Books I read in 2019

I don't write review of all the books I read, I do that only when I find the book interesting, something new I could learn from, or when it makes a great impression which is worth writing a review and sharing on this blog. But I do read lots of books anyway as I am a compulsive reader. Here is the list of the books I did read this year.

1. The hard thing about hard thing by Ben Horowitz
2. The laws of human nature, War by Robert Greene
3. HDFC Bank 2.0 by Tamal Bandyopadhay
4. The happiness curve by Jonathan Rauch
5. Why I stopped wearing my socks by Alok Kejrival
6. Inner Engineering by Sadhguru
7. The laws of spirit world by Khorshed Bhavangri
8. Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee
9. Quiet by Susan Cain
10. Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Swami Muktibodananda
11. Nine lives by William Dalrymple
12. Executive presence by Sylvia Ann Hewlett
13. Enlightened by Sadhguru
14. Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey
15. So good they can't ignore you by Cal Newport
16. Bandhan by Tamal Bandyopadhay
17. The third pillar by Raghuram Rajan
18. Brand custodian by Mukun Rajan
19. Originals by Adam Grant
20. The 100 year life by Lynda Gratton
21. The courage to be disliked by Ichiro Kshimi
22. 21 lessons for 21st century by Yuval Harari
23. Home Deus by Yuval Harari

24. Adiyogi by Sadhguru

25. India unbound by Gurucharan Das

26. Leaders eat last by Simon Sinek

27. Essentialism by Greg Mckeown

28. Atomic Habits by James Clear

29. Kundalini Tantra by Swami Satyananda Saraswati

30. Small Fry by Lisa Jobs

31. Sure ways to self realization by Swami Satyananda Saraswati

32. Give and take by Adam Grant

33. Trillion dollar coach by Eric Schmidt

34. Barking up the wrong tree by Eric Barker

35. The charisma myth by Olivia Fox Cabane

36. The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins

37. Who cheats and why by Robin Banerjee

38. The Signal and the noise by Nate Silver

39. The subtle art of not giving a f*ck by Mark Manson

40. Deep work by Cal Newport

41. Inside C Suite by Jayaram Eswaran

42. Indigo Story by Shelly V

43. Bad Blood by John Carreyou

44. This is Marketing by Seth Godin

45. Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella

46. Genome by Matt Ridley

47. Sapiens by Yuval Harari

48. Antifragile by Nassim Taleb

You can see that most were Business/Leadership books followed by spirituality and science research and sparingly fiction in between.

The one's by Robert Greene, I have read, re-read multiple times and found deeper meanings with each read. Books by Yuval Harari do command re-reading multiple times. Those books on the subject of micro-biology, genome has caught my interest and I might explore the subject further.

There were few other books that I did buy but could not read them completely as I lost interest in between and those did not make it to this list.

I plan to publish this list for the next year as well as it provides a good reference and I can track my changing interests too.

The last decade 2010-2019: Personal life milestones

• 2010: My first son Prateek was born
• 2011 to 2012: Nothing significant I could remember
• 2013: Started this blog
• 2014: Building the house in Bangalore
• 2015: New home!
• 2016: My second son Puneet was born. Family photo looks so good now.

• 2017: Life as usual?
• 2018: Changed the job
• 2019: Lost my mother (My mother had voted with me just 2 weeks before she had passed away)

Farewell 2019. Welcome 2020!

Looking back how my personal life unfolded throughout the year that is coming to an end, I find this was a difficult year. A slow start and things looking as usual did not remain so. Losing my mother in the month of May was a shock still undigested. Career did not go anywhere throughout the year. I did not do well as investor too. It has been an year of disappointments on most fronts. Few experiences were scary too. August to October months put me in a bad health. Some of the days in that time I even wondered if my life was under threat but the issues were simple and got sorted out too. It appeared like health is getting restored but becoming sick again at the end of the year and becoming bedridden for two weeks is not a pleasant experience either. But I see few rays of hopes in the year ahead. I welcome it.

A past memory coming to surface again

It was a terrible day. I had met with an accident. I was driving the car and the family was with me. Not sure what had happened in those unlucky few seconds, I had lost control of the car and the whole car got dragged off the road, hit a 5 feet high stone pillar, turned over and flipped. Damage to the car was severe but the we the occupants came out with minor injuries. Though I recovered from the shock quickly my family was not. It was difficult for them to digest what had happened in a matter of few seconds. My son, who was three years old at that time, was in a complete shock and was crying non-stop. While I was thinking what to do next and how to come out of the mess, I saw few people rushing to help us. They helped us remove the luggage and some even asking if we needed a drop somewhere. Then to my surprise, I saw few 'Jogamma' (third gender eunuchs) coming forward to help us. They took my crying son to a nearby house they were living in, offered water, helped him come out of the shock. They gave my family a place to sit and think and keep our luggage for the time being. They assured everything will be alright and reminded that it is only car out of shape and we the family are safe. I arranged a cab for my family to go back to Bangalore. I stayed back at the place and made arrangements to tow the car. After that I visited a Police station to lodge a complaint and the procedures took till evening and then headed back to Bangalore.

It was an unusual day, a tiring one. I had not met with any accident until that day. And that experience had drained energy out of me to do anything. Late evening when I reached home, I logged on to my computer and there was an email which caught my notice. It was from Milaap (a social service lending platform) showing I had a repayment for the interest free loan I had given through them a couple of months ago to a Devadasi, a Jogamma. My loan was supposed to help her gain independence by buying buffalo's for livelihood. I could not understand if the events of 'Jogamma' helping me recover from the shock of accident in the morning and the repayment with thanks I had received the same day had a relation. Coincidence or not, I was already tired for the day and slept off.

The accident took more than an year for me to come out from it. I refused to drive for almost an year after that incident. As the emotions settled in, when we are going the same way, I asked my driver to stop there for a while, got down and went around the place of accident. Also visited the house where Jogamma  had offered a place to sit and relax. But the inmates were all different now and I could not recognize any of them. I found a small temple outside the house, offered prayers there and left the place. Afterwards that place did not haunt or scare me anymore.

It appeared like that accident was due to spell of an evil spirit to me sometimes as I was facing one or the other unusual, awkward experiences while driving that car. This is while there were no strong evidences to believe so and I did not believe in super natural things anyway. An astrologer we had consulted had suggested to abandon the car and said the accident was supposed to end our lives but it is God's grace and the place it happened had things in our favor. I did not want to analyze it further, sold the car and took the event as a moment of bad luck and moved on with life. Five years rolled.

When I read the book 'Nine Lives' through the last week, it's two chapters, one on the lives of Devadasi's and their God and another chapter on those who live on the cremation ground and use the skulls of those who died prematurely to please those spirits to take advantage in their sadhana, all my past memories came to surface again. For a moment, it appeared like whatever I went through on the day of my accident was not coincidence but it was cause and effect. Again, I do not want to believe  in the super natural things but this time I could put my past experience into writing with ease. What had remained in the deep recesses of my memory is out of me now and should not bother me in the future.

Now I am looking forward for new experiences and what the life has to offer.

Book Review: Nine Lives by William Dalrymple

As the book title denotes it is an account of lives of nine different beings whose lives are dedicated to spirituality and the religion they believe in. They are not fictional characters but the real one's living across across length and breadth of India.

The first biography is that of a Jain nun (The Nun's tale). It captures how an young girl, gets attracted to Jain religion practices and goes on to become a Jain Muni. She finds a companion with another Nun who has a similar background of her's. Together they spend couple of decades following the rituals and tradition of Jainism wandering around all the places in India. When her companion Nun leaves the world embracing 'Sallekhana' (a procedure through which one leaves the body by fasting in a gradual manner and giving up all the food items one by one and finally water too). After this Nun feels lonely and finds home at a Jain Ashram in Shravana Belagola, a south Indian town. While she narrates her life events, this author learns that she too has embraced 'Sallekhana'.

The second one (The Dancer of Kannur) is about dancers at 'Theyyan', a festival event in Kerala. These dancers belonging to Dalit community become gods by dressing up and dancing during Theyyan season for three months in a year. People from all religions respect these Gods in human form, offer prayers during the event. Some of these dances and performances are aimed at showing how Dalits are ill-treated by upper caste religions and these dancers see this event as an opportunity to seek reforms and social equality. After the season, these dancers take up jobs as well-diggers, work as labors and take up other menial jobs. This tradition has been going on for centuries but will the next generations continue this tradition needs to be seen.

Third one (The Daugher of Yellamma) has Rani Bai as protagonist. She is a Devadasi who lives with fellow Devadasi's near Belgaum in Karnataka. At the young age of 6, she was dedicated to Yellamma goddess. And her life's way forward was cast in stone. After puberty, she has to accept the oldest profession on this world but in the name of goddess. All of her clients are not going to be nice to her. But she has a community to support her. And the greatest danger is in the form of getting the diseases. Rani Bai has seen her fellow Devadasi's losing their lives to these diseases. She later loses two of her daughters to the same. While she has an aspiration to retire from this profession by buying agriculture land and buffalo's, this author learns that she has been tested HIV positive. Overall, this  chapter does more than telling a tale of a Devadasi. It offers research into how the poverty puts so many into this vicious cycle and how the lives of those involved in this is short lived. It also involves the tale of goddess of Yellamma and how Devadasi's find solace in her and draw energy from her life.

There are six more tales on the similar lines about sufi saints, singers of Rajasthan, a Tibetan Monk who fled to India and wanted to liberate his country taking gun into his hands and the Tantriks in West Bengal who live in the cremation ground.

Reading this book was an eye-opener for me as this unraveled lives of people whom we don't find in the regular neighborhood but of those who live intensely with the sole aim of realizing the God they believe in through their chosen paths.