Kashmir. Behind the Vale - Book Review

Author: M J Akbar
Publications: Roli

You might have read and heard a lot about the Kashmir issue, so have I. But, I know most of us have formed opinions, views and images based upon what we were told or we heard. This book could help many a people who ever had any interest in knowing more about Kashmir.

M J Akbar takes you through centuries of history of Kashmir from the times of Kingdoms in early ADs to 1990. Yes, only till 1990! He shed’s light on all aspects of Kashmir from its kings to people, from religion to regions etc.

It makes for a good read if you have some kind of connection with the state of probably have visited it sometime.

Few lines from passage about how Islam came into existence in Kashmir - After a very unstable period of 12th century where the change of kings was more frequent than change in weather came a king in 13th century, popularly known as 'Bud Shah'. After stabilizing the state he wanted to change from Buddhism to Public's religion, which at that time was Hinduism. Since Hindu pandits could not decide which of the 4 castes the King should join he was not granted the permission to become a Hindu. He then decided to become a Muslim and he did. Over the next 50 years of his prosperous rule he did everything right a king should do. He built mosques and temples with equal devotion. But, then people followed him and so followed Islam in Kashmir.

How history is formed !

But, then one book on a subject as wide as that may not be enough.

Banker to the Poor. Book Review-V

Authors - Muhammad Yunus, Alan Jolis.

What started as an experiment in 1974 has today become one of the largest institutions in MicroCredit.

Microcredit is a concept that was not accepted easily by any banker in the 70s and the situation has improved only marginally even today, thats what yunus conveying in this book. As the title suggests Grameen is a bank which understands only one thing - Poor.
Some very good points in the book are:

-- The poor knows better how to fend for themselves than the guy sitting inside an airconditioned room in some swanky building.
-- Trust can be more powerful than mortgage.
-- Its good to have contacts in the government and use them appropriately required.

Though it is Yunus' Autobiography and one would expect personal annecdotes in between but there are a number of times when the author deviates too much from the Grameen story.

So read on if topics like poverty, development, society, upliftment etc. interest you.

The old man and his God. Book review - IV

Author - Sudha Murthy.

I have not read Sudha Murthy before though I have read that she written quite a lot. This time I got my hands on it as my brother bought it.

The book is written in a very simple and plain style. Describing some very common stories that the author came across in her life. The statement she makes in the preface stands correct for such stories and it is that "we all come across such strange and touching incidents in our life it is just that we forget them".

Well some people makes note of them and get a chance to share with others. This is what Sudha has done in this book.

The book is written in a very simple language and does contains interesting stories with happy and sad endings showing different facets of life.

A good short read.

Blue Ocean Strategy. Book review - III

Authors - W. Chan Kim. Renee Mauborgne.
Publisher - Harvard Business School press

A typical management book it talks about creating a market for your business where you no longer compete with your existing competition. Though it is a bestseller. I did not like it too much for a few reasons like (i) It really does not gives any practical solutions instead it is giving too much of theoretical solutions (ii)It really does not tells anything new.

The book is written by management professors at INSEAD and hence is more like a consultant suggesting something instead of an executioner with task at hand.

The examples cited as reference to the strategy of creating a new market all make sense in hindsight because they succeeded but there would have been so many unique attempts that would have failed as well. Though the book does touches upon how to execute such strategies, convince people to allow changes and move things forward but again it is too much theory. Well I would say my understanding might not have been good enough but if you think you like business then do read the book to realize it is not fun to do business in fact to do business is a serious business and it is very important to do monotonous and not so interesting tasks in business.

The only blue ocean strategy I could learn from the book was how the authors made this book look technical with a complex name and still write not so very complex content (though the authors might have worked very hard to generate this) and make the book a bestseller. One good thing is the book is not very thick like other management books and hence can become a short read on some journey.

It happened in India - Book Review

Book - It happened in India (Autobiography, Kishore Biyani).
Author - Kishore Biyani with Dipayan Baishya
Publisher – Rupa

Kishore Biyani is not a very popular man and neither old enough or idolized enough to have written an autobiography. But, I bought the book for a number of reasons. I had read the name Kishore Biyani some 5 years back in Business World when organized retain was starting to emerge as a massive industry of future. I have been interested in organized retain because of my personal interest in mass customer business i.e. B2C over B2B. The book has a glitzy cover and pulled my attention quickly plus only for Rs 99 (original from Landmark, Bangalore).

Now coming to the contents of the book. It is a good, simply written book with no big words or teachings. One unusual approach in this book is so may reviews about "Kishoreji" from various people who have been with him during his ascent. This includes family members, friends, colleagues and business partners. In an autobiography this is unusual because an autobiography is supposed to be the story of the person from the person. But disappointingly rather I must say ‘as expected’ all the people who reviewed (20% of the book is only made up of other people writing about him), none has mentioned any weakness or shortcomings. This makes the book so very usual since it is only human to have shortcomings and weakness and then he too is a human.

What I liked about the book/kishoreji is the extreme focus on learning, un-learning and re-learning. Though Biyani is also writing about customer as his only focus but I think that is something most of the people say. I offcourse do not intend to say that it might not be the case with him but for me an autobiography is not proof enough. Though I would still agree with him as I myself have been a keen observer of the Big bazaars and Centrals and I had noticed a lot of things that he is mentioning specifically.

An autobiography normally (in fact very often) contains 98% past(history) and 2% future. This one contains almost 60-40. Instead at times Kishoreji is laying so much focus on his projected plans and future strategies that it starts to seem like an investor meet where the idea is to impress about the company and then ask them to invest in it.

It is a good read for those who are part of the retail industry or aspiring to be part of it. I also liked it because it is very much Indian with usage of Hindi words at a number of places, which makes it so very easy to relate to things.

3.75/5

The Good Women of China - Book Review

Book - The good women of China. Hidden Voices
Author - Xinran
Publisher - Vintage

Women are a topic, which has fascinated many from the earliest of times. I picked up this book in Bangalore not because of any similar fascination but since I have been living in china for almost 6 months now so I thought it was a good chance to know more about anything Chinese as it always helps in conversing with people in a foreign country about their things.

The author was a journalist cum radio show presenter presenting a show on women called "words on the night breeze". In her search to understand women better she interviews many women across china. The book contains narration from those interviews and thus comprises of real life stories of Chinese women. It is well written but contains only sad stories about women at different levels of society, in different regions of the country and of different ages. Still most of the stories come from the time of Chinese military revolution.

It would be easier to relate to the book if one has been in touch with China for some time. Through the book I realized my observations about Chinese women were not very incorrect since the book articulated on the same lines as well.

1. Women in China are considered as a mere object of pleasure. Though the same is attributed to women around the world but what makes it interesting in China is the acceptance of this fact by women and thus further encouraging this for personal gains.
2. Though in general it seems women are at par with men in China because they can be found in all professions that men are a part of but this remains true only as long as the jobs are the labour level jobs.

I think stories like this about women might exist in all parts of world. But, the author is trying to correct the illusion anybody might have of women in China having a better life than that of women in other places.