HT Picks: New Reads
This week’s interesting reads includes a book that teaches you to tackle rejection, one that looks at Bangladesh at 50, and a literary biography of MK Gandhi
TALES OF REJECTION AND REDEMPTION
In Spring - Bouncing Back From Rejection, Ambi Parameswaran puts down the various stories of rejection from his own life as well as those encountered by some of the biggest names across various fields of work like business, design, arts, and entertainment. Aimed at 20 to 40-year-olds struggling with challenges and fears, Spring is packed with tales of rejection and redemption. From Walt Disney, The Beatles, Thomas Alva Edison and Michael Jordan to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the founders of Infosys, and author Amish, a lot of successful people have used rejections as a pivot to swing their careers and businesses around. Every challenge, every rejection can be used as a springboard to help an individual become a little better at what she does, to become a better professional, a better entrepreneur and a better executive. Spring shares the stories of how successful business leaders, sportspersons, artists, authors and entrepreneurs managed to spring back to action overcoming rejection and other barriers.*
BANGLADESH AT 50: THE NATION’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE WORLD AND WITH INDIA
At present, Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economies in Asia, which has transitioned to a middle-income country, progressing significantly in terms of both development and social welfare parameters. Recognised as a multi-party democracy, it has improved its energy and transport sectors, maintained better human development indicators than its neighbours, and lifted a substantial section of its population from abject poverty. Bangladesh at 50 traces the country’s history since 1971, while also commenting on the possible concerns that societal, political and institutional structures are likely to face in the future. The chapters study Bangladesh’s relationship with the world and with India; the role played by multilateral funding agencies and the success of two major NGOs, the Grameen Bank and BRAC; the development of trade and exports as well as the garment industry; issues related to the environment and water; and Islamisation and militancy, along with the role of women in society.*
THE IDEA OF DHARMA AS A FRAMEWORK FOR GANDHISM
Mahatma Gandhi: The Great Indian Way focuses on Gandhi’s years in South Africa, the birth of non-violent resistance, and then moves into the epic freedom struggle in India. Raja Rao wrote in a fable-like, non-linear chronology, unprecedented for any biography of Gandhi — a writing that Rao claimed to be ‘an experiment in honesty’.
The life of Mahatma Gandhi has transformed into legend. In Mahatma Gandhi: The Great Indian Way, Raja Rao upends the genre of the literary biography with inventive non-linear chronology, through dialogue and anecdote, situating the physical within the metaphysical, and with a text that is both retrospective and contemporary at the same time. By mapping genealogies and distilling them, Rao focuses on Gandhi’s years in South Africa before moving into the freedom struggle in India, which brought Gandhi to worldwide renown in his own lifetime.
With an emphasis on the idea of dharma as a framework for Gandhism, this is the story of the man as much as the Mahatma.*
*All copy from press releases.