Balancing the business of life

Ashish Joshi

Business, Balance & Beyond, Azim Jamal, Jaico Books, Pp 195, Rs 250.00

Modern man is a confused being. Having to juggle home, personal and official life is enough to drive anyone insane in these trying times. As one famous author had put it quite succinctly-‘The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be’.  So, what is to be done? Ergo, welcome to the world of self-help books. If you manage to hit the right note, the sky’s the limit in this industry. Sample this: Americans spent $11 billion on self-help books, and other similar products in 2008 alone! It has become a vast industry, this-each year it seems a new self-help guru appears on the scene exhorting the legions of the lost to eschew the material world and seek solace in the spiritual or to combine the two into a harmonious whole.
Among the better-known of these spiritual gurus is Azim Jamal. An inspirational speaker and author of the so-called Corporate Sufi series of books, the Canada-based Jamal won the Nautilus Gold Prize in 2009. His work has been translated into 10 languages and he has seen his books access the top slot on Amazon twice.
In Business, Balance & Beyond, Azim Jamal offers us his recipe on how to succeed in a hostile and competitive world, and to maintain a harmonious work-life balance. He gives examples of the Sufis, mystical mendicants who lead an austere life to attain fulfillment. Try to incorporate some of their practices to solve your problems, he tells us. The Sufi lives according to a strong code of ethics; he is a ‘person of timelessness and placelessness, living in the world but not of the world’. Live a life of balance-between home and work; between body, mind and spirit or even between materialism and spirituality-and you can achieve all your life’s goals, seems to be the overriding message of this book.
(Jaico Publishing House, A-2, Jash Chambers, 7-A, Sir Phirozshah Mehta Road, Fort, Mumbai-400 001).

Ashish Joshi

Bureaucrazy Gets Crazier, M K Kaw, Konark Publishers, Pp 195, Rs 250.00

A throwback to our colonial past, the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), is admired and reviled in equal measure. Times may have changed peoples’ career goals-once the ambition of most forward looking men and women was to either become an engineer or doctor or those who had the capacity to slog it out-get into the IAS. The advent of technology has thrown open a plethora of options in front of our ambitious graduates—they can pick and choose from a wide variety of disciplines—but if one thing has stayed constant it is the aim of getting past the notorious pre-IAS exam and landing the post of your dreams! Mired in red tape and the epitome of bureaucracy, the IAS is much sought after for the kind of power you can exercise once you get an official posting.
And if there is anyone who has seen it all through the hallowed lenses of the IAS, it is M K Kaw, the distinguished civil services officer who has penned several books and held a variety of senior positions, such as Finance Secretary, Member Secretary, Fifth Central Pay Commission, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, etc. Bureaucrazy Gets Crazier is his witty paeon to the IAS—that forged his career and gave him much material for his oeuvre. The book lays bare the real goings on behind the corridors of power, the hypocrisy, the backstabbing, the games bureaucrats play to climb the greasy pole of success, the shenanigans of their political masters, the sordid stories of unaccounted wealth.
Bursting with humour on every page, the author has peppered the book with sundry anecdotes that bring out the many faces of the civil services. The reader is laid privy to the Machiavellian tricks that officers play to advance their own interests. As the author says, the service “symbolises the worst traits of bureaucracy—the red tape, officiousness, authoritarianism and arbitrary exercise of power”. He paints a rather unflattering picture of IAS officers as “smug, complacent, snooty, pipe smoking, public school products, having an urban, upper class elitist bias”. He pawkily christens the IAS as ‘Indian Avatar Service’, ‘Invisible After Sunset’—hilarious acronyms that capture the true spirit and flavour of this hidebound profession. The author also touches on the relationship between the officer and his political master—a symbiotic relationship if anything else—where each tries to feed off the other and obtain maximum benefit for himself.
Witty, erudite and a no-holds barred inside account of the elite IAS corps, the book can be read by almost anyone who appreciates good humour and has a passing interest in the civil services! This is one book which will have you in splits from the first page to the last. Guaranteed!
(Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 206, First Floor, Peacock Lane, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi–110 049).

A modern day mystic

Ashish Joshi

Of Mystics & Mistakes, Sadhguru, Jaico Books, Pp 200, Rs 250.00

The life of modern man is a mess. Blundering in a kind of trance, almost half-alive at times, he has lost that spark, that indefinable something that makes his life so much superior to the lower animals. There is a serious disconnect between his spiritual and corporeal self. Of Mystics & Mistakes by the renowned spiritual visionary Sadhguru helps us chart a course that helps us connect with our spiritual selves for lasting fulfillment. 
He begins by urging us towards the path of realisation. As he so aptly puts it, Realization is not about inventing or discovering something; it is just about realizing who you are.’ The book is essentially in a question-answer format; where his disciples ask him questions ranging from the mundane to the intensely spiritual and the guru provides an answer in his own inimitable manner.
(Jaico Publishing House, A-2, Jash Chambers, 7-A, Sir Phirozshah Mehta Road, Fort, Mumbai-400 001).