New reads,new lessons

Owing to ill health and professional creative writing I had resigned from publishing any article in this blog. It haunted me many nights that I wasn't sharing any of my reviews for the books I read. But it slowly dawned on me that what I missed the most was not sharing the formal book reviews but the stories and learnings I imbibed.

In the past two months I struggled to keep up a living (read job for outsiders) I am madly in love with. I chanced to read quite a few good books:

• Asura - Anand Neelakantan
• How I braved Anu aunty and cofounded a million dolalr company- Varun agarwal
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach
• The Ugly Duckling - Hans Christian Anderson

Varun's book was a delight for me, a Bangalorean. Any Indian will love this casual book, more so if one happened to be a Bangalorean. This is a story of yet another engineer who "came out" (:P) of the boring rut many Indians get into - life of a techie. He braves many odds against him and becomes a successful entrepreneur. This book is a peek into the lifestyle, language and attitude of a typical Bangalore guy. I was actually impressed by the courage this guy shows in meting out all naysayers from his life and achieving his dream of doing something on his own. 

Asura was a dark shade of Ramayana for me told in the voice of the antagonist - Ravana. There are few books that are not delightful reads in themselves but which make you end up opening a new window of thought. Asura led me to read many of the famous versus in original Valmiki Ramayana and I can now point out so many outright male chauvinistic views in our age old holy classic. It sickened me in a funny way. 

Jonathan Livingston is the dude. This seagull goes above and beyond the normal societal conventions imposed on a seagull and flies away his journey to glory and inner peace. It's a breezy read of 85 odd pages and a quickie when it comes to inspirational books. I got inspired and went out to watch a movie all alone on a weekend! Ha 

The Ugly Duckling is a oh-so-cute kind of children tale that has messages on identity crisis and finding oneself going through a tumultuous journey. An ugly drake is hatched out of an egg warmed by a duck and for the one single fact that he is an ugly misfit he is rejected by many of the other animals. But he ultimately finds out that he is a beautiful swan and thereafter finds peace in his new found identity after a long struggle of trying to fit in all the wrong places. 

A new update in my reading habit is the use of kindle :D although I am using it through an app in my cell phone, it is a welcome change. 

Happy reading :D