Unconditional Love

The only unconditional, pure love which exists in this whole world, is the Mothers love. I realized this, when I became a mother. The moment, a child is born, a mother is also born. And for her, the small bundle of joy in her arms becomes the whole universe. She will sacrifice anything in this entire universe for her kid. Everything that was surrounding her,even her better half, will become secondary ( irrespective of the constant complaints from the better half :) , for the lack of attention he is getting).

I have been to old age homes. On my way back, I was always disturbed and  heartbroken.My mind will be bursting with thousands of questions . I believed strongly that, the one curse from the parents is enough to spoil the entire life of the kids. But now I know, even if a mother scolds her kids thousand times, deeply down in her heart, she will be praying for their wellness, thousand and one times. This is possible only for a mother.

Short & Tragic Life of Robert Peace

A deep biography of a life short lived. This book is about the life of Robert Peace,a YALE Graduate, who was a very bright student thorough out the academics. His life , if we map to a picture, its just like symbol 'V'...with one branch representing his Intelligence, Dedication towards the loved ones, Deep love for the parents and the other branch representing the path one shouldn't take in life, the part of his life which he had spend as a drug dealer and which led to the tragic end of his life.

At one point I believed that its the circumstances that made him choose the wrong path. But later I disagreed with myself.  In life, we all come across situations where we will be utterly shattered and left with no choices. But still from deep within, we realize that its not the end and we should move on. We will always try to find a positive path to continue our journey. Such a path exists, only thing is are we able to find it or not?

The impact of the book was with me for few days even after finishing it.I felt like Robert was someone whom I know very well.  This book is a good pick for the teen readers.

12 Years a slave

A memoir by Solomon Northup, a free African American who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. He takes us through the darker side of American slavery that existed once. He clearly narrates the daily life of a slave, the tortures they suffered, the devils that surrounded them with whip in their hands and few Master Gods around them.

The lives of slaves in cotton farm is the most touching and heart breaking . They collect the cotton and clean them from dust and at the end of the day they will take them to the master who weighs the bag.There will be a minimum weight which the Master expects. If the bag weighs less than that, Master will start whipping them. If the bag weighs more than what the Master expects, then the new weight will be set as his expected weight from next day on wards. So at the end of each day, the slaves will be taking the bags to Master with much fear.This is just a small incident from their lives.

This is a haunting memoir which made me sleepless. How can one human being torture another human being to this much extent ?

The Accidental Billionaires

This book (by Ben Mezrich) left me confused with what to believe and what not to? The book is based on the inputs from Mark Zuckerburg's ex-colleagues. Mark was not at all involved in the making of this book. So how can we trust the incidents and thoughts mentioned by the author? After reading this book,I'm left with an impression that Facebook is an outcome of betrayal.The actual idea behind Facebook came from someone else, and Mark betrayed them by developing Facebook without involving them (as per the book). But its hard to believe. Hats off to Mark, for the hard work he had done to set up Facebook. He was working round the clock during development.The author describes his passion and dedication very well in the book. Mark treats Facebook as his own baby :).

The book is written in such a way that, the reader will feel like he's watching a drama. (Of course that's the reason behind the movie 'Social Network'). We feel like all the incidents are happening right in front of us. Well written ( but hard to believe the contents). 

Lean In !!!!!

WHAT A BOOK!!!!! A must buy especially for working women (No...After reading this book, I will never use the word "Working Women", instead I will call them Women who love their career as much as they love their family). Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook) touches nook and corner of a women’s life. The difficulties they have to suffer while balancing work and life. I was little aware of the discrimination existing in work field, based on gender. In 1970 American Women were paid 59 cents for every dollar their male counterparts made. By 2010 it became 77. I don’t know what the current status is. I hope that the day is not too far, when we will be treated equally.

A 2011 McKinsey report noted that men are promoted based on their potential whereas women are promoted based on past achievements. Even though many are aware of this discrimination, most women are keeping quiet, just because they are in their comfort zone. Most of us, are little hesitant to come out of this zone, as we are pulled back by thoughts of our family. And mainly we are all victims of Impostor Syndrome (Capable people being caught in self-doubt). On receiving recognition, we think that we got it by fooling everyone. Am I really worth it?? Studies shows that impostor syndrome is mainly found in women than men. An important point mentioned by Sheryl is, if a man judges himself he will give credit to his innate qualities and skills. Whereas if a women judges herself, she will give credit to external factors (luck, help from others).Very true in my case. So far for all the achievements I have made, I always believed that its 99% of God’s grace, 1% I divided among help from others, luck. I haven’t even given a percentage of credit to the hard work I did. If I cannot appreciate myself, then how can I expect it from others?

An internal report at HP revealed that women apply for open jobs if they meet 100% of criteria listed. Men apply if they meet at least 60% criteria. Another point which is true in my case. Whenever I see a job opening, I will check the requirements, if any one of it doesn't match with mine, I will simply drop it.

In this book, Sheryl is taking us through her professional and personal life. This book is mostly based on the incidents she had come across, the hardships she had faced. This gives us the courage to look at our life positively, even if we are going through a roller coaster ride by balancing work and life.

I really liked the Heidi-Howard case study, which showed that success and likability are positively correlated to men and negatively correlated to women. The case study was about a professional (Heidi Roizen, a real life entrepreneur) who achieved greater heights in professional life. For half of the class, the name of professional was "Heidi" and for the rest half of class it was "Howard". When asked for their thoughts, Heidi came out as selfish person, whom no one liked whereas Howard came out as an appealing colleague. Here both the groups has the same data, the difference was only in Gender. How pathetic!!! A gender difference is making people think in exactly opposite ways.

 Research over the last 40 years proved that in comparison to children with less involved fathers, children with involved and loving fathers have higher levels of psychological well-being and better cognitive abilities. Men who give their 100% only to job, should understand this. They should also learn to divide their time equally. Usually we will say "Behind every successful man , there is a woman". But after reading this book, I understood that "Behind every successful woman, there is a man" too. Without the support from the partner, no one will be able to balance their work and family. 

Book by Ellen

I was thinking its going to be something substantial, but its not.I'm disappointed as I was expecting it to be a kind of memoir or biography. The book is mainly a form of Ellen's usual chit chats. We feel like she is talking to us directly. A kind of comic book I say.If you want to get a slight relief from the daily work load,may be you can read this.And that too whether you like this book or not, depends very much on your nature (What kind of jokes makes you laugh). I read that the audio version of this book is bit better compared to reading

this book(Jokes are not well captured while writing).




   When reading some of the chapters I felt like she was just trying to increase the number of pages by writing unnecessary things (waste of time for the reader).

  Even though I'm a fan of Ellen DeGeneres Show, I will definitely think twice before buying any other book of hers. :(

Opening The Door Of Your Heart

Finished reading "Opening The Door Of Your Heart" by Ajahn Brahm. A wonderful book which leaves the reader with answers to several questions he/she had in mind for long. Ajahn Brahm born Peter Betts, in London UK,on 7th August 1951 is a Buddhist monk. Brahm is the Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery in Western Australia. He spent nine years studying and training in the forest meditation under Ajahn Chah.

 The way in which he has written the book surprised me a lot. I always had a belief that monks will be of Serious nature. They handle everything with utmost perfection and seriousness. But after going through this book, I realized how simple and humorous they can be. He had narrated some stories very humorously that I was laughing out loud, after reading it. But each and every page has some message to pass to the reader.

 My favorite from the book is " The hardest part of anything in life is thinking about it". Very true. All of us had several bitter experiences in our life, so far. And its human nature to think and think and think about it. This is the real problem, the more we think about the incident , the more we hurt ourselves. We all should
try our level best to NOT to think about it. Its not an easy task, but we should train ourselves to do that.

The first chapter itself gives a priceless message to today's society. We are in a society where relationships are not valued much. Most of us, points to the mistakes in a person all the time and knowingly/unknowingly are blind to the positive sides he has. Brahm explains this using a wall made of bricks. Imagine that we are
constructing a wall made of bricks. We arranged the bricks with much effort and perfection as far as possible. Once its set, we found that 2 of the bricks are projected a bit . We will be totally disappointed. We arrive to the conclusion that the whole wall became a mess because of the 2 bricks. Why aren't we looking at the rest 98 bricks that are very well arranged? Same is applicable to humans also. We break a relationship on seeing a fault from the other side, not at all considering how many good qualities the other person has.

Even if you are on cloud nine or struggling with your life, keep one thing in your mind : " This too shall pass". This will help us maintain a balance in our mind.

Ajahn Chah (Guru of Ajahn Brahm) described Blaming others as :

A man had an itch on his bum
He scratched his head
The itch never went away

Blaming others will never solve your problem. If something wrong happens, instead of blaming others, try to find a solution to handle the situation.

In one of the chapters, he narrates a story where 3 important questions are raised.

When is the most important time?
Who is the most important person?
What is the most important thing to do?

The answers are :
When is the most important time? NOW
Who is the most important person? The person you are with
What is the most important thing to do?  CARE

I have mentioned only few points from the book here ( which I liked the most). Its really a book worth reading. Planning to get a copy of few other books by Ajahn Brahm.