No Limits: Book Review

Michael Phelps it not an unknown name for anyone who follows sports. With 8 Gold medals in just one Olympics at Beijing, he became one of the most celebrated sports professionals in the history of Olympics.

No Limits is a book about Phelp's mental and physical journey from being a kid diagnosed with ADHD to stealing every winning moment at the Beijing Olympics. For people, who watched the 2012 Olympics at London, I am sure you guys would be thinking that this book would have been worth the wait to have captured everything until those greatest moments in London, especially the one where the FINA President declares Phelps as the greatest swimmer ever. Nevertheless, this book still does a lot of justice to Phelps' road to success. 

The book is divided into 8 chapters. Each chapter talks about a particular race and also weaves in Phelps' childhood, conversations with his coach and family, Athens 2004 Olympics and the Olympic Trials. For hardcore swimming fans, this book is captivating yet feels like a pool overdose. Swimmers will definitely relate to every number mentioned in the book, especially the details about how much a hundredth of a second matters, timing the turns and the splits. The book also introduces us to Phelps' interactions with some of the world's greatest swimmers like Mark Spitz, Ryan Lochte and Ian Thorpe.

There is a large part of the book, separated out in every chapter, that talks about Phelps' family and the support they gave him all through his journey. His sisters, who almost made the Olympic team but had to stay out due to health issues, had a huge impact on his decision to take up swimming. Being diagnosed with ADHD, Phelps was a rebellious kid and had to focus his energies in one direction. In his early years, Phelps' mom along with his coach, mentor and friend Bob Bowman took special interest in shaping his career.

The book also takes readers into an area that is not known to outsiders - about Phelps consuming more than 8000 cal per day, his foot size at 14 and his practice session that is an average of 11000 meters every day. Phelps also talks in detail about United States Swimming, the rigorous Olympic trials, and drug tests. 

The one important learning from this book is Goal Setting and sticking to the plan; also leaving out everything that would cause hindrance to achieving those goals (even if it was family). And these were not goals for the next Championships in 3 months but for the next US Olympic Trials. Once the goal was set and committed, aspects like  courage, determination, confidence, and the will to succeed would fall in place.

Michael Phelps gives a lot of lessons for anybody who is interested in chasing excellence. Perhaps the most important lesson from the book in his own words is this: "Nothing is impossible, you have to dream big dreams - the bigger, the better."

Bounce - Book Review

Matthew Syed is a British journalist and broadcaster, who was once a table tennis champion. He was the English number one for quite a while, then three times the Men's Singles Champion at the Commonwealth and also played on the GB Olympics team.

Bounce - written by Syed is a book that focuses on excellence in sports. Syed keeps you entertained from the beginning of the book by not focusing on the science of sports but gives anecdotes from his own table tennis days; about how it matters to indulge in sports at the right time and have the right ingredients like the coach and facilities to practise.

Syed comes across as very gentle, clear and authoritative as you flip the pages. He starts talking about the ten thousand hours (remember Gladwell's Outliers.. and there is a lot of mention about that in this book) and that's when you tend to believe in the effort that great sportsman that we hear of today - Roger Federer, David Beckham, Tiger Woods, Sachin Tendulkar, Shizuka Arakawa; would have taken. Most of the top ranking sportsmen started playing when they were roughly about 6 or 8 yrs old. Ten years of focus, meaningful practice and performance improvement at each level elevates them and they are what we see today.

Syed also talks about different experiments carried out by people across the world. The research on the West Berlin Music Academy; the research on strange distribution of birthdates of Canadian ice-hockey players; incredible working memory of SF who can remember more than 40 digits sometimes and the experiment on how we control the mindset of people.

Bounce also has a good selection of information about how top players in various fields started off initially. Syed takes us through the lives of Shaquille O'Neal, Williams Sisters, Mozart. He also discusses about the sudden increase in South Korean women golfers in the LPGA circuit.

Every human being, be it in sports or not; is always affected by certain sparks in their life. This may be like jolt out of the blue and that is it. Its such a powerful effect that it becomes a life changing moment.

As you read through, you also tend to understand why high performers sometimes dont perform at all. He very simply calls it choking and its quite evident when you pull up the facts. Top sportsmen havent always done well when it was required. And this not because they didnt practise well. Its only because their mind is choking with all the facts about the game.

After getting very serious on experiments and choking, Syed starts talking about sentiments in sports. And I would totally agree to this. Even if it doesnt make any difference, I too have such sentiments when I play frisbee locally in my city. Yes, its not even a championship but I still believe. So I could very much relate to what he says.

The next part of the book is about attentional blindness and the example is a plane crash. It is a very good insight into how people use only a part of their attention skills to focus on something they are very familiar with and then work on the remaining. The section on anti-doping and the effects of doping; followed by arguments about genetically enhanced genes for mutual benefits gets you thinking about the role of advanced science and whether we need such evils/boons in our life or not.

The gene research extends a bit and goes on to understand how Blacks dominate atheletics (sprints and marathons). The American and Jamaican atheletes are the sprint champions with the Kenyan and Ethiopians taking the marathons.

Bounce is a great book for people who are interested in sports and knowing about excellence in sports. It gives scientific insights into sports that were never known before. Any coach who wants to keep his students motivated should read this book.

The name is Rajnikanth

I was quite reluctant to buy this book, the first time I saw it on the stands in Landmark.

Then later I decided, what the hell, let me see what's in there. I picked it from a local music-world and started reading.

The book, as everyone can guess, is totally about what Shivaji Rao's life has been till now. It creates a perfect blend of what the times were during the pre-filmy years and after entering into films.

There is more emphasis on the journey, which is something that most people dont know and are not aware of. A journey of how a mischievous shivaji rao, who was roaming the streets of bangalore with his friends, wasting time and money, not thinking much about his poor family, to becoming a superhero.

The whole story is quite simple - I mean, the way its represented in the book. No bombastic words. Language is quite simple. Sometimes it feels like as if you are reading through a collection of random blog posts by the same person.



The book takes an interesting journey. There is no chronology as such. We get into the past where Shivaji is a child and then in the next one we suddenly leap into, for example, a chapter about how he got married to Lata. So, in way, even if you think that you are going to get bored reading about someone's life, you'll be kept at a reasonable pace because of changing moods.

What I could learn after reading this book is that most of what we see about Rajni in his movies is perhaps a reflection of what his life has been. He put in efforts towards making a movie on Raghavendra or Baba was only because he strongly believed that these two people make a great impact on his religious sentiments.

The most important part of this book is stories about hardships, economic dependance, friendship, struggle, hope, confidence, crisis etc. I think I can just go on. Frankly, thats the truth. There is a lot of unknown stuff about Rajni and his early years in Madras (much before he met KB for Apoorva Ragangal) and this book simply gets all that to light.

The book also tell us stuff about politics in Tamil Nadu and even the Centre, how Rajni got himself involved unnecessarily and burnt his fingers. Incidents such as the elections, Veerappan's escapades, Cauvery issue are highlights.

Coming to stuff that cant be avoided. This book could have been edited with maybe a steady mind. Its so full of mistakes. And mistakes when done on facts really irritates anyone. Especially when movie enthusiasts read this book, they'll probably want to just throw this book into the trash can for such bad editing. Most movie names are quoted wrong - dont know if there was any intention. At some places, even the connections with dates and movies are wrong. After seeing so many mistakes, I strongly felt that the book shouldnt be selling for even half the price.

Verdict: If you are a hardcore Rajni fan, then its worth a buy.. Dont buy if off the stands, its very expensive. Get it on the web. Its a lot cheaper. Or even a pirated version would do.

Shantaram - Book Review

This was long due.

I read Shantaram months back. And since, then I was waiting to write a small review and never found the opportunity. So here it is.

Shantaram is a colorful novel right from the beginning. Every emotion that you look for, from the human heart, is packaged in the 900 odd pages. An ex-junkie and robber enters India after escaping from an Australian prison. That first bit itself raises your expectations of the whole - I could call it thriller too! This guy is the author and his photo reminds me of Liam Neeson. Lin enters hot Bombay - the maximum city. And his experiences in Bombay are not comparable to a travelogue. Rather a handbook for fake passports, drugs, stolen medicine, weapons, money and what not. Amidst all that Lin makes a local best friend - Prabhakar who helps Lin start an enchanting life in Bombay between 1981 and 1987 starting with learning Marathi.

"And I did--I liked everything about her. I liked the Helvetian music of her Swiss-American English, and the way she pushed her hair back slowly with a thumb and forefinger when she was irritated by something. I liked the hard-edged cleverness of her conversation, and the easy, gentle way she touched people she liked when she walked past them or sat beside them. I liked the way she held my eyes until the precise moment when it stopped being comfortable, and then smiled, softening the assail, but never looked away."

He falls in love with Karla - beautiful and enigmatic. Its amazing to see how her character has been sketched. She shows strength, determination, and confidence under various circumstances. "Heroes comes in three types - dead, damaged and dubious" . This is one dialogue I remember from the book that Karla made. Karla is Lin's connection to Bollywood, prostitutes, smugglers, police officers, afghans and iranians.

Further, its just unbelievable to know what all happened with Lin during his life in Bombay. He sets up a clinic in the slum, hooks up with local mafia to fetch medicines, ends up doing money laundering and fake passports. Over the seuqnce of all these events, Lin ends up at the Arthur Road prison. I cannot say that he gets beaten up black and blue. When you read those chapters, you'll feel miserable. Is prison that worse? Nothing like what you see in the movies. Its painful and traumatic. You start thinking - will he die in prison? what will happen next? will someone save him? why is he getting tortured for such a long time? (this, mainly because the prison chapters run for quite long).

Khader, the savior, gets him out and brings him back to business. Then comes another episode - the trip to Afghanistan.

Discussions about life, metaphysics, morality, death - at some places in the book, you kind of get this feeling that its not at all done reading this once. You need to mull over it again and again. Thats when you see the light behind the curtain.

Some of the characters like Qasim Ali, Johnny Cigar, Didier, Lisa, Abdullah are very lively and whenever you read parts involving them, you get a feeling like watching a western movie.

The main theme, as I could understand, in this book, is Lin's pursuit to find out the finer details about green eyed beauty Karla and the muslim don Khader. When you read this book, you definitely get thinking - Wow, I really wonder if I can see a Bombay like this.

what you'd like in this book is perhaps the amount of authenticity that it contains. although some parts have been dramatized to make the flow interesting, it still is an account from Lin's life. there is realism and richness. you also come across a tough world.

and i hope, i have inspired some of you to pick up that book.