Friday, October 9, 2009

Go kiss the world

Recently I finished reading Subroto Bagchi's Go Kiss the world. The subtitle 'Life Lessons for the Young Professional' gave the impression of a self help book, and I am no fan of that kind (in fact I don't read them, almost as a rule), but I had read some of Subroto's readings earlier and liked them, so decided to give this a try. It turned out be just wonderful.

The book grew out of the inaugural lecture with the same name Subroto gave at IIMB in 2004. The book has a biographical flavor, but from each incident in his life, Subroto tries to draw some lesson. Some might appear trivial, some are priceless, which you tend to learn the hard way. And the special thing is, the events themselves are not that extraordinary. It reminded me of the old adage 'A good student can always learn more from a mediocre teacher than what a mediocre student can learn from a good teacher'. And Subroto is a good student of life. He recounts his journey from modest beginnings in a small town in Orissa, to found MindTree and take it from idea to IPO. I think there much to learn for the so called 'young professional' here, a class I guess most of readers will fall in. Subroto also discusses 'mid-life crisis', an oft heard word and how he dealt with it. He bashes the dreams of 'retire by 40' that some of us have. And ultimately what success means, at least to him. I have just one complain, it should have been longer.

Go ahead, read it. You will surely learn a thing or two.

2 comments:

Rakesh Vanamali said...

Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to pick it up on my next visit to CW!

Mohsin said...

Welcome! :)