Handa Ka Funda Think Outside The Book

Review of The Mine by Arnab Ray – Disappointed

I was waiting to read ‘The Mine’ since I first heard about it. I read Arnab’s blog regularly and have read ‘May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss’. MIHYAP was witty and showcased why we all love greatbong so much. He could express what being a 80s-90s kid in India meant – and he did that really well. But sadly, desperately sadly, he cannot write a psychological thriller – if that is what ‘The Mine’ is trying to be. It is horribly clichéd, boring, formulaic, etc.

The book begins with a prologue, which is very much like every Hollywood thriller movie that you have ever seen – a sex sequence gone wrong and a dead-guy at the end of the prologue. I could actually imagine the screen going black and the title ‘THE MINE’ in big red font popping on the screen with a loud background score. The next few pages introduce the main characters of the book in a Guns-of-Navaronesque sequence where every character has a speciality. I know. I know. You have seen it in many other films from Jurassic Park to the pilot that Mia Wallace starred in.

When I started reading the book I wanted to like it. I wanted to recommend the book and shout out to all the snobs that there are ‘young-indians’ who can write popular books that are brilliant. By the time I was done with the first 30 pages my goals were changed. Now, I did not want to hate the book and just wanted to finish it in the hope that it would become better but sadly that was not the case. The book kept on getting harder to finish. You could actually guess that there was something wrong with each and every character and the shock-value was reduced when author used same-old formulas and references to ‘Memento-Mori’ and ‘American Beauty’. I do not know why, but the whole underground setting with ancient structures reminded me of everything from Crichton’s Sphere to the Salman-Sheeba-AmritaSingh starrer Suryavanshi. If you have seen any part from the ‘Saw’ series or even a trailer for Hostel, the gore in the book will not be able to shock you – which seem to be the sole intent of it being there. There are also lots of parallels between each character being punished for his/her wrongdoing in a different fashion, an idea that seems like a straight lift from se7en.

By the time, I came to the end I was hoping at least the there will be no loose ends. But again, Arnab sticking to formulas choose not to explain things completely. He decided that it would be OKAY, as it was OKAY to not know what was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction or what Scarlett said to Bill. The ending, which I am sure some people will find classic, was again on expected lines with the sole intent of packing a final punch. It failed to do so to someone who has seen enough films and read enough books to enjoy MIYAHP. I was thoroughly disappointed, not because I had wasted my money and time on ‘The Mine’, but because I had wanted to show this book to my friends and say – ‘Non-literary people can also write good books.’ Unfortunately, I will not be able to say that.

Book Review – The Selfish Gene

It would be unfair to say that I randomly thought about doing a book-review on a blog that has gone close dormant and is not very far from extinction without any specific motivation. It is motivated by the awesomeness that ‘The Age of Seth’ was and it raised the feeling of impotency which often overpowers me when it comes to expressing myself with the written word. It is precisely the reason why I try and avoid reading something new by Gulzar, and by ‘new’ I do not mean something Gulzar has created in the recent past but something that is ‘new’ to me, and as to why I have not used a more conventional term like ‘fresh’ or ‘previously-unheard’, that could be a discussion over drinks and not the content of a blogpost.

The next logical thing, if you have an idea about instructional design that in my opinion is a fancy term often used by people who want to methodize everything, would be to defend or explain the choice of the book, especially when The Selfish Gene is a book written about three and a half decades ago. The reason for this is an idea – if everyone in the world read this book, the world would be a better place. You may say I am a dreamer, but the plethora of fans and detractors that the book has would prove that I am not the only one.

The book has a radically new way of looking at evolution. At least it is a radically new way for those of us who did not study biology beyond the compulsory class 10^th. As to what we have studied or rather what we remember, evolution works towards protecting the species and it is the fittest species that survives. As per Mr. Richard Dawkins it is not the case. He believes and during the course of 300-odd pages tries to convince the draw – it is not the case. He gives numerous examples and encourages the reader to understand the conclusions that he has drawn rather than the “Survival of the fittest” phrasemonger biology teacher that we had.

Dawkins proposes the idea of a ‘replicator’ gene and then the imperfections that can and most certainly do appear because of the sheer large number of genes. In these imperfections, the once who are ‘selfish’ enough survive and the others perish. Eventually these ‘selfish’ genes are the ones that replicate and become, for the lack of a better word, the MotherLoad. A simple and crude application of this idea would be – assume a plane crashes in the Alps. Also assume that there are few survivors and they do not have anything to eat. Eventually some of them would start killing each other to eat and some of them would be too sensitive to do so. The selfish ones will survive and breed whereas the sensitive ones will be wiped out. Okay! Okay! I understand that this is a very morose and far-too-much-generalisation sort of an example. Well, that is the reason that you should read the book.

The above example is based on a discussion that I had with a friend at lunch and you would be surprised to know that it is not too far from the truth. And for the interweb kids – the word ‘meme’ was first used in this book.

Moving to Pune, joining a startup

I was planning to write this post for quite sometime but procrastination is no longer a habit or a whim for me but a disease. Doing things at the last moment, and sometimes not doing them at all, is something I have become habituated with. So, it is with great pleasure and happiness and excitement I would like to announce (to the few readers of this blog and to those who have landed here via the social networks – facebook, twitter, google plus, buzz, etc.) I am moving to Pune to join MindTickle, a startup, from 1st August 2011.

Mindtickle is in the learning / gaming / gamification space. I understand that gamification is the new buzzword in the startup industry about which a lot of people are skeptical. But you can’t have a buzz without a few bees flapping their tiny little wings hard enough to make that sound. (I know, I know. Don’t be a pedant and point out that the buzzing sound is not because of the wings but because of the bees talking to each other. The ‘flapping wings’ line is for dramatic effect). I am excited to join them because of two reasons:

a)    The work that I will be doing excites me. I will be responsible for ‘Content Generation and Game Operations’. I believe it will use my skills to the fullest and I believe it is something I will be really good at.  Also, it is something that I don’t mind doing or hate doing – which is the case with a very large percentage of today’s working population. It is true that I never had a job that I hated – I really liked teaching Maths that I did at IMS and Maurya Learning (this website) is my baby and I love it. I love it a lot.

b)   The set of people that I will be working with are smart.  At IMS, some of the people like Charanpreet Singh (my boss for sometime, my quiz team partner for few years and mentor for lot longer) were really high IQ but I cannot say the same about the rest of them. At Maurya Learning, it was just me and Avinash, who were friends first – coworkers later. At MindTickle I am going to be the first employee. The other four people in the company are co-founders who seem to be really good at what they do. I have worked with three of them very closely during the past few months on few projects and have often been amazed at their ability to release products / prototypes. The fourth guy, co-founder & CEO, must be good because he was able to get the investment required for the company.  He was also smart enough to hire me as the first employee so he should be given credit for that. J I have never been a fan of degrees because of the idiots that I have seen in IITs and the morons I have seen get into IIMs, but the fact that he is alumnus of IIT Delhi, ISB and Stanford must count for something.  I must add that none of them are regular drinkers / smokers which might make things a little odd for me. However, working with Avinash for around a year has trained me for the same.

Couple of other questions which the neighborhood aunties keep on asking me are:

a)    Will I be able to sustain a family (for those of you who don’t know, I got married on 5^th July) on the salary offered by a small company? – Startups don’t pay as low as most people think. They are often not able to match with the industry standard but that is compensated by various other means. The offer from MindTickle is generous enough for a city like Pune. You also have to keep in mind that my wife recently cleared her CA finals and hopefully will start working soon. So MOM and AUNTY – stop worrying. If I run out of cash, I will stop drinking beer.

b)   What happens to Maurya Learning and / or this website: The website will exist. Avinash and I will not take it off. We believe that it helps people and it does not cost too much to maintain it. However, addition of more stuff like ebooks or videos seems unlikely in near future. We will also continue Maurya Learning Pvt. Ltd. for various individual / group assignments that might come our way and require a registered company.

I have never lived in Pune and I will need all the help / beer / chicken that you are willing to provide. Please email me your number at ravihanda[at]gmail[dot]com if you are the generous kind. For the first 20 odd days of August I will be crashing a friend’s place so the help you offer will be reciprocated with a genuine ‘Thank You’ / beer / chicken.

Cheers.