2011 is saying goodbye to the world. And already people have started compiling the list of best books of the year.
From among many books I read this year, Guy kawasaki‘s tenth book: Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, is one among best books I will list in my reading list.
It is not possible for me to list this book in any particular genre, if you are businessman it’s must read for you, of you are a student it’s for you too. I Will recommend the book to housewives, corporate employee and everyone.
Guy explains how to influence what people will do while maintaining the highest standards of ethics.
The book explains when and why enchantment is necessary and then the pillars of enchantment: likability, trustworthiness, and a great cause.
The next topics are launching, overcoming resistance, making enchantment endure, and using technology. There are even special chapters dedicated to enchanting your employees and your boss.
I strongly feel that enchantment will be adopted as valid term in management science very soon.
Buy Enchantment: The Art Of Changing Hearts, Mind And Actions from Flipkart.com
Does science ruin the magic of life? In this grumpy but charming monologue, Robin Ince makes the argument against. The more we learn about the astonishing behavior of the universe — the more we stand in awe. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2011, July 2011, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Duration: 8:38.) Watch Robin Ince’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 1,000+ TEDTalks.
He developed an indomitable affection and love towards mathematics and possesses exceptional mathematical abilities. His role model is great Indian mathematician “Ramanujan”. During graduation, He submitted papers on Number Theory, which were published in Mathematical Spectrum and The Mathematical Gazette. He worked hard and dreamed of getting into one of the world’s best university “Cambridge”. And one day he got it, admission to Cambridge.
But…
Very soon he realized that his father cannot afford his education at Cambridge. He and his father searched helplessly for a sponsor all over India but nobody came up. And one day his family’s only breadwinner: his father died and his last hope of getting good education diminished. He gave up the dream of Cambridge and came back to his home in Patna, Bihar.
He would work on Mathematics during day time and would sell papads in evenings with his mother, who had started a small business from home, to support her family. He also tutored students in maths to earn extra money. Since Patna University library did not have foreign journals, for his own study, he would travel every weekend on a six-hour train journey to Varanasi, where his younger brother, learning violin under N. Rajam, had a hostel room. Thus he would spend Saturday and Sunday at the Central Library, BHU and return to Patna on Monday morning.
Meet Mr. Anand Kumar.
Anand Kumar Teaching very poor IIT aspirants
He rented a classroom for Rs 500 a month, and began his own institute, the Ramanujam School of Mathematics (RSM). Within the space of year, his class grew from two students to thirty-six, and after three years there were almost 500 students enrolled. Then in early 2000, when a poor student came to him seeking coaching for IIT-JEE, who couldn’t afford the annual admission fee due to poverty, Kumar was motivated to start the Super 30 program in 2003, for which he is now well-known.
Every year in August, since 2003, the Ramanujan School of Mathematics, now a trust, holds a competitive test to select 30 students for the ‘Super 30’ scheme. About 4,000 to 5,000 students appear at the test, and eventually he takes thirty intelligent students from economically backward sections which included beggars, hawkers, auto-driver’s children, tutors them, and provides study materials and lodging for a year. He prepares them for the Joint Entrance Examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). His mother, Jayanti Devi, cooks for the students, and his brother Pranav Kumar takes care of the management.
Out of 270 students he tutored from 2002-2011 236 students have made an admission to IIT. All of them came so poor background that their parents were Hawkers, Auto-drivers, laborer etc.
During 2003-2009, 182 students out of 210 have made it to the IITs.
In 2010, all the students of Super 30 cleared IIT JEE entrance making it a three in a row for the institution.
Anand Kumar has no financial support for Super 30 from any government as well as private agencies, and manages on the tuition fee he earns from the Ramanujam Institute. After the success of Super 30 and its growing popularity, he got many offers from the private – both national and international companies – as well as the government for financial help, but he always refused it. He wanted to sustain Super 30 through his own efforts. After three consecutive 30/30 results in 2008-2010, in 2011, 24 of the 30 students cleared IIT JEE.
Anand’s work is now well received from all over the world :
USA’s president obama read about Anand in TIME magazine and sent a special envoy to check the work done by him and offered all the assistance and Anand never accepts help irrespective of helper.
Discovery Channel broadcast a one-hour-long program on Super 30, and half a page has been devoted to Kumar in The New York Times.
Actress and ex-Miss Japan Norika Fujiwara visited Patna to make a documentary on Anand’s initiatives.
Kumar has been featured in programmes by the BBC.
He has spoken about his experiences at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.
Kumar is in the Limca Book of Records (2009) for his contribution in helping poor students crack IIT-JEE by providing them free coaching.
Time Magazine has selected mathematician Anand Kumar’s school – Super 30 – in the list of Best of Asia 2010.
Anand Kumar was awarded the S. Ramanujan Award for 2010 by the Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS) in July 2010.
Super 30 received praise from United States President Barack Obama’s special envoy Rashad Hussain, who termed it the “best” institute in the country. Newsweek Magazine has taken note of the initiative of mathematician Anand Kumar’s Super 30 and included his school in the list of four most innovative schools in the world.
Anand Kumar has been awarded by top award of Bihar government “Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Shiksha Puraskar” November 2010.
He was awarded the Prof Yashwantrao Kelkar Yuva Puraskar 2010 by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in Bangalore.
In April 2011, Anand Kumar was selected by Europe’s magazine Focus as “one of the global personalities who have the ability to shape exceptionally talented people.”
Most of us live our lives carrying some sort of pain or other in our hearts. Let it be financial struggles, complications in relationships, lost opportunities etc.
Steve jobs also spent most part of his life feeling saddened by the fact that, his biological parents have abandoned him and he was unwanted. That caused a lot of pain to him and he was deeply angry about that fact.
John Lennon
His visit to India in search of meaning and “Moksha” were result of this only pain which he carried in his life for his lifetime. But after reading considerably about Steve Jobs, I strongly believe that his creativity, out-of-the-box thinking and all his unique styles of doing anything were greatly harnessed by all experiments he did during his spiritual quest. He tried to practice different types of meditations, healing techniques, vegetarian diet, fasting, primal scream therapy etc. and his personality got transformed bit-by-bit. Steve tried healing by listening to different types of songs/music, one of his favorite singer/songwriter was John Lennon.
John Lennon too carried same pain throughout his life which Steve jobs had, john lennon’s father had abandoned him and his mother, when he was small child and his mother had been killed when he was a teenager. He had undergone the same primal scream therapy which Steve jobs underwent. And in December 1970, he released the song “Mother” with the Plastic Ono Band. song dealt with Lennon’s own feelings about his parents. The refrain includes the haunting chant “Mama don’t go, Daddy come home.” Jobs used to play the song whenever he felt saddened by being abandoned.
Here is a lyrics of the song
Mother:
Mother, you had me but I never had you,
I wanted you but you didn’t want me,
So I got to tell you,
Goodbye, goodbye.
Farther, you left me but I never left you,
I needed you but you didn’t need me,
So I got to tell you,
Goodbye, goodbye.
Children, don’t do what I have done,
I couldn’t walk and I tried to run,
So I got to tell you,
Goodbye, goodbye.
Mama don’t go,
Daddy come home.
Mama don’t go,
Daddy come home.
Mama don’t go,
Daddy come home.
Mama don’t go,
Daddy come home.
Mama don’t go,
Daddy come home.
Mama don’t go,
Daddy come home.
Mama don’t go,
Daddy come home…
Steve jobs enjoys the privilege of being one of the greatest person who walked on this
earth. Being an Indian, I always wanted to know about his views on India and Indian people. While reading steve job’s biography I got to know, many aspects of his life and I feel that his life is full of excitement and thrill. Being a perfectionist, out-of-the-box thinker, jobs always took the path less travelled. While being on his search of the inner-self at the age of 18-19 he came across the lecture of indian monk and got impressed by the philosophy of being present in in the present and he conceived the image of India as a land of spiritual reality. And he decided to save enough money to visit India and take the path of spiritual enlightment. So here are words of steve jobs himself of his thoughts about India. Real profound statements.
Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to India. The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work. Western rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the great achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it. They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is not. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom. Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western world as well as its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.
(हे शब्द माझे नाहीत.हे लिखाण माझी गुरु, मार्गदर्शक, दिशादर्शक, मैत्रीण अंबुजा साळगावकर यांच्या कडून आलेल्या E-mail मधून त्यांच्या परवानगीने इथे प्रकाशित करत आहे.)
मागच्या पिढीमध्ये पाली आणि अर्धमागधीपेक्षा संस्कृत शिकणं हे हुशार मुलांच्या प्रतिष्ठेचं लक्षण होतं. आजच्या पिढीमध्ये संस्कृत scoring subject म्हणून घेतात.
मी संस्कृत का शिकते? किंबहुना संस्कृत का शिकावं असं मला वाटतं?
मग उगीचच Sack खांद्यावर घेतली आणि निघालो काहीच प्लान न करता चालत, माझी आवडती गाणी ऐकत, मे च्या उन्हाची तमा न बाळगत चालत राहिलो. चांगले दोन तीन किलोमीटर चालून मग समोर एक पुस्तकांचं दुकान आणि मग नकळतच आत शिरलो. मनात ल्या मनात आठवत होतो कोणते-कोणते पुस्तक घ्यायचे आहेत. समोर “गांधीजींच्या स्वप्नातील भारत” दिसले, खूप दिवसांपासून ठरवले होते, घेवूयात का? त्याच्याच पलीकडे. शशी थरूर यांनी लिहिलेले “नेहरू” दिसले मग तिकडे वळलो. मग उगीचच Thomas Friedman चे “World is Flat” कितीतरी वेळ चाळत राहिलो. मग “India After Gaandhi”, मग अचानक विश्वास पाटलांच्या “पानिपत” ला हातात घेऊन उगीचच चाळत राहीलो. आता उगीचच वाटायला लागले की आपण खूपच logical पुस्तकं वाचतो आहोत कधीतरी सहज गम्मत म्हणून तरी किंवा काहीतरी बदल म्हणून तरी काहीतरी विनोदी किंवा हलकं फुलकं वाचावं, आणि समोरच द. मा. मिरासदार यांचं “माझ्या बापाची पेंढ” दिसलं आणि मनोमन खुश झालो. म्हटलं चला यातील विनोदी किस्से वाचून तरी थोडं हलकं फुलकं वाटेल. 
“माझ्या बापाची पेंढ” ला ब्यागेत टाकून निघालो माझ्या सर्वात आवडत्या ठिकाणी: पुणे विद्यापीठ. मुख्य इमारतीच्या मागच्या बागेत एका मोठ्ठ्या झाडाखाली जरा घाई घाईनेच वाचायला सुरुवात केली. एक एक ओळ उलगडत होती. गावातले विनोदी किस्से, पोट धरून हसवणाऱ्या घटना वाचत होतो, पण कुठेच हसू येत नव्हते. काय झालं होतं? माझी विनोद बुद्धीच संपलीये की काय? उगीचच मला आता जास्तच बेचैन होवू लागलं. आणखी एक एक ओळ पुढे जात होतो. गावा बाहेरचे चिंचेचे रान, आमराई, त्याच्यावरचा सूर पारंब्यांचा खेळ. मित्रांबरोबर तासंतास विहिरीत डुंबणे. कैऱ्यांची चोरी. आंबे पिकवण्यासाठी म्हणून ठरवलेली गुप्त जागा. Continue reading
मित्रहो
असेच इतिहासाचे काही उल्लेख वाचतांना या एका इंग्रज अधिकाऱ्याची ओळख झाली. आर्थर वेलस्ली (Arthur Wellesley)
कोण होता हा आर्थर वेलस्ली?
हा माणूस ब्रिटीशांची शान होता. हा वेलस्ली इंग्रजांचा सर्वात चाणाक्ष सेनापती होता म्हणे. ब्रिटनचा पंतप्रधान म्हणून वेलस्ली याचे नाव प्रसिद्ध आहे.
याच वेलस्ली ने टिपू सुलतान चा पराभव केला होता. आणि शेवटी कुठल्याच सैनिकाची टिपू सुलतान च्या प्रेताजवळ जायची हिम्मत होत नव्हती तेव्हा स्वतः जाऊन टिपू सुलतान ची नाडी तपासून त्याला मृत घोषित केले होते.
याच वेलस्ली ने सर्वात शेवटी मराठ्यांचा आष्टी, जालना येथे पराभव करून, शेवटचा आणि सर्वात प्रबळ असा विरोध मोडून काढला होता.
असा हा वेलस्ली. आता कुणीतरी म्हणेल त्याचं आपल्याला कशाला कौतुक? अहो पण खरी गोष्ट पुढे आहे.
भारता मध्ये अनेक पराक्रम करून नंतर त्याने आपला मोर्चा युरोप मध्ये वळवला आणि पराभव ज्या माणसाच्या शब्दकोशातच नाही असा ज्याच्याविषयी म्हटलं जायचं ना त्या नेपोलियन ला त्याने हरवलं. फक्त हरवलंच नव्हतं तर कायमचं घरी बसवलं होतं. वेलस्ली ने जेव्हा स्वताचे आत्मचरित्र लिहायला दिले होते त्या मुलाखतीत त्याने नमूद केले आहे कि त्याने नेपोलियन ला हरवले पण त्याच्या कायमची लक्षात राहील ती लढाई होती मराठ्यांविरुद्ध. याच लढायीत तो म्हणतो कि अक्षरशः मृत्यू आला होता पण कुण्या रिचर्ड शार्प या सहकाऱ्याने जीव वाचवला म्हणून वाचला.
Promise Yourself
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful expression at all times and give a smile to every living creature you meet.
To give so much time to improving yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud word, but in great deeds.
To live in the faith that the whole world is on your side, so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
–
Amol