It’s a story of fictional character Mary Jane. She was deputed as a manager for a department in a corporate house, First Guarantee, in Seattle. The department stands on third floor and is also termed as Toxic Energy Dump. She transforms this department into a success story after she visits very real Pike Place Fish Market across the street. The joyful, energetic and fun filled fish market helps her understand the basic ingredients of success. Rather then collapsing under the mounting pressure from her manager, she chooses to bring energy passion and commitment in the department by embracing easy to remember and effective to use, simple methods.

The story addresses today’s work issues that stand clear and tall in every organization: employee retention and burnout. Fish offers methods that are easy to grasp, instantly applicable and simple to practice. Since it’s a small book, it’s quite easy to read, taking only about an hour or so to get through the entire book. The story is engaging and moves quickly and thus keeps the reader’s attention. Highly recommended for people facing burnout in their current job.

The corollary to this fact is that we do have similar miscreants in our country. They have grown from small miscreants to big and fat politicians or like of them. They are beyond law and they know all the tricks to defend themselves.

So what happened to this rat I am baffled with? I myself a firm believer of non violence, will not touch the culprit and thus he will grow fat and complacent in days to come. Then the law of nature will prevail. His complacency will bring him within the claws of a big fat cat. That’s it….The End…

Ember from the Sun by Mark Canter covers the story of a Neanderthal girl called Ember. A scientist discovers a Neanderthal woman, frozen for almost twenty five thousand years, with intact tissues and blood filled vessels, in an Arctic cave. The frozen Neanderthal woman carried an embryo, awaiting birth.

The scientist plants this embryo from the frozen Neanderthal woman into a surrogate mother, who on birth names her Ember. Ember proves to be excellent in almost every field when compared to her age children. But her muscular body, her loneliness and a yearning to understand her existence keep pressing her.

Quite curious to understand her existence, she starts on a spellbound journey, where she meet her creator, the scientist, and new facts that give new meanings to her life. She reunites with her people, the golden-skinned people of her dreams, awaiting her to unleash and understand the reason for her existence.

It’s a novel that’s very descriptive and spell bounds the reader. It took me some time to understand the scientific terminology used in the novel, as I am not one with a logical bent of mind, but then the read was worth it. The characters in the novel look quite real and the description of the supernatural powers of Ember flares one’s imagination.

At the very end I remember a quote from Mark Twain: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” So I highly recommend you to read one.

Tahir was a person who lived his entire life in poverty. His father has a bicycle repair shop in a small town near Udaipur. With all his might, he sent Tahir to Udaipur to complete his graduation and get a white color job. He stayed in one of the rooms, which were let by my aunt. The same time I was also pursuing my graduation. He was sharing his room with one more guy, Juzar. The rent was fourteen dollars per month for the room which they both used to bear. Those seven dollars were almost a fortune for him to spend every month. This grief and poverty was one of the reasons for him to invent a very novel way of washing clothes. Tahir used to soak his clothes in water for 3 to 4 days until they started smelling. That was the time when he used to take them out, rinse them in clean water and dry them in sunshine. He didn’t have money to purchase a washing soap that used to cost almost twenty – thirty cents.

He was brilliant in his studies and had known answers to all the questions in his books but that was not going to feed him. I came to know recently that during his final year, he had a terrible fever and as usual he never had extra money for the doctor. One fateful night, the fever rose high in his brain and he left the struggle behind him. His struggle is now survived by his aging parents.

In competition for survival stood one more candidate, my friend: Ashfaq. His father was a supervisor in a beatle nut factory. Limited income and unlimited aspirations. He is a brilliant guy I have ever come across. However, I had this realization too late. I remember how we gang of friends use to make fun of his ideas, his out of the box thinking process. He was very fond of reading, and since he couldn’t afford a newspaper subscription of one and a half dollar per month, he used to spend his late evenings in a nearby library. He used to spend his afternoons and weekend working in a hosiery shop, trying to make some money for his education. I left him in Udaipur eight years back when I came to Hyderabad for my MBA. However, when I realize his life and his struggle today, I imagine how foolish of me to have lost a friend in that dreary desert of struggle, never ever thinking about him. Yesterday I found out that he still lives in the same city I hail from. No contact details yet, but I want to correct my wrongs by once again being with him. This time not to make fun of his ideas but to get some visionary thinking from him.

These and millions more stories lose their worth in the sand of time. Their possibility to reach worthy and affluent people is almost nil. I wish the lesson I have learnt from the past will help me in lending a helping hand to one in need…

I also feel elated to have understood from my mother that he sometime visited my native Udaipur and have known my maternal grandfather. After many decades, I have joined Hyderabad to marry her great great grand daughter Dr. Rubina Arastu. It seems uneasy for my mind to understand that was it a sheer coincidence or something deeply ingrained by destiny.

I am referring to Dr. Abdul Husain, who was conferred as Nawab Arastu Yar Jung. He was the first surgeon to the Sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VI.

I remember an incident my father in law, the great grandson of Arastu Yar Jung, narrated to me. It so happened once, a woman visited Dr. Abdul Husain. She did poke a needle in her eye. One half of the needle penetrated deep inside her eye and the other half looming outside the eye with a thread hanging from the eye of the needle. Dr. Abdul Husain asked her to lie down on a stretcher. He than asked his nurse to keep broom sticks below her head. Meanwhile he tied the thread from the needle, perpendicular, in tension, to the rod on top of the stretcher. He then asked the nurse to remove slowly each piece of broom stick out of the stack one by one. This action lowered her head very slowly and after a couple of hours the needle remains suspended in the air as she moved down. She felt almost no pain or any need for surgery.

This is one of his many famous incidents. Such intelligence and in-depth knowledge of simple and complex surgical procedures helped Dr. Abdul Husain resolve everyday issues with ease.

Every time I involve in any congregation of Arastu family, with my interaction with the family members, I understand that the underlining idea of Arastu Yar Jung that education is supreme, was very well founded. To this day, the tradition of higher education among Arastu family is supreme and uncompromised.