SNAPSHOTS FROM HELL
I feel like moving to California and enrolling into Stanford because of the book. Maybe the author has tried to use reverse pschyology . Anyways I loved it........can relate to a lot of things even though Welingkar is not as severe as Stanford, but it is still a B-School.

And if your wondering what I am blabbering on abt the book SNAPSHOTS FROM HELL is about the experiences of a poet called Peter Robinson at Stanford University's Business School.Why is he called a poet? because compared most of his peers in his class he has never been exposed to Business and Numbers and so he and all the people like him are called poets. Right from Math Boot camp till the end when he gets his first job you cannot put the book down. His classmates are specially interesting and that's basically what B-School is about. The more interesting your classmates are the better is your learning. His book talks about how B-School makes you question yourself, the fast pace of the curricula and the special issues women face. Not to mention the accomplished teachers and the unique grading system. California sounds like a lovely place and at the end everyone would like to settle there. Even the author eventually settles there after marrying his sweet heart.
With humour and sensitivity he candidly describes a lot of real issues on the campus.These issues are universal and even though he had enrolled in 1991 for the course the issues are still very much relevant.I would especially recommend it for MBA aspirants or anyone even remotely connected to Business school

I was dying to get back to fiction. Granth had a booksale and I picked up lots of lovely books. Picked up this book that I wanted to get for a long time called GYPSY MASALA by Preethi Nair. She was written about in the Femina how she quit her lucrative job to write and how she invested all her life savings into self publishing her book because of the rejections. And it has just snowballed from there.

And it is a lovely book. Yes it is set in a very Indian context ( and their obession with marriage) but the theme is universal. There are 3 protoganists in the book. Molu and her adoptive parents Bali and Sheila.Its about loosing and following your dreams. About love, loss and life. Simply lovely! It moves back and forth between Kerala and England and from lives that were so far apart and yet mysteriously intertwined. It moves through secrets that are so heavy that I wonder how one can keep them and one persons pride that becomes like a stone wall of isolation. At the end you come to understand the characters like you never could before. How we judge people without viewing the entire context that they acted in. The reasons why they did it don't necessarily make it right but definitely make it understandable. Sometimes that is more important than anything.

And even though the underlying theme is to follow your dreams and keep your heart open to the possibilities it also lets you in on lifes secrets. That duty can never replace love, that pride can make you so lonely and that taking chances are sometimes so scary that even if we have the opportunity to do something bigger we don't because we fear. A highly recommended book and looks like I have been having a little luck with the books since I have not written about any bad ones.............yet.............HAPPY NEW YEAR