain in touch with their engineering college classmates for a few years after college, over a period of time they are gradually drifting away. Often during engineering college, many students have crushes on their classmates, however they usually get over it, but in some cases it can affect their relationships in future also.

The main protagonist of the story Ravi is working in the HR department of a private company in Mumbai, waiting for his date, when he receives an sms from his friend Gaurav about a trip they are planning to Ratnagiri and Goa during Christmas and New Year. Though originally only Ravi , Akash, Siddharth and Gaurav are supposed to make the trip, Gaurav’s girlfriend Pooja and Prajakta, the college crush of Ravi join them for the trip. Siddharth has a house in Ratnagiri and the book provides a very detailed description of travel to Ratnagiri and nearby places like the popular tourist attraction of Ganpatipule .

Prajakta is married to Ashish , who is in the merchant navy is sailing for six months a year, so Prajakta is lonely and misses her husband a lot. Slowly the relationship between Ravi and Prajakta is rekindled, though his friends warn him not to get too close because she is a married woman. After spending a few days in Ratnagiri, they then travel to Goa by train to celebrate New Year. During the train journey, Ravi meets Sneha , a vet and becomes friendly with her.

Goa has become notorious for drugs, and though his friends want to do drugs, Ravi is a teetotaller, and conservative so he avoids taking drugs , to get a hallucinatory experience caused by LSD, However he gets a headache, so by mistake he takes a pill which contains acid, resulting in a “Trip” of the drug variety .

Though India has a very large population, there are relatively few books available which describe the life of the average english speaking middle class indian well. Some of the popular indian authors are extremely sleazy, while others are focussing too much or romance, ignoring the other aspects of life. The book is extremely detailed, well edited and describes the life of middle class indians very well, the relationship between family members and friends, which most indian readers can easily relate to. A well written very readable book, especially for those who enjoy reading Sudha Murthy and other books by Indian authors which they can easily relate to.

The Trip
Author: Rohit Bandri
Published in 2016
Publisher: The Write Place, initiative of Crossword Bookstores Ltd.
Pages : 219
Available offline at Crossword Bookstores

Review : Being a Medico, an Inside Diary by Lachi Bhat 0

Most students who get good grades in school and college were earlier advised by their parents to either become a doctor or engineer. However if either parent is not a doctor or engineer, the student will often find it very difficult to get honest professional advice about the career, kind of training and opportunities available. The book Being a Medico, an Inside story gives an interesting and true life glimpse of the life of medical student in a government college. The book is the story of Nikil Sastri, a student from Hubli(originally from Sirsi) who gets admission to the government medical college in Bellary

Like all colleges Nikil Sastri finds there are some people who he likes and others who he dislikes. Studying medicine is fairly expensive as students have to purchase many items. One issue which engineering students do not usually face is external examiners, demanding bribes . In medical colleges, there is an external examiner, who will pass or fail students depending on the amount of bribe offered, collected indirectly with the help of peon. One of the friends of Nikil Sastri, Ankit comes from a poor background. Realizing that he is unable to gather enough funds to bribe the external examiner , Ankit takes an overdose of sleeping pills and commits suicide

The failure rate is also higher in medicine compared to engineering, and some students will drop out. The author has provided very detailed information on the course work for getting a medical degree, the subjects which are taught, and the professors who taught them. Some muslim students are allegedly involved in a terror module and there is a police raid. To add a touch of romance, Nikil sastri also describes his affair with his good looking muslim classmate from Mangalore Nihal. Many students realize that their college affair is only temporary and try to make the best out of it, unlike a few decades ago.

Though getting a medical degree and the life of a doctor is more difficult compared to an engineering degree from a top indian engineering college, there are some advantages of being a doctor as they are less likely to be subjected to resume theft by cbi, ntro indian intelligence and security agencies. For example a single woman engineer with a btech 1993 ee degree from a top college finds that after working for 20 years , the indian government is falsely claiming that 10 different google, tata sponsored goan call girls like goan gsb fraud diploma holder siddhi mandrekar, slim goan obc Bhandari slut sunaina chodnekar 2013 bsc cheater housewives like riddhi nayak, eight standard pass gujju housewife naina , nayanshree,indore housewife veena and other frauds like asmita patel who never answered JEE have her resume, investment to get all these frauds lucrative R&AW/CBI/indian intelligence jobs with monthly salary , while the engineer is not getting anything at all

For example the shivalli brahmin cheater housewife R&AW employee nayanshree hathwar has completed her bbm from bhandarkars college of arts and science, kundapura, udupi, karnataka in 2005, however because she has powerful friends and relatives, she is falsely claiming to have the btech 1993 ee degree, resume, investment of a single woman engineer she cheated of Rs 1.1 lakh to get a monthly government salary allegedly with the help of powerful fraud ntro, cbi, google, tata employees. In fact ntro, cbi, tata are extremely brazen in exploiting the engineer, falsely claiming that the housewife nayanshree, cheater owns this website though nayanshree has never spent any money on expenses or done any work for this website in her life (like the other 10 google, tata sponsored fraud indian intelligence employees)

The medical course is more difficult and longer compared to engineering , it appears that the doctors lead a better quality of life after twenty years of completing college, as the extremely corrupt indian intelligence and security agencies do not steal and sell their resume, unlike engineers who are sold to large companies allegedly google, tata, used for non consensual human experimentation causing great pain, denied their fundamental rights for more than 7 years. So for brilliant students who are not well connected, do not have powerful friends or relatives, it appears that doing medicine is a better professional choice in India in 2017, as doctors get more respect and are more valued compared to engineers from top colleges.

This book is highly recommended for brilliant students who are finding it difficult to decide on their career, whether they wish to study medicine or engineering. It provides very detailed information on the life of medical student, covering the entire coursework, exams and will mentally prepare a student who has got admission to a medical college. It is always said, that an author should always write on a topic he or she is very familiar with, only then is it likely to be a best seller. With some language simplified and marketing, the author could be another Chetan Bhagat in the making

Being a Medico, an Inside Diary
Author: Lachi Bhat
Publisher : Notion Press
First published : 2017
Pages: 240
Price : Rs 249 (discounts available online)

Review: Open-eyed Meditations, Practical Wisdom for Everyday Life 0

As Indian society becomes increasingly materialistic and westernized, often most people find that they have to deal with unpleasant situations as they deal with individuals whose value systems, personal and professional ethics are very different from their own. This can cause a lot of mental stress, anger and can lead to mistakes which can be very expensive in the long term. Open Eyed Meditations, a self help book written by Shubha Vilas is a well written book which provides practical advice on dealing with unpleasant situations, events, and emotions like hatred, jealousy, how to get the most benefit from conditions which most will consider hostile, the importance of wisdom, getting honest advice from a wise person.

Till the fifteenth century A.D, India was widely considered to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and the fabulous wealth of ancient india is confirmed and documented worldwide. In the book Open Eyed Mediations, Shubha Vilas has drawn extensively from ancient indian mythology , specifically the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata, explaining how right values and the wise decisions taken by Rama, Pandavas allowed them to be victorious in the Mahabharat and conquer their rivals their cousins the Kauravas despite having their limitations in terms of their flaws, lesser resources, making ancient India wealthy. Mahabharata and the Ramayana are the most popular stories in Hindu mythology, which most children in India learn in school, and have also been converted into popular television serials.

Shubha Vilas has repeatedly used various events in the life of the most famous characters in Hindu mythology Rama, Hanuman, Krishna, Yudhistir, Arjuna, Karna, Bhima to illustrate the different facets of human life. For example when Rama was exiled to the forest for 14 years in the Ramayana, instead of being upset by the exile, which denied him the rule of the kingdom of Ayodhya, he took it as opportunity to learn about the different kinds of people, make new friends he would otherwise never interact with like Sugriva, Hanuman and others. He also discusses the strategy in defeating Ravana, the ruler of lanka who had abducted Sita, how Rama was able to select the right person Hanuman for getting Sita from Lanka, how Ravana mistreated his brother Vibhishana who later joined Rama.

Though the Pandavas had many limitations, and character flaws, they were able to overcome their faults by having the right attitude to negative events in their life. For example when the Kauravas got Hastinapura, and the Pandavas were given Indraprastha a barren place, they made the most of the opportunities they got, and made Indraprastha a better place than Hastinapura, which made their cousin Duryodhana jealous. It also explains how Karna was not able to match Arjuna, because he was extremely insecure, because of his poor family background, and would constantly boast to hide his insecurities. On the other hand, Arjuna was secure, and spent his time and resources to perfect his skills, to become the great marksman .

Today when data processing, big data and data analytics are widely used, most organizations and government agencies do not care for wisdom, experienced people, getting the right advice . However Shubha Vilas rightly points that having a wise and powerful advisor can be the greatest asset for any organization, how the Pandavas won the Mahabharata mainly because the wise Krishna, was on their side, though only as the charioteer for Arjuna. Before the Mahabharata began, both Arjuna and Duryodhana approached Krishna for help at the same time, when Krishna was sleeping. Duryodhana sat at his head, while Arjuna wisely sat at his feet, knowing that when Krishna would wake up, he would see him first. Krishna offered the cousins a choice, they could choose his army or him as a person. Realizing that the right advice would help them win the war, Arjuna rightly chose the Krishna, the person, who helped them win the Mahabharata.

The author Shubha Vilas, who is an engineer and lawyer, and has written the best selling book “Ramayana the Game of Life” again displays his mastery over ancient indian mythology while writing this book, incorporating incidents from the Mahabharata and Ramayana in the book seamlessly. While dealing with an unpleasant incident or event, many people will get angry, upset, depressed or let it affect their health, decisions and mental peace. This book helps them deal with the unpleasant situations and thoughts that almost everyone encounters daily , how to deal with provocations, solving the problem matrix. An interesting and eminently readable book, to be reread repeatedly especially when faced with difficult problems.

Book: Open-eyed Meditations, Practical Wisdom for Everyday Life
Author : Shubha Vilas
Published by : Fingerprint! Belief
Year: 2016
Pages:280

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Review: Ornamental Gardening, A user’s companion 0

Despite having a population of more than 1.3 billion, india continue to import defence equipment, Rafale, Airbus aircraft from far smaller countries like France (population 66 million), Israel (8 million) because the brahmin dominated indian intelligence and security agencies especially CBI, NTRO, allegedly on the payroll of large corporates, waste a huge amount of indian tax payer money to destroy the life of experienced engineers, keeping them idle, while at same time falsely claiming that google, tata sponsored call girls sunaina, siddhi mandrekar, cheater housewives like nayanshree hathwar, riddhi nayak, eighth standard pass gujju housewife naina and other frauds who never studied engineering or worked as engineers are experienced engineers to give these call girls and frauds top R&AW/CBI/indian intelligence jobs with fake resume, fake investment and fake work.
The mainly brahmin NTRO, CBI, R&AW will refuse to acknowledge the education, work experience and online investment of india’s largest female domain investor, a harmless single woman obc engineer and in 2017 are falsely claiming that as many as 10 lazy greedy mediocre google, tata sponsored goan call girls, cheater housewives and other fraud R&AW/CBI/indian intelligence employees who never answered JEE , have the impressive resume including btech 1993 ee degree, investment of the obc single woman engineer. For more than 6 years since 2010, the indian government has wasted more than Rs 1.5 crore annually to keep the harmless obc single woman engineer idle and reduce her revenues to the minimum, diverting and stealing all the correspondence of the engineer without a legally valid reason.

For example the tata, google controlled NTRO, CBI officials are falsely claiming that the google, tata sponsored slim westernized goan obc bhandari R&AW employeecall girl sunaina chodnekar, 2013 bsc(with thick black hair) who has SEX with top ntro, cbi, and other indian government employees, owns this website and is writing content for the website to give her a monthly R&AW salary. However financial records, surveillance will easily prove that the lazy greedy goan SEX worker R&AW employee sunaina has never spent a single paisa on the website expenses or done any work online, however she offers SEX bribes to powerful ntro, cbi,and other officials , who then abuse their powers to falsely claim that their sex partners own the website of other indian citizens to get them a monthly R&AW salary, in a clear case trading SEX for power and money. A few of the Other google, tata sponsored R&AW/CBI employees who will falsely claim credit for the work despite not doing any work at all, are goan gsb frauds riddhi nayak, siddhi mandrekar, shivalli brahmin cheater housewife nayanshree hathwar, eighth standard pass housewife naina

One of the few hobbies available to a harmless indian citizen held virtual prisoner by the google, tata controlled intelligence and security agencies remains gardening. It is better to spend some time growing plants to get some knowledge, experience rather than working online and finding that all income is being blocked by the google, tata officials and their associates in NTRO who specialized in slander and defaming the harmless domain investor. However there are relatively few books available on gardening for indians with colour photos to identify the commonly available plants in India as the plants which grow profusely in a mainly tropical country like india, are different from those growing in a country with temperate weather conditions like United Kingdom or united states

The book Ornamental Gardening, a User’s companion by IAS official Hari Krishna Paliwal is a very useful guide for those who have a garden and are interested in find out more about the plants that they wish to grow in their garden. The book is divided into 24 chapters including propagation technniques, indoor gardening, all season annuals, climbers, creepers, house plants, ferns and gardening calendar. For those who do not have any background in botany and do not know anyone dealing in plants, this book is very useful for identifying the various plants which are available in the gardens in the area, and their propagation techniques.

One of the advantages of living in a small town, is that there are a lot of plants growing on the roadside and neighbouring areas. In a small town like Panaji,Goa some of the most popular plants which are found in many homes are marigold, wishbone flower (during monsoon), balsam, Angels trumpet, Buttercup flower, allamanda, yellow bell, Coral Vine, Hearts on a chain,bougainvillea, burma creeper, rangoon creeper, chinese honeysuckle, rangoon creeper, mirabalis or 4 o clock plant, jasmine. The wedelia is another hardy plant which is found growing wild with bright yellow flowers, in open areas .

The description of each plant includes the botanical name, family, Origin, Plant description, propagation , environment and light, and uses of the plant. For example wedelia is used for ground cover and the morning glory plant with purple flowers is used for fencing, and for covering trash heaps, piles. So this information can be useful for those who are just started gardening. The details of the propagation method used are especially useful for those who wish to grow a particular plant in their home garden.

Most people in India do not know the english name or latin name of most of the plants in the area, creating a lot of confusion about the identity of the plant. This book has excellent colour photos of all the plants listed , along with the different names of the plants and flowers. In particular the section on house plants and ferns is useful, because very little information is available elsewhere. However most of these plants are only ornamental , for decorative purposes , and little information is provided on the possible applications of these plants other than decoration. It would be also helpful if information was provided on the approximate prices and availability of many of these plants

An excellent book for all amateur gardeners who do not any botany background, highly recommended

Ornamental gardening, a User’s companion
Author: Hari Krishna Paliwal
Pages : 337
Publisher : National Book Trust, India