The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid

The title is absolutely eye-catching. Doesn’t give anything about the book away, while letting you form your opinion on what the unturned pages might contain. I had the notion that it would probably be about a Muslim individual who, at the mercy of the situation and the harsh opinions of some of the pseudo-secular countries on Islam, had developed a fundamentalist ideology, perhaps bordering on extremism which leads to human-bombing and 9/11 like incidents.

But the book was surprisingly different. On the inside on the front cover, the book carries a summary that the book is about the turn of events that lead to a conversation between a certain Pakistani named Changez and an American tourist in a Lahore eatery. And I had my doubts if I would like the book.

As promised, it was about the life of Changez, his stay in US and an account of his academic, professional and romantic life in US. Then came 9/11 and how things changed post that for him. Again, if I had known that the book was about what I wrote about in that last two sentences, it would have failed to excite me. But then the narration is absolutely beautiful! It is a monologue between Changez and the American tourist. And interspersed with the story of his life, Changez talks about the scenes and sounds around the dhaba as the day progresses. The author keeps the love story of Changez uncharacteristically un-sappy. His internal struggles are extremely well brought out without giving the impression that “The idiot is thinking too much”. And lastly the one-way dialogue is not just a rant of I-me-mine… as Changez tries to ensure that the American is being entertained, not just by his story, but the delightful food, and the pleasant hustling and bustling atmosphere of a Pakistani city.
Again, the life of this whole book is in the narration. It renders tremendous beauty to what otherwise could have been a slightly depressing and even a boring book. In the end, it is not only captivating, but poignant as well. And it is just as long as it should have been. At 180 pages, it makes an excellent read for that bus ride of yours to the neighboring state.

The Pothunters - P.G. Wodehouse

I have been on a Wodehouse-early-school-series-books spree. And with “The Pothunters” I am all done!

This book too, like all others (Prefect’s Uncle, Gold Bat, Head of Kays, White Feather) is extremely rough. In fact it is probably the roughest. Though Head of Kays would be in contention as well.

The book is about some sports prize-cups which get stolen from a school. And though Wodehouse does throw in other sub-plots he doesn’t let them bloom at all like he does in his later works. What results therefore is a mesh of loosely held strings, none of which are fully unraveled through the book.

Characters are unnecessarily thrown in and they sporadically come and leave the story. The humour is atypically missing and while the writing style is true to the Wodehouse books, it doesn’t make up for the other flaws of the book.
So much negativity coming from a true P.G. Wodehouse fan… it leaves me with a heavy heart. But if you are not a P.G. Wodehouse fan then there is absolutely no reason for you to read this book. Me… I enjoy these short tales from P.G. Wodehouse. They gave me a lot of relief from the truck load of work pressure I was under during the days which I would conclude with a few pages from this book. So, on a personal note, I owe The Pothunters big time for making me forget that work trauma. And even though my days were hellish… I went of to sleep with that smile which usually follows on reading about the cheek of early 1900s English School Boys

The Debt Threat - Noreena Hertz

Economics has always appealed to not only my intellectual side but my artistic senses as well. Well, I am not a PhD intellectual or anything, and neither is my artistic side heightened to the levels of Picasso. But I still enjoy any book or article or discourse which might have leanings on either the brainy side, or the aesthetic side. And economics for me spreads on both sides of the spectrum. Debt is one among the many financial and economic creations of mankind, which by its very nature is a piece of art really, and requires a mammoth intelligence to understand fully its ramifications.

And Noreena Hertz explores the threatening implications that international debt has in her book. Even if one is not aware of the global economics, you don’t even have to be a whiz to guess what the term “debt threat” might imply. It is very easy to dismiss the book as one more alarmist piece of literature… like global warming or something else.

But I would beg to differ. For one, the author is aware that she might be regarded as a pessimist and an alarmist when she lists the evilness of debts. Secondly the book is not just about how debt is killing a horde of people in poor countries. It is a complete piece of research on how the whole cycle of debt became vicious in nature, how are the countries suffering because of that, what are the outcomes, and the remedies as well. It is a complicated issue, one does realize. And as Bono (yeah, the U2 rockstar) succinctly puts it, the author does do a commendable job on cutting out the acronyms and making this whole issue a lot more understandable for the non-economists but at the same time are concerned about the well being of the world.

The examples in this book seem to be very repetitive. It is one country after another, suffering under the weight of debt their governments has taken. Some dictatorships have taken debts just to lead a comfortable life for themselves, some governments have taken debts to make weapons, some to destroy forests in an attempt to save the economy, and some simply to service older debts. And these examples take the book perilously close to that dreaded “alarmist” tag. But those examples are just to strengthen the point that the author is trying to make. And while perhaps slightly overused, they are not out of place and definitely not unneeded.

The high point of the book is that the author gives a practical way out. Now, as I said, I am no PhD to really say whether her ways are practical. But as a normal civilian, I find the thought process and the logic sound. And as the author herself says, what she has given in the book is a blueprint, a suggestion at a high-level which needs to be refined and chiseled at to come out with policies to thwart the debt threat.
Having said that, though the book speaks about a topic which everyone should know of which itself would go a long way to mobilize public opinion, the book might be a bit heavy for absolutely everyone to read. Maybe if there could be a series of articles in the newspaper… or some other marketing ploy which would increase the target audience manifold would help. While not everyone might have an appetite for books, a newspaper article might be up for grabs. And the more the people are aware of this issue, the better

Head of Kays - P.G. Wodehouse

I am on a P.G. Wodehouse rampage. With plenty of work-worries I need to have some light moments in the day… or atleast weekends. And I have no inclination to read a heavy book which is simply taking ages to finish, namely, “The Debt Threat”. I have last 20% of that book to go, but I end my day so sapped, and begin it with such dread, that I have simply not got to picking that book to get done with it.Wodehouse, on the other hand, offers a completely different delight. He doesn’t tax the brain, always has a few laughs to be gobbled on the platter and doesn’t mess with the wisdom of the world. A perfect recipe for my overloaded cerebellum. So, I decided to skip my schedule of books and jumped on to a P.G. Wodehouse book. I decided to go ahead with “The Head of Kays”.Well, the book, while it did offer me some much needed sunshine in the cloud infected day (to try and talk like Wodehouse) the book is seriously not that great. To put down a negative feedback about a Wodehouse book in black and white does hurt me. And such, being a Wodehouse fan, I did enjoy the book. But I am fairly certain that a neutral reader would not have enjoyed the book. There is hardly any plot, which is usually the most absorbing part in a Wodehouse story. The book is just a narration about the proceeding of a term in a school. An irritated head of the house, an irksome housemaster, rowdy school boys… It has all the elements of the other early school-books of P.G. Wodehouse, minus even a semblance of a story. The Prefect’s Uncle, The Gold Bat, had some story and conclusion. Head of Kay’s is just some string of events which loosely tie up to an eventually happy ending. It almost feels like the book was a warm-up routine for the real heavy weights produced by Wodehouse in the later years.Ok, so the story wasn’t that great, and is meant only for a Wodehouse completist. You, naïve human, incapable of savoring the delights of Wodehouse, might not enjoy the book. But I did.

The Gold Bat - P.G. Wodehouse

This is one of the earliest books by P.G. Wodehouse. And it reads like a fledgling author’s work.

The book is a part of the school series, which traces the adventures of school boys. Do not be misled by the title or the cover, the book is a lot more about football, or rugby, than Cricket. And story is loosely around a “Gold Bat”, with some politics around the football team selection for the school and a boxing match.

The writing, true to Wodehousian style, is lovely to read. And if someone, like me, reads Wodehouse for the fun of reading, this is quite an enjoyable book, especially since it is a pretty short book.

But otherwise, this is a really, really rough book. The plot barely hangs on to a theme without a definite flow and it seems as if hardly any thought was given to how the story would unfold. The main characters are built up reasonably well, but could have been better. Humour is not too impactful. Ending is abrupt. I really am struggling to find some point on which I can praise the book.
To sum it up, the book is strictly for people who aspire to read the entire Wodehouse collection. The book is no measure of Wodehouse’s skill and wit as an author and has none of the mastery that pours from his later books.

It Happened in India - Kishore Biyani

Finally a business book from India! And no, it did not come from the Tata’s or Birla’s or Ambani’s. It has come from the reasonably unlikely quarters of Biyanis. Actually it is just one Biyani that is famous yet: Kishore Biyani, the first generation business man who has given retail in India the shape it is in. Sure we don’t know how are Pantaloons and Big Bazars and other ventures of Kishore Biyani going to shape up in the wake of Reliance Retail and foreign players. And neither did Kishore Biyani set up the first mall in the country. But he could still be heralded as the Father of Indian Retail simply because he has, as Malcolm Gladwell would say, “Tipped” the retail industry in India. He has taken malls from the domain of the elitist to the masses. And even though the business of Kishore Biyani is minuscule compared to Walmart or Tatas, he has achieved a tremendous amount, enough to warrant an autobiography of his business life.

And true to his style, this book by Kishore Biyani was meant for the masses. It was released in paperback, and priced at Rs. 99. Which is the least I have paid for a business book ever!

However, a good business man, and a thriving business operation, does not necessarily a good business book make! That is exactly what has happened here. The book oversimplifies the whole business a bit too much for the reader to grasp the complexities of the business environment, that too, in a sector which is otherwise dominated by the unorganized players. The best business books tend to chart the journey of everyone involved, capturing sufficient detail to convey the challenges of the business without over doing it which would bore the reader. It’s a fine line to tread. And this book is on the simpler side of the line. It misses that investigative journalistic touch and the business details. Perhaps if an independent author had written a book instead of Kishore Biyani himself, assisted by a writer, he might have done a better job.

Having said that, the book does give glimpses of the Indian Retail scenario. And even the brief insights are quite a delight to read. The growth of the business itself, and the thoughts of Kishore Biyani at every juncture and inflection point for his company are quite well narrated. The anecdotes and comments by people who have worked with Kishore Biyani… umm… well there are too many of them and most are generic praises that anyone could shower on anyone. But then, some of them highlight specific facets of Kishore Biyani’s business style and acumen, and they cover up for all the other write-ups which are plain flattery.
The book is not really written for the B-school audiences. It is meant to fire up that entrepreneurial spark in the people who are looking for a hero to emulate. And yes, Kishore Biyani is a source of bucketfuls of inspiration for such young guns. This book will be more than vindicated if it manages to produce even a single Kishore Biyani in this country of over 1 billion people.

The Game - Neil Strauss

Every once in a while you come across a book, or a movie, or some other vastly influencing phenomenon, which shakes up your belief system and your outlook towards world, people and life. At times, in fact, the only kind of things which achieve that and you hear about, are spiritual in nature. But here I present a book as far away from spirituality as possible. It talks about manipulation of others, faking our identity and a lot of sex. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a book which gave me an insight into a world so vastly different from which I live in, so exciting and “happening” than my own boring life that I am tempted, like the author, to give up my day job and dive into it.

The sub-title, “Penetrating the secret society of pick-up artists” and the silhouettes of women on the title pretty much give away the theme. And while ability to charm a woman that one wants, anytime, any day, is a fantasy that all guys would have, I detest self-help books and was in no mood for any kind of pedagogy on how to improve my personality so girls would flock around me. However, the book is not about what a lot of people might believe it to be: a lesson on how to pick up girls. It is in fact an expose of the whole underground pick-up community.

Neil Strauss is given an assignment to write a proper book on the lines of a crude How-To-Lay-Girls-Guide. From that point he plunges into the pick-up cult, with the instinct of an author and the desperation of a single horny long-time-no-sex guy. Within two years, Style, Neil’s pickup alias, becomes the best pick-up artist there is.

But then, Neil, or Style if you prefer, had a mission and a job. He did not see pick-up as a be-all-end-all of his life. So he could draw lines and have control over his life unlike a lot of other people he met. And by drawing these lines he gives us a view into the pick-up society like an undercover journalist. True, Neil had become Style, but the Neil was never killed. In fact, Neil was the one who was really in control all the time. And it is Neil who wrote this fantastic book.

The book is extremely candid in its portrayal of everyone and everything. Being regarded as the best, and as someone who people actually looked up to in the community probably made it easier for Neil Strauss. But the credit for that too goes to the author. And the book traces the whole journey of Style from being a babe-repeller nerd to a master-Pick-up-Artist (mPUA) to being in love. The book talks about various characters that the author interacted with in this two year span from Tom Cruise and Britney Spears to other mPUAs and his students in The Game. It gives away the techniques used to pick-up girls, it gives the pickup lingo, it gives away the politicking in the community as it grew hundred-fold and it gives the hollowness that eventually hit Style in his quest for gaining the ability to lay girls at will. Neil Strauss writes about what is going on in his head at every single juncture. That makes a fantastically truthful autobiography for the reader.

The book is written amazingly. The colloquial nature of the book makes it even more appealing. The writer draws on some well placed quotes, his own high school poetry and the posts of the pick-up community members in their online chat-room. All of it is packaged brilliantly. At no point does the book become pedantic, or resentful or boring. This is how books ought to be written.

When I finished the book, the first thing I did was I googled some of the names in the book: Mystery, Tyler Durden, Ross Jefferies… and hell they all are for real. I ran into a gazillion pick-up sites. Looks like the whole pick-up thing is commoditized and commercialized beyond repair. That is what Neil himself realized and got out of the game.
In the end you learn a valuable lesson as a reader. Sure guys are sex-maniacs. And so what if such under-ground communities for pick-up training exist, they are really just fulfilling a market demand. The bottom line is how you present yourself that will make people, and girls, like you. You have to internalize a lot of things, because fake simply doesn’t work. That is a one page advice that you will find spread across the first half of the book. The rest of the book is simply about how messed up life can get if you take these things too seriously. Go ahead, read this book. It will teach as much about the contemporary life as a spiritual scripture might.