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Movie Review

Bharat (2019) Movie Review

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I got to see Bharat (2019) in the Amazon Prime Video OTT. This movie is underrated per IMDB. I would put it at a much higher rating than above average, likely 8 or 9 out of 10.

Who would not like this movie? It is pure fiction and has a larger than life story with strong emotions covering the whole spectrum from sadness to happiness, death to life before and to life after, from patriotism to atrocity, from poverty to richness, from dependence to independence, from childhood to old age, from non violence to violence, from fantasy to reality, from existence to non-existence. I would count this as Salman‘s best movie ever, that I have seen.

Placing the Tiger in the background and working in and around untouched domains

Coming from the hangover of the YRF Spy universe. Bharat, makes me think of this as a precursor to the Tiger. Almost completing the Tiger’s background story, which could have easily sat between pre-Tiger to Tiger. With similarly bold character of Katrina Kaif holding up and performing beyond expectations of a stereotypical Bollywood heroine. This also fits well with the Salman Khan’s zone of movies with the premise of India-Pakistan making this one also a true pan sub continent movie of Bajrangi Bhaijan. Complete with the Pathaan and upcoming Tiger Movies, this almost demands at least in people’s mind to give Salman movie fans to make these attempts a redeemer of whatever faults the human has and keeps the hope of negating the differences and unifying the broken hearts of both countries.

Bharat the redeemer

Coming back to Bharat the movie, at some Katrina’s character also knocks out the superhuman of the character making it very human. This must have been a truly humbling experience for the fans. As for the actors, they are just acting, it is for us, that it matters more.

Bharat and work

That scene of getting himself and his team a work visa was funny, unrealistic and stupid, nevertheless entertaining. Going through tough times of Partition of the sub-continent to formation of different countries, the effects of which were shown with good intent and effectiveness, Bharat stands out. Taking us through numerous jobs that the titular character undertakes and gives his best, it is a reminder for anyone who is willing to succeed, to also be willing to put in the effort. As we grow up we relate to different aspects of a movie. A working class person, someone in the working age, hopes to get to work and live a work life, accepts a VIP orAla Vaikunthapurramuloo or The Pursuit of Happyness at a much more realistic viewpoint. On a parallel, Katrina’s character also goes through work life, of immigration, public broadcasting and reality TV, a natural evolution resonating with the macroeconomics of the country of India.

Bharat and immigration

As a southerner, the effects of partition are not known much in the south, only history testbooks and interests in geopolitics would draw a curious mind towards this forgettable but important nation creating moment. I would have to use much imagination on top of the excellent writing of Kushwant Singh in his Train to Pakistan, to fill the gaps of humanness and the lack thereof. Bharat also goes through ambitions of the unemployed, how they wished to build their family first, reminding an average Mamootty fan of Pathemaari. Pathemaari was a serious take on poverty, helplessness, economic immigration and immigrant workers. Similar immigrant worker stories of which we heard and read in the recently concluded Qatar world cup 2022 as well. So many years have passed, but history repeats itself. Bharat particularly touches the immigrant’s nerve when it talks about hopes. Destroying someone’s hope is worser than death. In Kerala, a related proverb goes like, “Give an elephant, but never give hope”. Sometimes as immigrant and/or worker, we give hopes to ourselves, some of them may need a reclassification as a false-hope, to satisfy our ego and give ourselves a really hard footing. Don’t hopes drive us? Don’t we give ourselves hopes to live on and live by? Sometimes winning, sometimes losing and having a lifetime of experience to reflect upon.

Going through different jobs, posing different situations and the associated struggle and fun, it sits well with me as an economic immigrant working out of home country. The fun side of which reminds me of yet another great movie – The Forrest Gump. Salman portrayed an emotionally less aged character in the hit Bajrangi Bhaijan, whose innocence, just like Forrest Gump captured the heart, this one in and as Bharat combines the best of both worlds, and includes a whole universe of characters, emotions, situations and struggles, which is yet another surprise in a Bollywood movie, especially one normally expected out of Salman. Dealing with even pirates, on his own style, who would not want to be Bharat’s friend. It is his friend in bad times, that kept with him, and even this aspect of friendship was explored,in addition other relationships with siblings, parents and extended family with much importance in the movie.

Overall, Bharat was an interesting experience, of laws and lawlessness, ambitions and complacence. It is a wonder for someone who went through The Forrest Grump and Bajrangi Bhaijan to see that even within a standard Indian movie duration, Bharat could offer this much, and keeping a coherent narrative with effective visualization. Like other Salman movies, this one too, stands ground on hit movie songs. Bharat was a refreshing experience, and thence for once putting this particular movie well above my average ratings for an average Hindi Movie.

There was only one instant where I felt the movie could have improved. During Bharat’s near death experience in the underground work place, an otherwise stopped watch should have started working, to show us that this was unreal times, where his whole life flashes before him, and the watch should have stopped, when he recovers, indicating that we are back to normal where the watch never worked.

Bharat also pays good reference times for the legends Shah Rukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar and Amitabh Bachchan.

Sidenotes

As someone who worked for a Pakistani Origin CEO, in a company which had significant footprint in Pakistan, USA and office in India. Going to a sponsored vacation trip with all Pakistani people in an unknown country, was a unique and memorable experience for me. Thanks to the USA for letting us do that.I would confidently claim that time has been proving over and over again of no much difference between humans, their needs and emotions. And people of all countries gel well when they are outside of their homes. So I would encourage everyone to get out of the comfort of home, and go and see the world. To shine lights on the darkest corners of our brain, to open up and bring in a true acceptance of the world we live in.We need to do more of that between these two beautiful countries and many other countries as well.

Footnotes

I could not end this without relating this movie to my own work life and visa experience as an economic immigration, though not as exciting and entertaining, it has its own ups and downs captured as related posts here.

Movie Review

Pathaan (2023) Movie Review

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I watched this movie in the USA and have something to say about this. AMC gave a good 30% discount to watch this. AMC theatre was one of the worst I have visited. It was unclean and the seats were not that great. This was comparable to the Kantara showed in Regal which was also yet another theater may be in the verges of stopping there business, or may be they are all restarting from their revenues hit by pandemic?! This review is about Pathaan movie starring SRK released in 2023.

Pathaan film is also based on RAW, just like Vijay’s Beast 2022, but without the problems of it. The movie begins with a KGF1 style setting where the hero, with long hairs covering his face, is tied up, surrounded by villains. The trailer and poster showing SRK, looked like a makeover, unrealistic for the SRK that I have known. His best movie ever, for me is FAN may be followed by Swades. Throughout his movies, SRK has shown a stand alone way to hold any movie up solo, compared to say Amir Khan, where Dangal, Secret SuperStar, 3 idiots, Taare Zamin Par all heavily depended on the story and other characters. Pathaan is a different beast, where we see the best movie formula, chase, fights, game plan, game like adventures sprinkled with enough fun. The movie borrows enough and more scenes from Mission Impossible, James Bond series, KGF1, Uncharted, Batman series and may be some games. If you wanted to see all of this featuring SRK, then this is the movie to watch. If the dialogues had to be in Hindi, this is the perfect movie. If the setting has to be not India, then this is it.

There are some rare scenes in the movie, that anyone who is not even a fan would like. Such as Salman meeting SRK. Who better than John Abraham to play the villain, a villain created by system failure and policy gaps. Just like the one an Anniyan would do. I would anyday side with this character than the main lead. And it was a disappointment not to have a mass dialogue when the final showdown between these two ends. Any Telugu, Tamil movie would better justice in terms of screenplay and dialog at the end of fights. Per Wikipedia, Pathan is corruption of their original Afghan name, and has a history and background story of migration and interaction with other cultures. While I know none of them personally, there is some common terms that resonates with my recent blog posts. These keywords are loyalty, trust and work.

Throughout the film there is an evidence of people doing their work, be it a good guy, bad guy, or the double agent. They are all doing their job until the system thinks otherwise. I saw this movie as a job related confusion and a show of resulting consequences. Everyone keeps doing their job until they find some conflict with other interest. And as a result they assume an anti system stance. Because the system betrayed them and orphaned them. Don’t family come first before duty. Getting priority on this would have helped the villain much earlier. Without a support structure, orphaned and abandoned, there is not much to hold on to with a continuing life. Throughout Pathaan we would also see that both these characters go as in Tom & Jerry fighting and leaving and repeating, never really hurting in a deadly fashion. As in Joker, Thaniyavarthanam, situations can change a person. An inconsiderate society, an ill situation, a depressing environment, a bad upbringing can all contribute to someone going to nadirs of the life, digging themselves in deep without escape. It would take a massive undying Pursuit of Happiness, a King Richard, a divine presence as in Pranchiyettan & the Saint, a friend along as in Neelakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna Bhoomi, an unquestioning companion as in Peanut Butter Falcon. To save someone out. I was disappointed that Pathaan could not reason with and bring back the good in the bad guy, a system can corrupt a person so much, and make it hard to bring them back to life, and it becomes easy to assume that character to be branded bad, pointing finger at their own self-infliction, and rather easily, instead of other ways, push and shovel them into further depths and wish them dead.

Overall a good movie for SRK fans. And keeps the hero realistic without any idealism, that a Vijay or Rajni would have given this character.

Book Review, Review

Blinked

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Blink: The Power Of Thinking Without ThinkingBlink: The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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I picked this up a second time. Thanks to Buffalo-Erie Public Library System for providing this free facility.

Blink takes the reader through some case studies and associated case studies on snap-judgements and its base on expertise, prejudice and autonomous nervous system.

It was interesting to wonder if some Kathakali artists could collaborate for the facial action coding system. For the uninformed Kathakali is an old art form mixing drama and dance, action and emotions. Kathakali artists spend a lot of effort in efficiently enacting the required dramatic sequences based on Indian (Hindu) mythology. It takes equal amount of effort from the audience to understand the performance. This art form is considered to be the height of acting. It is also an old saying in Kerala that face is the mirror of mind (മുഖം മനസ്സിന്റെ കണ്ണാടി). And blink re-affirms that mind reading (read face-reading) is for real.

Malcolm also says about well educated people doing blink judgements and actions which may be right or may not be right based on the habits built by exercise. While the policemen killed Diallo because of their bad exercise, and Paul Ekman could judge facial expressions to predict the nature and behavior of persona by good practice. Musical experts picked up good music performed behind the screen and also got dissatisfied by seeing a woman performing trombone , when the screen was removed later, due to prejudice of expecting only males perform high quality trombone.

In the afterword, Malcolm wishes to urge the US American jury system to adopt the “screen” to avoid prejudice in official judgement that may creep in due to the jury system of USA. This brings in a question about the jury system itself. The world class movie “Rustom” vividly portrays and adaptation of real story that used the last jury system based judgement that happened in India. I was wondering why the system was restricted to judgement by judge alone in India. If USA uses jury system that must be good. Ain’t it ? Blink reassures me that definitely, well educated individuals in jury hardly know legality and constitution. They are influenced by their prejudices and what the they feed themselves a.k.a media and opinions as demonstrated in the actual court case which inspired the movie “Rustom”.

In this same way, as a reader, I would have to read people by face, I can know their mind. Let rationality take over instead of pre-judgement in case of confrontation and confusion. Let me be guided in the right direction as the Gayatri Mantra states.

 

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Reading Napolean Hill’s – Keys to Success

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Napoleon Hill's Keys to Success: The 17 Principles of Personal AchievementNapoleon Hill’s Keys to Success: The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement by Napoleon Hill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Having read Think and Grow Rich and quiet impressed by it, this was a natural choice to pick up from my wishlist. Napolean Hill does an amazing job in formulating the idea that we all have heard or seen practiced. However, we never got a chance study and condense them into these 17 principles that Napolean discusses. To mention them , they are:

  1. Have definite goals
  2. Form a team that actively improve by symbiosis
  3. Improve personality
  4. Have Faith with practice
  5. Do the extra work
  6. Be Initiative
  7. Have positive attitude
  8. Control enthusiasm
  9. Be disciplined
  10. Think based on facts
  11. Focus
  12. Inspire – Teamwork
  13. Learn from failures
  14. Be creative
  15. Be healthy
  16. Manage Time and Money
  17. Discipline the habits

This formulation works with any goal. I have personally experienced this by  revisiting some of my personal experiences where I set a goal and achieved it.  Though I had neither read this book at that time nor tried any self-analysis. But after reading the book it turns out true that I have actually followed most if not all the steps mentioned.

It is common sense that we are normally limited by resources at a specific time. Mostly these resources are monetary savings, emotional savings, personal health and accomplishments (read failures), facts available and the level of belief and confidence.

Like we notice with anything else, if we are really good at a particular thing we tend to perform better than the expected normal on other subject. Say , if you are a student in school. If you are really good in English you will definitely notice a great improvement in your social science or history test results because of your English and the confidence that it creates within you.

Habits are nice to have in which we auto pilot most of the stuff that we need done, so it becomes muscle memory than a strenuous mental computation process. This helps us put all the routine task to auto pilot so we focus on goals that need creativity and focus.

 

There are multiple other books that took some of these principles and expanded upon it.

Habits are nicely covered by Stephen R. Covey

Focus is touched upon by Cal Newport in Deep Work

Norman Vincent Peale had expanded upon power of positive thinking

Everyone has faced faith either by force or by habit, to realize it by applied faith and practice is upon the self. Whenever Napolean says about faith I pass through the paragraphs since I believe in something, that some people call religion. Every person has her/his own opinion and faith. If that works for them then look no further. This is de-facto covered by default.

I could easily relate to having used these principles in some of my job searched. The last search was highly effective. We had an awesome team of job seekers, all from my research group. All planning on graduating and we used to discuss our research and job search alike. Though we had different target graduation dates and goal deadline, we all achieved it. Did our graduation, defended thesis/defense, published it, got a job. The magic of working in groups and discussing is rare. To get such a group at the right time and to nourish and learn from the group was a great learning experience.

 

Throughout the 17 points listed , one theme is evident. That is control. A person in charge, in control of their destiny plans ahead, plans for failures, assimilates resources, focuses at the goal to be attained and devotes time, effort and resources in relentless pursuit with completely controlled enthusiasm. This is driven by positive attitude supported by discipline in actions and thoughts. This is exactly what the book articulates.

Overall this is a nice read, if you know something just skip that section and the book will yield what you picked it up for.

 

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Book review: The Score Takes Care of Itself

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This book on leadership based on American Football (ഇടികളി) coach Bill Walsh is best read as a leadership case study. The book was gifted to me as an employee by my company.  The style of writing is slow paced and boring. The connection between the real life experience of Bill Walsh as a coach and his experiments is interesting to read. As a person who knows naught about American Football I could not relate or understand many of the American Football terms used, nevertheless the leadership idea could be derived from the context presented.

As the name of the book suggests, the leadership skills the writer sought to reveal is based on the practical Karma Yoga experience of Bill Walsh.

An addict to the game, he could have been unemployable in any other job unrelated to sports. That focus and sharpness of mind eventually made him develop, lead and achieve through the best team known as 49ers. The beginning of the book can hook a working professional onto it, since it talks on ‘how to know if you are doing your job’. Since the setting is USA, it talks about endless focus on work going beyond 9 to 5 (working hours). I feel this is an old era logic because now work place is not the same anymore globally. French have the right to ignore work emails after work hours.

India traditionally enjoys a lot of national holidays and paid holidays were you are not expected to work. This has been a tradition hence not a news like the French one. I had met President and CEO of a nice engineering firm in Boston who told me that productivity in Europe is less because of such schemes to disconnect from work. Deriving a global standard of performance from Bill’s book is not easy. It inclines towards USA and American Football , which is not a global game like real football (soccer).

This book re-emphasizes what Lord Krishna told Arjuna. ‘Stick to the work at hand and do not worry about the results’. This emphasizes another thought of prioritizing your time. Why ? Because, if there is a classic book and plenty of new books on the topic of leadership, which one to choose ? The time tested one. And what a reference Bhagavad Gita is ! It may take, reading a couple of other new books on stands to arrive at this conclusion. The earlier we fail, the faster we can realize that the most effort put on timeless classic can yield best cost-effective results. Of  course, the broader western world may take Bhagavad Gita to be a religious book, does it matter if the lessons learned from a religious or non-religious book are the same ? End result is a better human.

With the sloppy writing and occasional sentences of wisdom, this book is compiled in a good manner and better than certain John Maxwell‘s leadership books. The goodness of a person lives in what he leaves behind. The last chapter by Craig Walsh on his father was nice to know. The book then takes itself to another level where it is not just a leadership book but a biography within itself.

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Book Review: Destiny Disrupted

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I heard about this book from a Palo Alto entrepreneur. I read the book Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary. The style of writing is unbiased for most portion and biased whenever it is expected. This book gives a good idea on the endless wars that the west Asia has seen the history and some facts. I would have loved to see more references per page.

Supposedly, there is a historical gap that the western education misses. The book tries to fill in as much as the author can. I could revive my memories of school history (Kerala Syllabus), where we learned about independence movement in many countries including Algeria, Libya, Kenya and so on. After reading this book I really appreciate the effort they have put in making the history textbooks in Kerala syllabus. Interestingly a Q&A session including Dr.Shashi Tharoor’s bashing of British and the intentional hiding of British school system about their previous history was eye opening.

At the same time Holocaust is covered in schools in Germany. Tamim ends the book telling us everyone had a hand on Holocaust, and the Great Game only extended its reach. In USA how many schools teach about native American culture and tradition ? How is it done in the west Asia ?

The book shines light on why Turkey, Iraq and Israel where not covered much ground in my school history textbooks because of its complexity. There are instances of history narrated by Tamim that is questionable and open to opinions. However, the fair amount of references throughout the book along with the ‘anticipatory bail’ in the preface about the book being more subjective that just boring factual statements. Hence it is ‘Hi-Story’. Very interesting perspectives on the crusades are available in Al-Jazeera’s specials. Together with Wikipedia these three resources provide for a nice pass time adding historical curiosity. I like the style of writing, there is glorification of Islam. Some facts are mentioned here are there. They may or may not be tied to Islam as such. The books reaches a logical conclusion in the last few pages. Where it truly states why Islam can be considered in the league of religion (strong), polity (good connection) or culture (weakly connected). Putting itself in an orbit beyond certain misinterpretations.  I would still go by what I understood in the Mahatma Gandhi’s chapter (गान्धिजि का मत) read in my 9th standard (equivalent to 9th grade in the USA) – ‘Everyone has opinion (मत), and opinion(मत) is another word for religion’. In Malayalam language caste (മതം) is derived from the same root word. Reading between the lines and adding to the well know multitude of symbolism that represent God in the Indian tradition (often called Hinduism) which in turn represented the number of people present at that time of formation of scriptures ( 33 million gods in Hinduism represented 33 million people at the time as per Dr. N Gopalakrishnan), it appears as if indeed it is true. There may be a single god (or none or many) based on the many ways and opinions a mind likes to think and ponder about. Religion was used as a tool to divide people and loot forever rather than as a tool to realize human potential (as suggested by Jaggi Vasudev).

I used to wonder how these countries in west Asia ( sometimes called as Middle East, while Tamim calls it Middle World) were formed. Especially Jordan and Syria because I could not place them in linguistic/cultural difference basket. It was also nice to know how Lebanon was formed. Another of my musings was this question ” Was there ever a case were instead of splitting countries, some countries came and joined together to form a bigger country” . Emirs formed UAE to stand together. India was formed by merger of many small countries. The answer in the book about United Arab Republic(UAR) and how the countries which also liked to join, but did not, but follow similar flags was nice to read. In many new independent countries formed when the colonization era was getting over, the sense of national identity and the sense of a nation itself seemed to be distant for a common man. The books tells about the first implementation of democracy and how it related to a common man in Afghanistan. Tamim openly says about the Great Game, Cold wars, many wars over cultural, linguistic, economic and nationalist ideologies in addition to religious. It puts forth very bluntly that whatever the Islamic rulers tried to achieve involved war and death. Nothing to be proud of. In this light Tamim actually missed out Nizam of Hyderabad and to include Tipu Sultan of Mysore. Their stories may be smaller compared to the Mughals but equally violent ?! Coming from Kerala we get to talk about how the Gods helped to protect the Tiru-Kochi (nation) from Tipu. And Tiru-Kochi lasted 7 years unlike UAR which lasted for 3 years. I am sure that Tamim must have missed some more Islamic rulers ( Indonesia ?) and others and focussed on the west Asian scene.

I have heard that certain tribes in Africa do not have restriction imposed by national boundaries. Something similar exists  in different nations created by an ‘Independence movement’ leading to national identity, constitution, flag, anthem and a constitutional head. People easily move between Bhutan, Nepal, India. I guess similar cases exist between Afghanistan and Pakistan via the land of Pashtuns. Random lines on the map created by people who do not know about the land, the culture or language have lead to border tensions in many places. Be it artificial boundaries or natural boundaries of terrain or water. How are national boundaries created ? Who made it a law that every habitable land on earth should be part of nations ? Why should there be nations and national identity ? How many wars were fought over petty disputes on boundaries, resource division and  allocation ? Identity crisis could be one major societal aspect that the boundaries may seem to solve. Can the boundary makers be absolved of the consequences of their fancy markings on the globe ? ever ?

 

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Book Review : Algorithms to live by

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This book came up in the circles of job search and discussions of things that don’t matter.

It would have been a fallacy if the title said stood by what it said. Algorithms are thought processes and having behavioral philosophies of itself, that mathematicians may appreciate better. However, math being a yesteryear wonder-keyword and a dreaded subject across the globe. It may be better marketing tactics that prevailed over the political correctness, which is may be why the book is titled so.

The beginning of the book tries to shake the forgotten skills of probability and experience with uncertainty, the only use of probability theorems. The book is divided nicely in chapters that are digestible and probably demand a time of rest to rethink and re-iterate.  Game theory could be claimed as child of mathematics, logic, probability or computer science. As I mentioned , I could not think of computer science as something beyond mathematics. Somehow, the term “computer” make it technically appealing rather than the old school math. I feel same about control engineering leading to systems engineering, leading to mechatronics and robotics, and cyber physical systems  graduating into internet of things. More recently,  probability giving space to artificial intelligence and expert systems, to machine learning and deep learning and what not down the line.

 

References from the book for further reading:

Essay – “Walking” , Henry David Thoreau. ” There is a harmony discoverable…”

“The Scientist in the Crib” – Alison Gopnik – ” Extended period of human child’s development provides a way to develop exploration/exploitation trade-off”

 

“What’s best ? > What’s new ?” – Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig

 

Quotes I want to remember:

“In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important a function as remembering” – William James

I was asked to draw my learning curve of whiteboard during an interview. I drew a upward going zigzag. My Y axis being “knowledge’ and X axis “time”, (this happened before I read this book) .I explained that my knowledge increases and shown by an upward slope and then I remove what I do not want reach a local minima and continue to pick up from there, leading to another maxima, again throwing away things I do not want and keep going. Some of my friends were impressed by this answer. Interviewer definitely had not seen such a learning curve, and I did not land up with a job offer.

Future reading:

“The Oligarchs” – David Hoffman – on optimal stopping

“Organizing from the Inside Out” – Julie Morgenstern

“Keeping Found things Found” – William Jones

I had read ” Eat that Frog” . This book compares some title in a single shot such as “The Now Habit” ( schedule leisure than work first), “Wait” ( dangling unfinished tasks), “Getting Things Done”. And then the classic Lao Tzu kicks in ” Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small”.  This chapter simply opens up the thoughts into scheduling ideas than I have used on my own. And it is as expected a nice mix of all these and similar techniques with minimal regret as the first priority..

Another interesting term that came up when reading the book is QED. Unlike Quantum ElectroDynamics, my friend expanded it was “Quite Easy Decision” (QED). While  the book describes Charles Darwin’s algorithm and conclusion to marry being written as “Quad erat demonstrandum“, which translates to “Hence proved”. Remember our school math ?!

The book also gives insights into the optimization problem that shows itself in mathematics, industrial engineering, operational research and project management. The origins of “traveling salesman problem” and why it was not called “prairie lawyer problem” was an interesting read. It was also mind-blowing to learn that the word “Serendipity” is derived from the fairy tales of “The Three Princes of Serendip” ( Serendip standing for Srilanka).

About the book:

Sans the notes the book is average at 262 pages. Reading is heavy with examples and intellectually simulating. This will make the reader think and read. Making the reading time longer than fiction. If the reader has used or searched about some productivity tools and thoughts then this book is interesting.

 

Book Review

“So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love”: Book Review

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Background

My previous reads were “Biography of Steve Jobs: Walter Issacson“, ” Notes on Startups: Peter Thiel“, “Siddhartha : Herman Hesse”  and I can only wonder how this book connects with those.

I came across the author Cal Newport due to the Happy Schools Blog. This book arrives in style, for  a job hunter in USA. Yes, I am searching for positions in electrical engineering as I am approaching end of my studies.

Here is the talk by the author :-


In ” Notes on Startups: Peter Thiel”  the author argues that we have to provide something 10 times better than what is available to be a good start up. In Cal Newport‘s “ So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love“. This book tries to come up and blast it on the face as to ‘why passion is not what you are looking for. You are looking for expertise in the beginning of your career’.

As an engineer with some awesome experience in my field, I can say that I have met a couple of people who said the same. They never wrote a book or go to MIT. Great People. Here, was this great retired man who was called back to help serve the company and help the new fellows to catch up with the technologies. I have asked him if he had any passion for the things that he did and if there is any tips and tricks of career life that I can use. He said ” It is good to have your own ideas and developing knowledge to implement it. Even more important is to flow with the crowd till the time is reached; the time when you are confident and knowledgeable enough to have a separate direction of commute than the general flow.” And then the bus had arrived and those were probably the last words I heard from him. Since I left the company- for higher pursuits. The book reinforces this thought.

There was this amazing scientist, who was also called back from retirement the same way as the former. I had breakfast with this man very often when I was working there. I remember that I posed him the question ” Did you have any particular interest or great passion for what you are currently doing, when you were my age”. He replied ” Not really, I got the job, I learned the job. Now, I know some things, with which I can help new people”

And then I talked to a colleague in university very recently, asked him why he changed majors and what his interest is. He said ” I do not have any specific area of interest, But , I am not proud of it. I know jobs are in the computer science area, the number of jobs in software is more than electrical engineering. So I am where I am.” The last I heard from him he had an internship in this super big company in USA.

Very recently, I was speaking to a friend, he was really interested in this wonderful research and was in the process of starting his research. He has not started any job application and he is OK with that. I have this another friends who went from Bachelors to PhD straight and says ” I do what I do , what I like, what is interesting, I keep doing it, Job will come”.

In the beginning, I had this biased understanding of what these people told. It was naive of me in the thought process. Everyone has some attraction to say some colors, some food, some topics, some places. This could be yellow, pasta, history of Incas, Egypt for some. This could be anything. The rational mind of mine tries to normalize the bias whereby this is diluted to any color, veg.food, history, World. This rationality and dilution is for the world to see. This is a form of outlook, self-created outlook, banishing the old preferences and making life simpler. Categorization and division was a tool to tackle odd chunks of data, information or knowledge. This is never diluted, because it becomes hard to grasp. My understanding is that this is not representation of real world. It is not like there are land animals and water animals, there are amphibians. Elephant which swims is not amphibious. That sounds like blasphemy to categorical knowledge. 🙂

 

The book 

As per the book , there are only two kinds of people.

Passionate people and Craftsmen (people who work to achieve their greatness). Also, the book says that ‘passion is rare’.

I got this question from an interview 2 days back ” How much interest , do you have in the work or job description?”

I was lost for words since I was reading the book. I cannot say “I am a passionate worker”. I cannot claim that I am an expert , due to modesty and truth. I cannot suggest that I am a hardworker who  is a go-getter. Because, I am not there to be a self-proclaimed worker who is not interested in the subject , who can master any subject by hardwork, I am not  a machine. I see the blurring of the categories? There is a mix. This is not mutually exclusive, this is my understanding. If I am interested in something, it does not mean I will forget everything and focus only on that. If I am an expert in data entry ( actually I am !) and burrito making (too) that does not mean I am passionate about these. The point is, there are things that people do out of need and circumstances. This makes them experts of the field, in my case burrito making , I can do it blind-folded, I can do it in sleep, you can wake me up at 3 in the morning and I can make burrito. This by no logic means that I am passionate about it.

Passion is  a thing arousing enthusiasm. Work is generally perceived as a bad thing. Increasingly, I hear that job is the worst thing that you can get, who does not like freedom. Don’t  we all trade our freedom with someone else’s freedom !. I mean free as being free to do anything with the time they could have probably invested that in. Then we come to selectivity of fields in which one wants to work. some people like being mathematician, while some do music. There is math in music and music in math. There are people in the interdisciplinary-gray-blurred-line who work here. World is not a number of countries, each with boundaries and armies on either side. This is because everything is depended on everything else. Not just globalization/localization there is glocalization.  This is depicted by mentioning Alan Lightman who wrote Einstein’s Dreams  who made a career in combo of math and culture.

The religion of logic says : choose a field, focus, work hard – you become an expert.

How to choose a field ? – by gut feeling, and elimination process of uninteresting stuff can help shortlist the field.

There are many venues to connect with interest. It is easy to find that out, with what you do in your spare time.

I cannot do something which is not interesting or satisfying me. This can be termed passion. And then I go on to learn how to do these things, if I do not know how to, I learn. This is what Cal says as passion is side effect of mastery. You can start doing things you do not like, to test how broad you are in the mind. See for yourself, where , unintentionally we put limits for ourselves.

 

The Case of Incremental Improvement.

I got bowled over in one of my classes since I was to give a presentation on a new idea. I had this vision of myself as a visionary, going to change the world. After the presentation, I came to terms with what I have heard years back ” There is more than enough of technology available, your phone has tonnes of features, how much of the features do you use or know how to use ?”  This was before the advent of android!

I see myself as learning how to do stuff with existing technologies. Necessities will always push up the technologies to be innovated. That said. The knowledge of existing technologies would bring in the required mastery and formulating the exact requirements for improvement . In this sense, like  a big project, steps follow a waterfall model, the goal of which is a moving target, the field of which is the area of interest. Improvements happen in agile fashion. Continuous improvement! In the religion of science, this is a scientific improvement called innovation/invention(sometimes). In the religion of life , this is self-improvement and sharpening your saw (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey). Improve yourself, so that you can grab the opportunity as it comes, because you are prepared. I would combine Cal‘s mention of ‘exploring the adjacent possible’ with ‘little bets’ with incremental improvement. This is because on a personal side, when you make innovations, improvements these carry the risk of going beyond the comfort zone, this opens venues for exploratory work.

Key Take-aways

All said, with my opinions and Cal‘s opinions (what he calls ‘rules’). I would say I have to work get some career capital (that is expertise) so that I can create opportunities and may be ones that Peter mentions in Notes on Startups.

“Creating a research bible”:(here bible only means another book)

Cal gives good tips on how to go about research. He is a research professor going about his research. It makes sense to follow this path if you have not discovered your own. This involves

summarize a research paper  that you think is relevant for your work

keeping  a timesheet/schedule/calendar

maintain a research note for brainstorming ideas

do practice beyond the practice that we do that can be tagged as “productivity – oriented”. This involves

  • stretching one’s self beyond comfort zone.
  • read tough papers.
  • keep improving.
  • track your work , to see the improvement.

References

This includes provocative title such as “my job went to India“! Jobs are going everywhere.I have read that USA thrives on creating ideas. When new ideas stops getting generated USA job market is not going to be the same. Because this is were the ideas get exported and get adopted by the globe. The title could have been re-thought !

When it comes to bananas, the dwellers in USA get it from Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and other places. When it is jeans, it comes from Bangladesh and Vietnam. Belts comes from Thailand and China. Now, please do not tell that all these jobs went elsewhere. It was the market and policies of trade that led to this.

 

The references in the book that I would like to refer are as follows.  T

 

Writing Style

The style is lucid and easy to follow. The emotions are kept at neutral while the facts and references are cited. This is a good way to write making it an easy read. The book tries to number the ideas (written as ‘Rules’ in the book). This can be  a drawback to people who dislike rule book. But the count is very less, and it is manageable.

 

Book Review, Review

Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups

1 Comment

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the FutureZero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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I came across this book accidentally. My lab mate had this book on his table for a long time. I see it sometimes on this desk , even now. I am not sure if it is an illusion. What captured my attention was the cover. The design of the cover than the name.

And the cover designer did a wonderful job in that. In the beginning of the book , the author says that incremental efforts and improvements do not help build a lasting company. The competition builds up as more imitators join the crowd and therefore, a start up should have some product/solution that is atleast ten times better than that provided in the market. This makes the company unique and sell-able.

It is exciting to think about this, if one forgets about the government and public policies and the types of market. I still do not get how can a whole crowd be so patriotic. The American-ism of the book is indisputable, and the love for the country is too evident. How does every US American book get that same?

I am not sure if that will happen with any other country. For my knowledge is limited. I know the affinity for languages and cultures are high in India. And even then when it comes to political decisions and the Government or Nation, it is best not spoken / mentioned in any literature.

By being a technical start-up conglomerate. USA can proudly showcase the technical talents. But how that is analogous to the rock music in USA may not be understood for the broader audience (for which the book was definitely not written) is a question the author should ask. It is nice to be local, but was that rock music and pencil sketched necessary. It kind of deviates the seriousness of a nicely written beginning and is a distraction best avoided. As a result, I could read the first three quarters way faster than the end of the book.

I do not know if it is to fill pages or lack of more cases like Tesla, Solyndra et al that the book mentions that made the passage go into such extent as to bring in mythology .

And also to write

“Every king was a living god.

Every god a murdered king.

Every king is just a scapegoat who has managed to delay his own execution.”

after elucidating examples such as Apple founder.

Overall a nice book. Worth reading especially the first half. It is a simple english book and the name of Peter Thiel and Bio to sell the book off. Not to undermine the effort, it is a very well written book for a content targeted for start up and easy to handle at 195 pages.

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