The last lecture by Randy Pausch

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"What would you do when you have to bid goodbye to your beautiful family, doting wife and lovely kids and to the friends and colleagues those where every part of your life , and from then on how do you face death or life "...that's the theme of the book..


"The last lecture" is a heart shattering memoir of Randy Pausch that completely moved me..It is co-written by Wall street columnist Jeffrey Zaslow..This book is a compelling read ..
Every year at Carnegie Mellon University, a faculty member is invited for a series, famously known as The Last lecture, apparently considered as a final speech to their students before death..But for Randy Pausch it was indeed his last lecture, not only to his students, but also his family and friends, for Pausch had been diagonised with pancreatic cancer..His speech was titled "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"..the entire speech is available on you tube..He gave this speech most importantly for his children.. He wanted to leave a message to them who would never get a chance to know their father ,Truly they all would be proud of their father as they read through or watch the video.. There's nothing written about death its all about life ,love, dreams and how to fulfill them, truly that's how Pausch was, completely lively..He quoted "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand" and he lived completely true to what he said, heads high fighting the most difficult battle of death courageously leaving a lesson behind to all...

Even writing this book he never wanted to spend time with the co-author away from family wasting his precious time ,hence the discussions were done during his everyday bike ride in the morning...Pausch describes all his philosophy through anecdotes from his life...Pausch is an awesome story teller,recalling all the important events of his childhood with ta whip of fun and gaily spirit..

I loved this quote "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And Experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer".he says hurdles are there for a reason, and this is what he belived everytime he was faced with one,"The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not to keep us out.The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something..Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough..They're there to stop the other people."  Golden words are about time"the key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the things? Because time all you have"
After he delivers his speech his wife hugs him by the end whispering"Please don't die" moved my heart away...
It's a slim book that will leave you heavy...

Lucknow boy: A memoir by Vinod Mehta

                   


                       Price Rs 499 (got it for 349 from Flipkart.com
                                                   Autobiography


 I'm always reluctant to buy autobiography mostly because of being overly timeline oriented, and being self indulging(well that is what a autobiography is supposed to be) but most often they go over the line, but this one was like  reading a fiction on the run...My last post on "The museum of innocence" Pamuk's romance with the city reminded me about this book where Mehta describes his fond memories about the people of Lucknow while he was young.. Outlook is the only magazine (i'm not too proud about it) where I pay attention to the editorial note even though I'm not a loyal reader of it..So it isn't surprising when I readily picked his memoir isn't...


As a kid Mehta was an average kid with all his limitations (though good in sports) in terms of thoughts and education (third class in B.A)brought up in a modest middle class society during 60's Lucknow with  high value.He had wonderful gang of friends in school who stuck for life..According to him life in Lucknow had lot of shades to it for instance “In Lucknow at that time, you could be a liar, crook, bigot, miser, ugly, lower caste - that was okay. What you couldn't be was a bore. When we wanted to damn somebody, call him the worst possible name, we would say, ‘bore hai’"... It was London that let him shape his life with his various assorted odd jobs and friendship with men and women later to be more in number.. Self taught and hardworking, reading in depth about authors and political developments in Britain  laid a strong foundation to his rich experiences and vantage that we get to see today...His confession of fathering a child and refusing to stay by his girlfriend when she refused for abortion made me wish that someday he get to meet his daughter...First part of the book with his childhood and life abroad is very interesting and fun..


Getting back to India, his efforts of self publishing a book (which he is not proud of ) "Bombay a private view" , then a biography about Sanjay Gandhi The Sanjay story,and Meenakumari became controversial...His first job was as an editor in debonair (Indian playboy version) where he managed to get published some sensible articles in spite of the magazine that it carried , where he had to write under different pseudonym still maintaining the center page of the magazine of nude girls..  But during emergency he was asked to make it decent and this is how he described the model in the center spread "The breasts were covered with an ugly, dense dupatta. The Emergency had taken its toll on our naked women"..


But as he moves on to become the most sacked editor from The Sunday Observer-Independent-Indian post-Pioneer and finally to The outlook (where he currently serves as an adviser after he resigned from the the post of editor for 17 years)the book misses the personal element (may be he was completely into work)becoming largely professional with lots of insight about the well known name which is thoroughly entertaining...His statement of being a gossip monger aptly fits in..Throughout his career he has witnessed many famous rows and hosted some like that between Willaim Dalrymple and Ramachandra Guha most famously Between V.S Naipaul (Mehta's good friend) and Salman Rushidi are amusingly good read..The best part are the work behind the scene of making and working with some of the sensational scoop that stirred the entire nation from cricket match fixing to revelations of Niira Radia's tape, 2G spectrum, Moraji Desai's other side, , Narasimha Rao's writing skill certainly makes the reader smile..There are not just success stories but also some blunders like Y.B Chawan and exit poll result  predictions being always wrong etc etc...


The Chapter "Sweepers Wisdom" is a rich read where he offers his piece of mind to the young Journalist..


Throughout the book I felt an anti BJP spirit running all wide and strong and a slight lean towards Congress, especially Sonia Gandhi,he tries to justify it with the statement that a journalist cannot hate every politician..His sense of humour is all through the book even through the candid moments when he gets sacked and his rift with the proprietor helping the book stay tuned into life...His naming his pet dog editor is one among the situation where he makes self mockery with deep meaning...


All in all the book has every element to keep you reading and had it not been for this memoir I wouldn't have known the outstanding life of Vinod Mehta...