Book Review #46: Playing It My Way: My Autobiography By Sachin Tendulkar

Writing review to the well known facts is a bit overdoing the task!! But, let me tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Paaji’s autobiography. With help of Boria Majumdar, Sachin has written excellently and given us a walkthrough of his life from the age of 11 till his retirement at the age of 41.

I don’t go over describing the events that unfolded in his life as a cricketer. We all know it better over the years by watching him play. What might be the takeaway from the book? Well, his determination. That’s all I can say. Having succumbed to hell lot of injuries, Sachin managed to play an illustrious career of 24 years. Started as a novice, ended as a Bharat Ratna!! Not an easy task to become the favorite of most of the Indians that loves cricket. Having born in the 80’s, he was my hero in my childhood and surprisingly my first bat that I was gifted by my dad had MRF sticker on it!!!

If we speak about the book, it speaks less about his childhood and more about his statistics. It has to be, doesn’t it? Started to play cricket at the age of 11 and within 5 years ended up in the national team is not an easy achievement. He never looked back from then on. He carried on with the same zeal in his entire career. Of course, there are some ups and downs, hiccups, disappointment, resentment, etc…but, nothing has stopped him going on.

He did mentioned some of the gray patches of his career and expressed his disappointments over few events that happened in his career as a player and as a member of team India. Particularly Greg Chapel being appointed as the coach of team India that made our team looks weaker than Bangladesh or even Kenya. He had openly criticized in his book about Greg and his cunning motives. On one occasion, where Greg meets Sachin in his house and asks him to take over the captainship from Rahul and even goes on telling him that, they both can rule the Indian team in the coming years. Having sensed all this, Sachin declined it out rightly and asked Greg to not bring this topic anymore. We will come to know many such stories of Greg and his “Hatke…” style of coaching India that resulted in damaging the team’s morale and spirit.

Sachin also mentions about few events where he wished things could’ve been little better. One such thing was Kapil Dev being appointed as the team’s coach that made no sense to him!! In one of the particular test match where he was not out on 194 short of 6 runs to his double hundred, that’s when Rahul had declared our innings!! This decision of Rahul had made Sachin furious for few days and even he stopped talking to Rahul for few days!! When Rahul tried to explain to him that, “It’s in the interest of team” Sachin was reluctant to listen to him and instead he made his point clear that “You could’ve have waited for 6 more runs”!!

He goes on explaining each and every tour he had made in his carrier and expressed his wish of becoming the world champion. Remember, Sachin has played in 5 world cup events since 1992 and couldn’t able to be on the triumphant side. He had to wait for his 6^th world cup to witness this moment. Anyways, he had written in great care about all these events.

He carefully dodged few things regarding his captaincy, match fixing scandals, IPL spot fixing. He managed to brush few lines on these events. That’s expected according to me. He even avoided why his friendship with Vinod Kambli had taken turns in the years down the lane. He just managed to write few lines about his and signed it off saying; he is still friends with him.

He has written that he was super agitated when it came to his 100^th international 100. This one particular hundred took almost a year and half to come into the fore. As a fan, I was disappointed that it came against Bangladesh!! :)

Enough said about his autobiography. It is certainly a must read book. Even though you are not a fan of Sachin (Duh!!), you will certainly witness few funny, sad, heated epic moments from his life as a Sachin – A Good Student of Cricket, Sachin - The Cricketer, Sachin – The Foodie, Sachin – The Shy Guy, Sachin – The Patriot, Sachin – The Proud Father, Sachin – A Responsible Son, Sachin – The Friendly Guy, Sachin – The Well Behaved Gentleman, Sachin – A Philanthropist and finally Sachin – The Epitome of Indian Cricket.

Overall a fantastic journey I must say. I was so engrossed while reading it; I finished reading it in flat 2 days :). There are nice photographs from his childhood, his trips, his marriage, etc… At the end of the book, you can see his complete career statistics, his runs, his hundreds, against which team, home and away runs etc…

Towards the end of the book, you can read his last speech that he gave at wankhede stadium thanking every single person that played a crucial role in building up his career, starting with his family members, his wife Anjali, importantly his childhood coach Ramakant Achrekar, his best friends, his significant others in the team like Sourav, Rahul, Laxman etc...He finished his book in style thanking his fans for all the support that they have given him in his career and mentioned that he will never forget the “SACHIN… SACHIN…” chant of his fans till his last breath!

My Rating:

5/5

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Book Review #45: Anveshana By Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa

This book is a sequel to SL Bhyrappa’s highly acclaimed novel Grihabhanga. The story starts from the point where Grihabhanga has been left off. It is such a nice attempt of SLB sir in this novel that, we can easily remember all the stories, characters from the novel Grihabhanga.

For those who haven’t read Grihabhanga, let me tell you the crux of this novel. So that, readers can actually relate to this novel Anveshana. A small fictitious village in Tumkur and a poor farmer family was living in that village. Nanjamma the main protagonist in the novel Grihabhanga was married to a loaf called Chennigaraya. She faces many hurdles and difficulties in her life throughout the novel. She loses two of her children who were suffering from plague. Her husband is a good for nothing man, who wanders day and night around the village doing nothing and spends the money eating in hotels and other illegal activities. So, it was Nanjamma who takes care of her family and starts earning money so that she can build a home of her own. The only surviving child of her, Vishwanatha, who grew up with a monk leaves the village once his mother dies. Vishwanatha has a maternal grandfather called Kanthi Joyisa who stays in the outskirts of the village doing black magic and other stuffs.

In Anveshana, the story picks up from the phase where the grandfather Kanthi Joyisa who became terminally ill, wanted to see his grandson Vishwanatha for one last time. He wanted to leave his belongings, money and other stuff to his grandson. So he sets out on a journey in search of his grandson. This epic journey is called as Anveshana.

Kanthi Joyisa wanders many neighbor villages, town and other cities to know the whereabouts of his grandson. He meets many acquaintances of Vishwanatha and follows the route information that he gets from them. On his final voyage he meets a childhood friend of Vishwanatha. He is a tailor in a small village. He informs Kanthi Joyisa that, the last time he saw Vishwanatha was near a movie theatre, where Vishwanatha was working as a ticket collector. And the journey of Kanthi Joyisa continues.

Here author introduces the character Vishwanatha and his life journey in subsequent chapters. Vishwanatha who leaves his village settles down in a town and works as a hotel waiter for some time. Later, he moves to the house of a lawyer and works as a cook for some time. He leaves that place and travels to Mumbai and works as a Tonga Walla for some more time. And he continues his journey leaving no trace of him for his friends or relatives.

The magic of the novel is in its immense detailed explanation of Vishwanatha and his way of living life. Author introduces us to a phase where Kanthi Joyisa, the grandfather of Vishwanatha loses all his hopes of finding his grandson. He informs the tailor friend of Vishwanatha and goes back to his village and dies in isolation. This scene closes the curtain to the character Kanthi Joyisa.

Author introduces us to various traits of Vishwanatha throughout the novel. His love interests, his marriage, his college life etc… the vivid description of Vishwanatha’s love life, married life and college life and renunciation is a treat to read from the book. From this novel, we will come to know that, Vishwanatha has a habit of writing diary. As he leaves his final destination to the renunciation life, the school teacher of Vishwanatha discovers this diary and starts to read it and tries to understand the character Vishwanatha in a better way. This marks the end of the novel.

The striking gesture in this novel is the character Vishwanatha never appears in this novel as a first character person. He was often remembered, described, referenced but never in any way appears as the main protagonist of the novel, yet, he is the hero of this novel. All credits to the magical writer SLB sir. He has marveled in each of his novels. I have no words to explain more about this novel.

My Rating:

5/5

Book Review #44: The Mahabharata Secret By Christopher C. Doyle

King Magadha had a power, a gift from the Kauravas which could have changed the course of the epic battle of Kurukshetra. Anything could've happened if this secret gone to an evil hand.

After 2300 years, the great king, Ashoka discovered this secret buried deep within the laps of earth, a secret of Mahabharata’s time, the weapon of mass destruction. This particular technology has never been made public, though, the Mahabharata has all “PARVA’S”. This particular secret has been documented in the VIMANA PARVA. So, Asoka decides to keep this guarded forever even after his time. He appoints a group of people and makes them to take an oath. A secret oath of not disclosing this secret, whatever the situation may come. He called this group of people as “Nine”.

On present day, a nuclear scientist Vikram Singh is murdered in mysterious way. Before he was murdered, he leaves set of emails as a clue to his nephew Vijay Singh, who was staying abroad. The events unfold once Vijay Singh returns back to India.

This is the overall summary of this book. It is a very well written book. Author Christopher C. Doyle, had made exhaustive research before penning this novel. But, what I understood from this book is, this book is a complete collection of Dan Brown series. Entire novel keep reminds us of reading The Davinci Code, Angels and Demons, The Last Symbol and Digital Fortress.

As I said in the beginning, King Asoka created a secret group of “Nine”, which can be easily juxtaposed against Da Vinci Code’s “Secret Society”. These groups of nine were guarding the “Secret Weapon” which is similar to Da Vinci Code’s “Holy Grail” safekeeping. The group of nine was continued year after year passing the baton to the next generation for the safekeeping of the secret. In this novel, it was Vikram Singh, who was still part of the NINE, which is same as “Secret Society” in Da Vinci Code where Sofia’s grandfather was still an active member.

The journey of Vijay Singh and his companions to discover the mystery by following the clues left by his uncle is same as Da Vinci’s Code. In the Da Vinci code, the secret codes, messages, clues are all part of different churches. In this novel, the clues and hints were depicted in the Edicts, Stupas, and Chaitya’s of King Asoka, who installed these monuments across the country.

The novel also has few double agents. King Bheem Singh, the descendent of Rajvirgarh dynasty has cunning motives to discover this secret and thereby wanted to control the world through his men. He has partnered with some of the world’s notorious criminals and terrorist organizations such as LeT and Al-Qaeda. At the same time, he befriends Vijay Singh and pretends to help Vijay in his search for the discovery of secret of weapon. Like Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons and Last Symbol.

The secret weapon is known to be developed from the technologies described in the VIMANA PARVA of Mahabharata that was never made public. Only the group of nine knew what this technology is all about. The later part of the novel reveals that, this technology is particularly based on the optical physics and illusions that can make anything invisible. Therefore, the planes manufactured using this technology can not only miss the radar, but also capable of going invisible, which cannot be recognized with bare eyes. As we speak of Optical Physics and Nuclear technology in this novel, this is again the same style of narration that followed in Digital Fortress of Dan Brown.

Overall, I cannot out rightly say it as a Dan Brown’s carbon copy. This novel has got its own flavor and thrilling moments. It’s a good book to read and not an epic though. If you haven’t read Dan Brown, then, you are going to get surprised.

There are few chapters which could've been easily avoided. Vijay’s love story is totally irrelevant to the novel which could've been avoided. The Al-Qaeda commander character Farooq is depicted too weak, who leaves clues deliberately. The IB chief officer Imran’s character is kind of superhero, but he fails to make an impression.

At last, the realization that dawn upon Vijay is same as Robert Langdon revealing Sofia that she is indeed the “Holy Grail”!! You might have guessed it already; Vikram Singh has passed the baton to Vijay Singh as the next person in the group of "Nine" to safeguard “THE MAHABHARATA SECRET”. :D


My Rating:
4.5/5