कागज़-ए-ख़ाली

मुद्दतों में उठायी कलम हाथों में, 

देख कागज़-ए-ख़ाली हम खो गए,

लफ़्ज़ों के आईने में देख ख़ुदा को,

ख़ुद ही की मौसिकी में मशगूल हो गए,

मन को तराशा बेबाक़ अल्फाज़ो में, 

कांटे भी फूल हो गए,

एक बूंद गिरी स्याही यूँ दवात से,

फिर छिपे सारे राज़ गुफ़्तगू हो गए,

क्यूं ना करें इन पन्नों से बातें,

ये ही है जो रूठा नहीं करते,

स्याही की छाप से जब पन्ना रंग जाता है,

मन से निकला हर लफ़्ज़ कागज़ पर रम जाता है,

बोल उठते हैं शब्द, जब ये कागज़ हवा में फड़फड़ाता है,

इत्मिनान देता है कागज़ का टुकड़ा जब मन भर आता है,

एक कहानी और कहानियों में कई कहानी,

मन की उड़ान की रफ्तार लिख कर है दर्शानी,

दौड़ भाग में रहते व्यस्त करते हर दम काम काज,

छोड़ के ये सब मद मस्त हो जाते हैं आज।

बुनते है आज ग़ज़ल सुहानी या कोई कहानी,

बातें जानी या अनजानी जो है हमें दुनिया को सुनानी।

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फ़ुर्सत

चलिए कागज़ पर कुछ अल्फ़ाज़ लिखते हैं

धरती जो कर रही आराम उस पर साज़ लिखते हैं,

आश्चर्य में पड़ गया विज्ञान,

प्रकृति ने किया वो संग्राम,

आदमी आदमी की मौत का हो रहा कारक है,

घोर कलियुग का ये आग़ाज़ दिखता है,

प्रकृति के प्रक्षालन का ये संयोग सच्चा है,

दूरियां बढ़ने का योग अच्छा है,

देख लो मोबाइल टीवी या अखबार,

प्रवचन का लगा है अम्बार,

हाथ धोएं, किसी को न छुएं, बुखार ना होये,

ख़ुद की बनाई जेल में गुम होये,

जीवन मे नहीं बस सिनेमा, मॉल और पार्टी हॉल,

फुर्सत भरे दिन रात मिलते कहाँ है हाल फिलहाल ,

बच्चों को घर के काम का आनंद सिखलाये,

Playstation और iPad को दूर हटाएं,

क्यूं ना आज अपने शौक फरमाएं,

परिवार में किस्से कहानियों की चौपाल बैठाएं,

अब मौका मिला है तो फायदा उठायें,

कुछ लम्हें अपनों के साथ बिताएं |

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Book Review: The New Rules of Business

Book Name - The New Rules of Business

Author - Rajesh Srivastava

Publication year - 2019

Pages - 326

This book is penned by Rajesh Srivastava who is an IIT and IIM alumnus. The bio of the author is indeed impressive, he has a lot of feathers on his cap. All the knowledge and experience that he has put into the book is amazing. He is an accomplished manager and brand creator.

The book has a very rich content, with each chapter being a different and a new rule of being successful in your business. Each chapter has a guideline presented interestingly, along with real examples and stories. It's not just one story but multiple stories together. Though I am not from a business background, and have received no formal education in business, this book caught my interest. I could think from a consumer perspective and relate to the stories of the businesses. I stand at the other end of the business-consumer flow, but found it all to be captivating. As a customer I never knew how much research and efforts were put in the background to sell a product to me. Moreover, the newer ways of winning customers written in this book are worth knowing and relatable to me now.

The sixteen rules of business are apt and interesting. It helped me dive deeply into what the businesses we admire did to reach where they are. The world is evolving, the customers are changing and hence, to grow a business stale rules may not work. This book gives us a wonderful insight into those rules and ideas.

I am not sure what they teach in MBA programmes worldwide, but definitely can bet that this book sums up such courses practically. This was the first book of its kind that I ever read, but definitely looking forward read more from the author.

I rate this book 4 on 5 and recommend for those who are serious about building and growing their business, and are willing to adapt fresher ways to build it well.

Thanks to Shweta from Glad U Came for sending this book for review. 

(PS: the reviews expressed here are based on my personal reading experience, and do not intend to defame, derate or 

degrade the sale or vice-versa for the book.)

If you are an author and want your book to be reviewed, drop an email at bookreviews@mansiladha.com

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Book Review: How to Be a Likeable Bigot

Book Name - How to Be a Likeable Bigot

Author - Naomi Datta

Publication year - 2019

Pages - 216

Genre - Sarcasm

The book is a collection of essays on vivid topics like workplace, parenthood, technology etc. The satire and humor in the book is exemplary. The essays are highly relatable, neither too lengthy nor too small. The author presents a very witty and bold outlook to something we are or that we come across on a daily basis. What occurs to almost all of us, and is a part and parcel of our existence, generally goes unnoticed. This has been beautifully thought over and captured by the author. This book brings the extra ordinary out of the ordinary!

It is very evident how the amount of patience and iterations on the content eventually got bundled up in the pages of this book. Naomi seems like well read and well referenced author. Lot of knowledge and exposure can only result in such quality content. At the same time, the reader also has to have knowledge to understand the content.

Unlike usual indian authors, Naomi came up with a distinct thought process. She has used good verbiage and vocabulary. The sketches before every chapter are creative and self sufficient to convey the crux of the what you are about to read.

For someone who cannot focus and read through a thick book containing a single story, this book is a right option with separate essays. Each of them are independent of one another and can be read in any order.

The genre is very much relatable to me, not only because each of the chapters is close to my existence, but also because I too write a lot of satirical blog posts on the contemporary world. I also closely observe the regular phenomena and draw my inferences into such satirical write ups. I was actually reading the lines loudly in my mind, with all the pauses and expressions, which made me enjoy this even more!

The content is crisp. You would never be bored of it. Overall it is a refreshing read.

I rate this book 3.5 on 5. I recommend this for those who appreciate and understand satire. Not everyone enjoys being made fun of. This book is not meant for those who read only fiction or philosophy. Consider this as a series of blog posts compiled carefully and presented in a light hearted way.

Thanks to Blogadda for approaching me to review the book.

(PS: the reviews expressed here are based on my personal reading experience, and do not intend to defame, derate or 

degrade the sale or vice-versa for the book.)

If you are an author and want your book to be reviewed, drop an email at bookreviews@mansiladha.com

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Life as 30

CAUTION: The content hereafter may damage your optimism, sanity and immaturity.

Today I proudly and successfully complete 3 decades of my life.

I have reached an age where ideally I should not be too excited about my birthday and consider confining myself to my home, avoid birthday wish calls. I must get rid of answering the recurring question on my birthday plans and not to succumb to the pressure of celebrating the day like other homo sapiens !

But it's okay to think adversely and find my ways to be happy :)

I have also reached an age for which they advertise the anti-ageing creams, and when I end up to a beauty store next time, I must apparently pick up an Olay total effects cream, and hair color may be... Despite this, I still get marriage proposals or get called Santoor Mom.

Much has happened and a much is yet to happen. My identity is a married-engineer-working-mom-part-time-writer. Given all my experiences with this planet so far, I have enough Grandma stories to tell to my unborn grandchildren.

My body is ageing, hair fading, dark circles darkening and mental cache filling. I no more "cross the bridges when I come over them". I have to be prepared for that may come over to me.

"पहले मैं होशियार थी इसलिए दुनिया बदलने चली थी, अब मैं समझदार हूँ इसलिए ख़ुद को बदल रही हूँ"

I am permanently unimpressed by a lot of stuff and unaffected by a lot of occurrences. Advices pour in from all directions, but now my brain knows what to absorb and what to reflect.

One bitter truth of life that I learnt is your friends may not stay with you forever, your family shall. The teenage fantasy of "friendships forever" is a forgotten dream now! One gets back to the family over a course of time.

When we were kids, a broken pencil and a lost eraser were enough to call it a bad day. While growing up, life threw challenges called exams and peer pressure. Once you overcome this, you are made to believe that getting into a good Alma mater will make your life better, and that it is the last problem that you shall have on the earth. False. Getting a job happened to be the next great struggle. Next, fight for high packages and better jobs had to be the real and final challenge by the time you turned 25. When thats fixed, a distant cousin's wedding (who later got divorced), had to result into sleepless nights for your parents and eventually happiness-less days for you. Well, looked like marriage was the ultimate solution to all your problems, but then came the demand of having an offspring because you MUST have one, for all obvious reasons. Ahaa, that doesn't bring an end to the life's challenges, but is the advent of it. Every age and phase of life has its own challenges and fun. 30 years are enough to know and learn this.

Despite the ups and downs, leveraging each moment you are breathing and being thankful for all that you have, is the key to a beautiful life.

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