Review: A Monday @ 40

A Monday @ 40 by Rahul Mehta
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a fairly small book aimed at driving home some life lessons in a work of fiction.

Arvind Jha is in a senior position in a IT services company. He has grown to be where he is by working hard, taking responsibility and being imaginative. As he enters mid-life he finds life entering a phase where meaning in work is difficult to find – what with an abusive boss and high demands at work. He dreads waking up on Mondays, and looks forward even less to team meetings chaired by his boss Vikrant. But to let life go on for his wife, and daughter, he seems to have no choice but to continue.

And then there is a wake-up call – what could have been a major tragedy. Is it too late to course correct? What are Arvind’s options now?

This is a cute little book which should make you think about your own life. Do you find meaning in the work you are doing? If not, just maybe, being a little brave can change the scenario considerably..

For the message it delivers, it’s direct, concise approach and it’s exploring the perils of a very typical work life of today – I recommend you read it..

Note: The author Rahul Mehta and me were colleagues at work, and he is very well known to me.


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Review: Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence

Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence by Jaswant Singh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When this book was published, it created a massive controversy for Jaswant Singh, when the BJP leadership immediately sidelined him for writing a book assumed to glorify Jinnah. Quite possibly this decision was before anyone bothered to read the book. The title of the book I suppose conveyed the impression it did. This book is well worth a read since it is largely objective, though it is also boring in parts and could have been much crisper and a lot more readable.

The book is actually quite balanced about Jinnah – certainly very sympathetic to him till about the late 1930s, but is critical of his ‘Muslims as a separate nation’ theory, vanity and inflexibility after that leading to the partition of India. The book is however, very critical of Nehru and the Congress (especially in the 1920s and 1930s and even after), and how it pushed Jinnah from being a votary of Hindu – Muslim unity to demand a separate homeland for Muslims, and emerge as the Quaid-e-Azam of Pakistan.

The book starts with exploring the entry of Islam into India and this part is largely academic with no new information. It then moves on to Jinnah, his early life, contrasting his approach with Mahatma Gandhi. While Jinnah was a constitutionalist, believing in being entirely legally correct in conduct, Gandhi took to non co-operation to protest unjust laws as well fight for freedom for the country. A major theme of the book is how the Congress made no attempts to be inclusive and brushed aside the Muslim league as a non-entity in the 1920s and 1930s. A hurt Jinnah gradually consolidated Muslim support and emerged as the primary spokesperson. There were windows of opportunities till quite late to reach a rapprochement between the Congress and the League, but only Mahatma Gandhi made a sincere attempt to do that almost right till the day of independence. Within the Congress too there were diverse opinions from people such as C Rajagopachari, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan and Abul Kalam Azad.

His mistrust of the Congress, and the consolidation of Muslim support also leads Jinnah to become more inflexible and demanding in the later years (late 1930s and 1940s). For instance, he insisted on equal numerical representation for the League in the provincial government planned and also demanded that the Congress should not nominate any Muslim, as he was the primary spokesperson for Muslims in India. Right till the end, Jinnah leaves the definition of Pakistan open. The portions where Mahatma Gandhi questions him about what will happen to minorities in the new nation of Pakistan, leads Jinnah to claim that they will be taken care of. Beyond a point, it looks like Jinnah improvised his positioning based on circumstances. The part where he calls for a ‘Direct Action Day’ encouraging violence and communal rioting to prove his point is especially disturbing and so much out of character based on his earlier conduct and views. And yet, he seemed to return to a more broad minded approach once he got his Pakistan – assuring minorities of equal rights.

As Jaswant Singh points out, many disturbing aspects of the two nation theory and the event of partition remain with us today. Jinnah died too soon after the formation of Pakistan, leading to a nation devoid of a soul (which it was only just forming) where minorities face an uncertain future in the face of rising religious extremism. Just maybe, if he had lived longer, as also Mahatma Gandhi, our region could have been a different place.

My rating: 3.5 / 5.

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Review: Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read Dan Lyon’s LinkedIn post about his book two years back, and have been curious to read his book – especially since some people in Hubspot actually tried to obtain a copy and indulged in coercion to stop the book. I also read co-founder Dharmesh Shah’s mature response (on behalf of him as well as Brian Halligan), also on LinkedIn, though he does not address all the issues in Dan’s book.

Somehow, got to reading it only now. This is an especially interesting read on Tech Startups and does offer lessons such companies would be better off considering. And yet, some of Dan’s criticism does also come across as whining and bitterness as a result of his personal experience.

At over 50 years of age, Dan decides to enter the world of Tech Startup by joining Hubspot – a Boston based company with a product for Inbound marketing. He has been in the media industry for long and realizes it will take some effort to fit in to a new industry. He has kids and his wife recently left her job, which adds to the pressure to get back to work as quickly as possible. His initial days and weeks are frustrating with no direction on what is expected of him, very little dialogue with seniors, and a frat house culture gone berserk. His work assignments are mostly around writing lame blogs. Most of the Hubspot employees are fresh out of college and have little or no real coaching. In order to keep them motivated, they are offered a fun place to work – bright colors, bean bags, beer on the job etc. At times such as Halloween and Freaky Fridays, employees can come in wearing costumes of their choice. Employees are told that they are actually making the world a better place. Employees who leave or are fired (which happens quite often) are announced as graduating with an informally worded mail doing the rounds. The culture code presentation with the “HEART” acronym comes across as full of fluff. Dan sticks out as an odd person – struggling to fit in and also makes detractors with his frankness. Here, Dan’s criticism is on solid ground and this is certainly a culture where older employees, as also many personality types, and those who value authenticity would struggle to fit in.

As part of his narrative Dan also suggests that Hubspot has a poor product, and has to spend a lot on marketing to sell it, as also to retain customers. While it is difficult to know if that is case, Hubspot has seen very strong growth and indicates that this cannot be entirely true. He also takes aim at startups in general and the trends they back. Eg: he takes aim at Software-as-a-Service companies, which is completely off the mark. Even going by his own account, there is an indication that Dan did not try very hard to fit in either, nor did he offer suggestions constructively. Brian Halligan was once quoted as saying that experience was largely overvalued, prompting a bitter Facebook post by Dan, which he acknowledges might not have been the best approach.

While he uses pseudo names for a few people in the book, he names Chief Marketing Officer Mike Volpe and Head of Content Joe Chernov (his supervisor for part of the duration) in the Epilogue who had to leave as a result of the FBI investigation (though no charges were pressed). After he gets another job, Dan resigns giving a 6 week notice but is asked to leave the very next day.

There are good lessons from the book on – the need for diversity, valuing experience, promoting time tested values of respect, openness, trust, transparency, authenticity, fairness rather than a cult-like behavior and make believe.

A book I certainly recommend reading.

My rating: 3.5 / 5.


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Review: Salvation of a Saint

Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read Keigo Higashino’s “The Devotion of Suspect X” on a recommendation from a friend sometime back and really liked. Since then, I read “Malice” and now “Salvation of a Saint”. The strength is in the depth of the story and the characters. They are all great crime novels with no fluff or unnecessary drama.

Salvation of a Saint is another great story if you like crime/mysteries. It is not as crisply written as the other two books mentioned above, but a very good read nevertheless.

Yoshitaka and his wife Ayane are about to separate from their marriage. As Ayane is visiting her parents, Yoshitaka dies mysteriously – as a result of drinking coffee laced with poison. Yoshitaka has not been exactly faithful, and based on that it seems that his wife has the strongest motive to kill him, but she is away during that period. Ayane’s work colleague Hiromi is the last to have seen Yoshitaka.

Police detective Kusanagi and his assistant Utsumi investigate the case. It is puzzling as it is unclear where the poison came from. Utsumi turns to Professor Yukawa for help. It seems to be the perfect crime – with no evidence to lead anywhere.

The reasoning of the police and Professor Yukawa is a delight to read, as they persevere with testing one hypothesis after the other. In many ways, I suppose this is how great mysteries are really solved – one step at a time.


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Review: Calling Sehmat

Calling Sehmat by Harinder Sikka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those very few instances where I saw the movie, based on the book, before reading the book. The movie “Raazi” is a very good adaptation of the book.

The story is excellent – and being based on a real story of a young lady who takes huge risks for her country, it is also inspiring. That said – the book slips up in its narrative in many instances – the pace is not tight enough, the characters other than Sehmat do not develop well and some critical portions needed further emphasis.

The story unfolds with the love story of Sehmat’s parents – Tej and Hidayat Khan. Tej visits Kashmir and is charmed by Hidayat. The story then picks up when Sehmat is in college and very gifted. Hidayat as part of his trade connections has contacts in Pakistan, and supplies crucial information to Indian Intelligence. He falls greviously ill, at the time when tensions between India and Pakistan are rising in 1971. The situation in East Pakistan is grim and troublesome for Pakistan, and they are keen to launch a pre-emptive attack on India. Hidayat comes to conclusion that there is no alternative except for Sehmat to take his place.

Sehmat has to sacrifice her love for Abhinav and instead marry Iqbal, son of an influential officer in the Pakistani armed forces. She runs into a number of stressful situations but emerges as a splendid source of information for Indian Intelligence.

The book adds more context to the college life of Sehmat, her love life, her hopes, as also what happens after she completes her assignment, as compared to the movie. If you have watched the movie “Raazi”, the book does not add too much which the movie does not cover.

My rating: 3.5 / 4.

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