Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

Overall Rating: 7.5/10.0

“Stay Hungry Stay Foolish” is a very catchy phrase, which was first used by Steve Jobs in his speech for the convocation of students at Stanford University, however, title apart, the book has nothing to do with Apple or Steve Jobs. On the other hand, this book is an amalgamation of entrepreneurial achievements of 25 alumni of IIM-Ahmedabad. The book has been published by Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship, IIM-Ahmedabad in 8 languages, and it topped the as the #1 Best-Seller in India Today’s “Non-Fiction” category.

As per Rashmi Bansal, the Entrepreneurs in the book, and by extrapolating this logic, even elsewhere can be broadly classified into 3 categories.

THE BELIEVERS:
People who knew entrepreneurship was the Chosen Path. They took the plunge straight after their MBA or after working barely a couple of years. And they persevered until they made it big!

THE OPPORTUNISTS:
These entrepreneurs did not plan to take this path but when opportunity knocked they seized it. Their stories go to show that you don't have to be 'born with it', you can develop an entrepreneurial bent of mind at any age.

THE ALTERNATE VISION:
These individuals are using entrepreneurship to create social impact. Or as a platform which allows them creative expression.

The Praises (Positives)
The language used in the book is very lucid and straightforward. Also the book comprises of short interviews of each of the chosen-25, which is followed by their advice to the aspiring entrepreneurs. This “pearls of advices” are a concise version of what they have learnt in their years of hard work and struggle, and hence very inspiring to both the prospective and the struggling entrepreneurs.

The other wonderful thing that has been taken care of here is that the entrepreneurs are chosen from different aspects of the business world, unlike the so-called technocrats who have had a huge share of the limelight, thanks to the IT Revolution. Except the “software-related” success stories, the book also covers the conventional fields of hotel management, pharmacy, polymer-related water tanks and the sugar industry. However, the thing that touched my heart was the fact that the book also covers the Social-Responsibility aspect of the Entrepreneurship and covers Educational institutes and Financial Institutes which help the rural development among others.

In reading the real-life experiences of the interviewees, you will be able to relate to your dreams, your aspirations and even some of the experiences, which you have already undergone, are undergoing, or will undergo in the future, if you take the bold step in direction of entrepreneurship. To be really honest, reading all these stories, not only rekindled the entrepreneur in me (after all, most Gujatratis want to own their own business), but it also aroused a feeling of nostalgia for all the Business-related case-studies we used to work on during our college days. I guess, this book can be a starting point for the B-School students, when they want to look into case-studies, however, they would need to do more research on their own.


The Brick-Bats (Negatives)
The book also has some short-comings, which can turn people off from reading it. Since all the people featured in this book are from IIM-A, it seems more like an Alumni-Achievement Report, and hence people cannot directly relate to it. Also, the main thing that turned me off was the fact that most of the people considered did their MBA from IIM-A in 1970s and 1980s, when getting into the institute was much easier with a lot lesser competition and once they got a job, the job profiles they got as freshers were a lot higher than where any of the average people with a similar education history, which directly stops us from correlating their stories with the current market situation.

Moreover, about 15 of the stories have the same “abstract”, where the interviewee's story goes like this, my parents were ignorant or passive, I took CAT, made it to IIM-A, toiled at an MNC for a few years, got a great idea, worked on my new idea, and here I am, owner of a multi-million dollar organization. It almost seems like reading the same story over and over again. On a personal note, I felt that there could have been some more optimizations w.r.t. the people selected for the book. There is no mention of people like Chetan Bhagat (who is also an author) and Harsha Bhogle, who too are IIM-A Alumni, who left their MNC jobs to follow their hearts’ passion.

Another thing I found amiss here is that the level of research done for the entrepreneurs mentioned in the book is pretty less as compared to what is expected. Barring a few exceptions, the stories are missing the people around the interviewees, i.e. their families and friends who supported them in the ups and downs of their journey. The book also misses explaining some terms, and some business models in detail, which lead the readers to a state of not being able to completely grasp the stories. Also the English version book has places, where suddenly in the middle of a line; the author mentions some thoughts in Hindi, which break the flow of language.


Final Verdict:
All said and done, irrespective of the shortcomings with language, depth or any other criticisms, “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish” still manages to convey the ideas crisply in few pages and that's the essence of the book.

At just Rs 125 for a new copy, the book is cheaper than having a lunch/dinner at most of the Restaurants. However, even if you skip a meal to buy this book, since the book is bound to imbibe some wisdom into you, you won’t be able to “Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish”.

2 States – The Story Of My Marriage

Overall Rating: 7.0/10.0

I finally managed to get down reading and now reviewing “2 States” the latest novel penned by Chetan Bhagat. This is a book about the “love-life” and the marriage of a Punjabi boy and a Tamilian girl, who met each other at IIM-A. Of course, as per Chetan Bhagat, this book is a work of fiction, but the fact that it is inspired from his life can be gauged from the fact that his wife is also from Tamil Nadu and they met at IIM-A. The witty part however, is the fact that this piece of literature is dedicated to Chetan Bhagat’s “in-laws”.

The Story

Like all his previous books, this book too is supposed to be a book with a “Happy Ending”. The lead characters Krish Malhotra (a Punjabi Boy) and Ananya Swaminathan (a Tamilian Girl), who meet as classmates in IIM-Ahmedabad and the end result comes from the title itself, i.e. the boy marries the girl.

The storyline of their meeting and falling in love moves very fast indeed. The boy and the girl have a rendezvous on the first page in the first chapter itself, they become friends by the second chapter, kiss by chapter 6 and sex by chapter 7. The real story starts when their parents meet for the first time during their convocation, jolting them out of their dream-world and the things start going sour. So, in a book which has 63 Chapters, the “I love you” happens in the first 1/9th part if you may, and that is when the reality mentioned in the starting of the book makes sense.

Love marriages around the world are simple:
Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. They get married.
In India, there are a few more steps:
Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy.
Girl's family has to love boy. Boy's family has to love girl.
Girl's Family has to love Boy's Family. Boy's family has to love girl's family.
Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married.

Needless to say, there is the typical Chetan Bhagat style of writing where the lead characters are rebels and try to break the rules of their society. The book seems to be a “continuation” of Five-Point-Someone with “Hari”, now in light as “Krish”. There are references to having an affair with Professor’s daughter during his undergraduation at IIT-Delhi. Moreover, there is also a mention during Krish’s interview with CitiBank regarding a missed semester, during his undergraduate studies, which Krish corrects as calling it “Research Semester”.

The book depicts Ananya, who is a Tamil-Brahmin eating non-veg and boozing, which is against her social culture. In a very light fashion, Chetan Bhagat also shows the fact how some of the students take up careers without their actual interest just for the sake of money. It also shows the Indian mentality on topics like pre-marital sex, nuances of regions and religions and the social stigma of inter-caste marriages.

The book is based on a concept that has been covered countless times in innumerable Bollywood movies (it reminded me of Dil-Wale-Dulhaniya-Le-Jayenge). The funny and yet heartening was the fact that when Krish proposed later in the book, asking Ananya’s hand-in-marriage, he proposed to the entire Swaminathan family and bought rings for all of them. On the whole, it is a sweet story, where the kids though madly in love, don’t just elope together and respect the feelings of their family members; and yet, they also don’t their parents influence their choice of their life-partner.


Final Verdict:

To quote something that I figured out over time, Chetan Bhagat’s books always have something to do with numbers in the title. I even found a similar discovery from someone else on the Internet.

Five-Point Someone
One Night @ The Call Centre
Three Mistakes of My Life
Two States

Nevertheless, the book doesn’t meet the expectations to make it reach a “Four” out of 5 on the rating, so probably, his next title needs to have a “Four” to complete his set of 1-5. It’s not a literary classic and not reading the book won’t make you feel as if you are missing something. However, with its witty jokes, though sometimes regional, the book never turns boring, if you pick it up to read. To summarize, since the book just costs Rs. 95, which is lesser than a single movie ticket in the Multiplex, it is well-worth the money.

BT Brinjal – Can we BeaT it?

Over the last few days, there has been much of a fuss about the newly designed Genetically-Modified BT Brinjal, which was given an approval by Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of India, declaring it fit for human-consumption and hence open for Farmers to start planting it. So, here am I, writing my bit on this topic.

What is the BT Brinjal? What are the Advantages? Actually the word Bt stands for “Bacillus thuringiensis”, which is a soil bacteria, and hence the BT Brinjal is actually the normal Brinjal, with an additional gene from the Bt bacteria, which produces Bt protein. This new Brinjal was researched on by Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company) and is promoted by University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharwad, and Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore.

Actually, India is the “heart-place” for the Brinjals, and the egg-plant has been cultivated since last 4000-odd years. Though there are many local varieties and hybrids of this plant, Brinjal is highly prone to pest attacks. According to a recent survey, it is estimated that the damage caused by the Shoot & Fruit Borer in brinjal ranges from 50 to 70% and in economic terms, it is estimated to be around $221 millions. It is to lend tolerance to this pest primarily that the Bt Brinjal has been developed. The Bt protein is supposed to make the Brinjal plant resistant to a lot of known parasites of the plant and hence increase the yield of the produce. Moreover, this will also ensure that the farmers will need to use lesser insecticides, which will not only result in less poison spraying, but will also be cost-effective to the farmers. Also, the Mahyco plans to price the seed in a cost-recovery model and hence it will be affordable to all farmers.


The Alarming Facts
Though the benefits and the promises look wonderful on paper, the current safety assessments are not sufficient to verify whether the Genetically-Modified are completely safe. There was an assessment done by a bunch of NGOs including “Green Peace” and others, which did not deem the Bt Brinjal as wonderful a reality as is portrayed. Some of those points, are as follows:

• Rats fed Bt brinjal had diarrhoea, increased water consumption; decrease in liver weight, and liver to body weight.
• Cattle showed increased weight gain, intake of more dry roughage matter and milk production up by 10-14 percent as if they were treated by a hormone.
• When fed to animals, effects were observed on blood chemistry. Also there was a visible impact on blood clotting time (prothrombin), total bilirubin (liver health), and alkaline phosphate in goats and rabbits.
• Also, the Bt Brinjal tests did not include the impact on other species like butterflies/moths which depend on flowers.

Moreover, there are concerns regarding how will we be able to manage the cross-pollination which happens in Bt Brinjal and it’s other varients. Also, if all the farmers move to this one brand, wouldn’t we be losing the “Bio-diversity” and the “Gene-Pool” which has developed in the different varieties of Brinjal in the different parts of the world.

Other GM-related Precedents

Farmers reported massive loss in soil fertility after growing Bt Cotton for a few years. Disease incidence on Bt Cotton is also seen to be higher than on non-Bt Cotton. Also, there are alarming reports now that lot of animals died after feeding on plants of Bt Cotton farms, adding to the concerns that many farmers developed different allergies due to Bt cotton production.

A study from Phillippines shows that people living next to Bt Corn crop fields had developed many mysterious symptoms, especially during pollination time.

Worldwide, it is generally accepted that more studies are needed to understand the impact of Bt toxin on soil ecology. Natural Bt toxins have never been authorized for mammalian consumption and are known to be harmful to health.


The Harsh Reality

Nevertheless, since GEAC approved the Bt Brinjal, it was almost set to some into the Indian Supermarkets. If allowed, Bt Brinjal, would be the first food crop in the world with the Bt gene inserted into it that is to be directly consumed by human beings. Hence, the results not too certain and yet, Indians are subject to be made “guinea pigs” due to the approval of the GEAC.

The shimmer of hope lies in the fact that the product needs to have a final approval from the environment ministry. In October 2009, when the issue came up, there was wide-spread protest from informed consumers, NGOs and farmers-alike to stop this product from coming. This led to a Press Release where Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh said that he will have a series of consultations with all the stake holders in January and February 2010 before finalizing his views.

There is one more problem, in India, there is no proper labelling, which tells the consumer whether the product he is buying is “Genetically-Modified” or not. Hence the consumer is never in a position to choose whether he wants to try the new product or not.


Final Say

I am not the one, who is against Change, but I tend to be pessimistic (if you may), when the stakes are too high and when I don’t have faith in the analysis of the problem at hand. I am not against Bio-Technology and amazing potential it can bring forth, but until we are truly sure of our capacities and have all the issues/variables sorted out, I prefer to remain with what Mother-Nature has given to us. More specifically, when it comes to Brinjal, there are known to be other safer alternatives than Bt Brinjal, or even better practices, which kind of weed-out the need of Bt Brinjal, and so, honestly I wouldn’t want this product to hit the stands. If really the Bt Brinjal is sanctioned, I'll probably stop taking brinjal in my food (I don't like it much anyways). But what will we do if all the crops/vegetables follow the same suit?

Last but not the least True to his word, Jairamji in now on a Country-wide tour, asking and meeting people for their opinion. There are going to be rallies for the same in different parts of the country on different days. Great if we can get ourselves heard physically, but with the advent of technology, ifcannot be physically present, the least we can do is take a minute from our busy schedule and Fill this Form and show our Protest virtually. (It opens a page from the Green-Peace NGO in a new window)

Aman Ki Asha – Let’s bring Peace in this New Decade!

This is one topic I wanted to write since Jan 1, 2010, when I picked up the Times Of India and saw the title “Peace with Pakistan: Give Tomorrow A Chance”.

What exactly is Aman Ki Asha?

Aman ki Asha is a joint initiative taken by two very powerful Media Houses, Times of India (India) and the Jang Group (Pakistan), to bring the people of the subcontinent back together on social, cultural, emotional and economic fronts. The two countries have been in constant fight over various issues, ever since they got partitioned over 6 decades ago. India and Pakistan have fought many wars in the past over territory issues. After partition there were fights for Kashmir occupation, followed by fight in 1960s and 1971 (Bangladesh partition), followed by Kargil. The reasons of these fights may include few of the following views.

Indian View - We Fight for Our Protection
Time and again India has blamed Pakistani militants and terrorists of entering the border and creating havoc in our motherland. There is said to be strong anti-Indian sentiment in Pakistani army and ISI, which is wrecking the possibilities of peaceful ties between the 2 countries.

Pakistani View – We fight for Our Existence
Still there is a wrong notion in Pakistan that India split them into half, creating Bangladesh. There is also a lot of dissatisfaction due to the Kashmir issue. This sentiment of hatred is further aided by other issues like sharing of river water and sudden success of India.

Consolidating the Views to form a Real Picture

The hatred between the countries have now reached a height where, some people, unfortunately, highly educated and powerful people look at the people from the other side of the border with complete distrust. As an Indian, while I am disheartened to see the massacre of innocent masses on this side of the border by Jihadi forces (which we presume are from Pakistan); I am pretty sure, there will be someone else in Pakistan, feeling the same emotion for the deaths of innocent people due to the activists from RAW.
Though we know for a fact, that not all Pakistani residents are bad, and unfortunately, not all Indian residents are good, there is still a bunch of people who don’t acknowledge this fact, and hence the countries are unable to move on from the gory-past of the Partition.

Why Aman Ki Asha is a Good Initiative?
A large bunch of the new educated citizens of both India and Pakistan form their views from what the media feds them. In past, we have seen the horrific articles on some terrorist activity somewhere, missile testing to threaten the other country, various racist or nationalist articles and in some way, at least for a small period of time, we get stimulated by the tune of the writer. Unfortunately, instead of giving us good news, these media sources generally talked about pessimism and failed negotiations. But then, can we really blame the media? I guess not. Don’t we as readers tend to focus on the negative-sensational news rather than read an editorial of some philosophy? The negative emotion buried deep inside us keeps getting reinforced with each such incident and we start forming wrong ideologies.
Now, with two of the major Groups coming up with initiative to appreciate what we have in common, rather than why we are fighting, it will slowly trigger in changing the decades-old feeling of rage and hatred in the newer generation. Print media is one of the most widely reaching means of communicating with the masses and what we really need is wider and deeper engagement to tear down the walls that separate us, and clear the misconceptions we harbour about each other.

Why should we do it?

Most of the articles I read boil down to fundamentally these questions.
Why us?
They did wrong to us, why should we forget what happened to us?
Shouldn’t they acknowledge and apologize first to us?
Why do we even need them in the first place?
The answer is simple. It’s better “living together” rather than “dying fighting each other”. A politically-stable and developed Pakistan is as much in an interest of India, as it is for Pakistan. Unlike the past, waging a war is not even an option now, and both the countries are now facing internal chaos because of the radicals and terrorists taking over. Also on the monetary side, if Kasab (the 26/11 lone surviving terrorist) is to be believed, he did not take to arms because of hatred for India, it was just because, it would have brought prosperity to his family. What we don’t realize is that, the amount of money both countries can save by not fighting each-other can actually push the two countries much faster and much further on the list of the “Developed Countries”.

Final Take

I have read a small number of blogs on this topics (both Indian and Pakistani), and found that there is more optimism than pessimism in the views of the people. To quote what Kamla Bhasin wrote in the Times of India.
“I always found it strange that leaders who will unleash wars and decide to cut off contacts between people continue to meet, while those who think Wars are absurd can’t meet.”
Should the good intentions of hundreds of millions of Indians and Pakistanis be subverted by a few hardliners and radicals? Certainly not.
I read a lot of blogs, which seem to suggest that this is a marketing gimmick and nothing more; but all I wanted to comment is, marketing or not, it is a new start and it gives hope. We are not fancying endless optimism here and saying, the two countries, aided with just this one initiative of two groups (which again is neither the first, nor the most ambitious) will kiss and make up. However, it may be just one of those “yet-another-small-steps” which finally helped us complete the journey of a thousand miles.

I am not sure if we are all ready for the plunge as yet, but,
I hope that there will be a day when we will have that trust and friendship back,
I hope a time will come, when Indians and Pakistanis won’t need be suspected as terrorists if they went to meet their brothers across the border.
I hope there will be a time, when we will be able to use the words “India, Pakistan and Peace” in one sentence without using any negative word in the middle.
I hope...

3 Idiots – All Izz Not Well!!!

Well, the title by no means tries to convey that the movie is bad or anything. In fact, I watched the movie last weekend with my School friends in Ahmedabad and completely fell in love with the movie. More specifically, the lucid way in which the movie shows the “peer-pressure” and the mind-set of most Indian homes was absolutely amazing. Being a student in an Engineering College myself, I saw first-hand the reasons why some of my fellow-students took up engineering and also the issues they faced because of difference in their aptitude as against their field of specialization.

Nevertheless, this is not a movie review, a lot of people have already reviewed this movie by now and there is one review in particular, written by a friend of mine at 3 Idiots: A must watch for every Non-Idiot!, which is pretty close to what I would have written, and hence there is no real need for me to have a redundant post. This is however, a post on the recent row that is going on between Chetan Bhagat, the author of the book Five-point someone and the movie’s lead actor Amir Khan, film producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and director Rajkumar Hirani.

The controversy about the credit stealing sparked based on Chetan Bhagat’s blog post, which contained the statement “Pre-release, the makers made press statements like the movie is ‘very loosely’, or 2-5% inspired by the book”. Also, he seemed to suggest that the movie has almost 70% material taken from the book. This claim was supported by big names like Shashi Tharoor, Veer Sanghvi alongwith various other journalists and fans. Chetan Bhagat also went on to comment that he had put blind faith in the Production unit of 3-Idiots and now he felt back-stabbed since the movie gives the credit for the story-line to script-writer Abhijat Joshi and director Rajkumar Hirani, while he just got a small mention at the end of the movie.

On the other hand, the 3-Idiots representatives, i.e. Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Amir Khan jumped into the fray trying to defend their stand. Vidhu Vinod Chopra almost shouted at the Journalists in Noida that he had read the book and it wasn’t a copy from the book. Amir on his part denied the claim that the movie wasn’t based 70% on the book (without he himself having read the book), and criticized Bhagat’s being “publicity-hungry”, since the movie had become a HUGE HIT. Amir Khan went on to suggest that the Vidhu Vinod Chopra Production House already possesses the rights of the book and there was already an agreement that was reached between Chetan Bhagat and the Production House regarding the rights and the credit-sharing. Amir Khan also charged Chetan Bhagat with trying to take credit away from the 3-Idiots team for coming up with a fabulous adaptation to his book, and that was not expected from a writer of his stature.

Finally, Chetan Bhagat stood his ground, trying to defend his stand, with interviews, where he shows similarities in the movie and the book one-by-one. Since Chetan Bhagat was not allowed to see the movie before it hits the screens, he couldn’t object earlier. On the other hand, Vidhu Vinod Chopra closed the topic saying that since they bought the “rights” of the book, it was at their discretion, whether they wanted to copy 5% or 70%.

The Indian Media in its own sense has also added a lot of fuel to the fire and made this a big issue. Also, some of the statements are shown with a bias, which will not resolve the issue easily. All in all, the row is bound to keep going on, at least for sometime now.

Final Verdict:

We are bound to see more fights on this, may or may not be legal, but credits are something everyone involved here is craving for. On a personal note, I realize how painful it feels if you first read the book, then see the movie and check for the kind of credits given to Chetan Bhagat; you will feel saddened.

Nevertheless, I believe, either good or bad, publicity is publicity, and it will help both the movie and the book. But a row about such a nice book and a very refreshing movie does tend to show that for such a fight between the “3-Idiots” Chetan Bhagat, Amir Khan and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, my personal rating on a scale of 10 would be “Five-Point-Someone”, I mean “Five-Point-Something”.