The Shadow of The Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto

In the remote corners of a nation lies grief so profound and betrayal so abysmal it threatens to wrench your heart out. You, who are sitting beneath the azure of a peaceful sky, sipping comfort from a steaming cup, reading of the tempests that toss mercilessly the people in a land so far removed. You would feel the uprooting of their lives like a blow to your gut…and yet, you could never experience the true force of the impact.

These are the lives that Fatima Bhutto speaks about in her debut novel The Shadow of the Crescent Moon. Author of the famous Songs of Blood and Sword, this is her first work of fiction and, like her memoir, reflects what she has seen from close quarters—politics , blood and betrayal—all inextricable from her lineage.

The story is set in Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan’s tribal region of Waziristan, and takes place during a span of four hours on a Friday that coincides with Eid. Three brothers are going to separate mosques for their prayers, because “it is too dangerous, too risky, to place all the family together in one mosque that could easily be hit.” That is the essence of life in Mir Ali: teetering on the edge.The brothers represent three different ways of life in the town, torn apart by military excesses and a desire for freedom, handed down generation after generation.

Hayat, the youngest, embeds the tales of suffering and takes upon himself to fulfil the dream. The eldest, Aman Erum, desires a way out, dreaming of doing business in a place that isn’t strangulated by this tussle of the past and present. Sikandar, the second, adopts what he believes is a middle ground—neither fleeing nor fighting; staying and serving by becoming a doctor. None of their choices, however, will protect them from the tragedy that is their destiny.

There are no heroes in this story, except the ones mentioned in passing. As Hayat says, “They killed our heroes so we stopped making them.” They are not incorruptible, they have to make choices while living in hell and the choices are those of a prisoner sentenced to death—one who would choose life at all costs, even by bartering the soul.

Bhutto’s female characters—Sikandar’s wife Mina and Samarra who loved Aman Erum— are more multi-layered. Mina, the lecturer of psychology, is a woman turned deranged by loss—barging in on the funerals of strangers, seeking solace in grief. Yet it is she who, in a fit of rage against injustice, causes the murderous Taliban to back down. Samarra is a woman betrayed by life many times over. What remains of her is a hardened shell. And yet, the final blow to that shell is so devastating, so repetitive in its cruelty that your heart bleeds for Samarra.

Political comment is strong in the novel, with references to the stamp of US control on everything Pakistan owns—from oil and airspace, to souls and futures. The bitterness against military dominance is obvious, too—“They were no one’s oppressors. They were everyone’s oppressors.”

But from a human angle, these could be the frayed edges of any nation—the militant areas of India’s north-east; the vales of Kashmir; or the Maoist-ridden heartland. Injustice, violence and strife belong to the same clan, feeding off each other.

Bhutto’s book is a universal—if deeply disturbing—story, set in the place she knows best. And even as you put it down with your breath knocked out, you can’t shake the feeling that somehow, through the unbroken seams of humanity, it connects you, too.

My Brief History by Stephen Hawking: Inside the mind of a genius

Becoming acquainted with the mind of a genius is a fascinating experience. The life stories of people that dazzled the world with their achievements always make for inspiring reads—especially if you get them straight from the horse’s mouth. Having given A Brief History of Time to the world and describing The Universe in a Nutshell, the world’s best known cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, now describes his own self in My Brief History—right from the time of his birth to the present moment.

Aside from the fact that it was Hawking who took the bold step of trying to take the universe to the masses—letting common people have a glimpse into how the universe operates—what is most well known about him are his wheel-chair-bound, speech-synthesizer-operating persona and the motor-neurone disease that led to it. What this book further reveals about the “most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein” is his sparkling sense of humour and the surprisingly heartwarming tendency to take everything positively; to see that single light ray in the darkest of situations.

The book is a rather slim one with 13 chapters that talk as much about his personal life as the work that has driven him. With parents that were both educated at Oxford despite coming from families that were not well off, Hawking talks with great candour and wit about the fact that he was born “ exactly three hundred years after the death of Galileo,” but that there would be about two hundred thousand other babies born on that day and “I don’t know if any of them were later interested in astronomy.”

Describing his childhood through early memories, Hawking speaks of his fascination with trains and his great desire to get an electric train, and inventing a “series of very complicated games” during his teens—a manufacturing game complete with factories, roads and railways and even a stock market; a war game and even a feudal game in which each player was a whole dynasty! The following sentence sums up the direction his mind was taking from the beginning –“I think these games…came from an urge to know how systems worked and how to control them….this need has been met by my research into cosmology. If you understand how the universe operates, you control it, in a way.”

From his days at Oxford and Cambridge, to his theories about the Universe and his work on black holes and time travel, everything is narrated with a touch of humour and every chapter ends with an anecdote to make you smile. Though you have to get through the concepts of theoretical physics to be able to get the joke, the effort is entirely worth it!

If you’ve already gone through his previous works you might not need so much concentration and focus in the chapters that speak of his work as a scientist, but even if you haven’t, this book will make you want to explore the universe even more.

Sprinkled all over the book are such candid offhand statements as “My practical abilities never matched up to my theoretical inquiries.” Or “It was lucky I didn’t become a civil servant. I wouldn’t have managed with my disability,” revealing a disarming air that charms its way into your heart. Particularly when he talks about how his disability has been an “asset”: “I haven’t had to lecture or teach undergraduates, and I haven’t had to sit o tedious and time-consuming committees. So I have been able to devote myself completely to research.”

The last few passages talk of the “full and satisfying” life he has led, with the very sound advice: “Disabled people should concentrate on things that heir handicap doesn’t prevent them from doing and not regret those they can’t do.” The advice holds true for every one of us sitting out here with some “disability” in life—not necessarily physical, though.

This book just needs to be read to believe how far the human spirit outweighs the body that holds it.

Make a new world for yourself: Orbit-shifting innovation

Innovation is the buzzword of the 21^st century, as not just corporations and governments but every individual is seeking that one great life-transforming idea that would set apart his/her life from the rest of the world and rocket him/her to the top. Quite naturally ‘innovation-advice’ is literally flooding the market. So why would you want to read more of the same? Because, in the simplest of terms, this is probably the most meticulously written, most lucidly explained and most insightful book on changing the orbit of your universe that you would have come across.

Orbit Shifting Innovation by Rajiv Narang and Devika Devaiah breaks down the process as well as the mindset of creating an orbit-shift into the tiniest bits, so that you can observe and explore each one with perfect clarity. The book is divided into four sections, beginning with a record of the most extraordinary life-changing ideas in different industries, countries and areas of life. While you would certainly expect companies’ innovative products or services to be there for sure, what sets this list apart is the inclusion of public-welfare initiatives by social enterprises and government employees. Whether it is the life-straw water purifier, which purifies water even as you drink it, developed by Swiss firm Vestergaard Frandsen , the community policing model applied in Tiruchirapally by JK Tripathi, the transformation of Surat from a plague-ridden city into India’s second cleanest city by SR Rao, or the construction of the Qinghai Tibet railway, the examples set the tone, driving home the point that a transformative change can originate in any section of society or any part of the globe. The stories themselves unfold bit by bit over the course of the book, engrossing you with the sheer miraculous power of human will.

Devaiah and Narang, the latter the founder and the former the Director of Erehwon, a 20-year old pioneering Innovation firm, discuss some very interesting concepts, such as the idea of identifying and moving beyond mental-model boundaries—the lens from which we view the world. To be able to transcend these, you may have to literally invert your world-view—as they show you with a map that portrays the Southern Hemisphere on the top! Then there is confronting ‘gravity’—the force that pulls people down—which can be in the form of organisation, industry, culture or country gravity, but is most powerful in the form of mindsets that are averse to change, thought processes that say ‘it can only be done if it’s been done before.’

The last section sums up very neatly the difference between ‘orbit-shifters’ and ‘settlers’: both exhibit romanticism as well as realism; the difference lying in where they apply each. The orbit-shifters are dreamers in their vision: they imagine something hitherto unheard of, but are rooted in reality about the obstacles in implementation. The settler, on the other hand, choses a ‘doable’ target while rom

anticising the execution—and fails to complete even the doable.

The book’s format is more of a corporate guidebook, sprinkled with special tips for CEOs to foster innovation in their enterprise. From advice to idea-generators on handling top management, to guidelines for the top brass on how not  to promote ideas that are merely ‘more of the same’ , this book is a must read for people dreaming of making it big in the corporate world.  However, its appeal is far greater than that: the pages speak to every individual who nurtures a dream—be it changing his own life, or changing the course of the universe.

Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In: By far the best book addressing the needs of independent, ambitious women

If ever there was a book on changing the gender equation that simply must be read by both women and men, here’s the one. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, is a gem of a book that can show you some concrete ways to change your life and change the world. With real-life instances from her own and her colleagues’ lives, Sandberg tries to illustrate how it’s not just external but also internal barriers that keep women from reaching the summit. 

With a foreword by HSBC director Naina Lal Kidwai, the book asks the important question that despite there being numerous women in the workplace at the entry level, why are there so few women in positions of authority? And in the process of asking this question, she discusses how social, cultural, psychological as well as biological hurdles keep pushing women backwards at every step.

Sandberg shows how internally, women hold themselves back by keeping their ambitions low—because that’s what social and cultural norms condition them to do. And in the classic catch-22 scenario, women who do set their sights higher end up being penalised for it: because people consider them too pushy, or selfish. So ironically, the same qualities and achievements would be lauded in a man while a woman would be all the less liked for it.  There is the very interesting Heidi/Howard case, where two groups of students assigned same ‘competency’ but different ‘likeability’ levels to an individual whose achievements were described to them—merely because one of the groups was told this person was ‘Heidi’ and the other was told it was ‘Howard’! So ‘Heidi’ –a real life entrepreneur whose case was being studied—was rated a more appealing colleague by the group who were told she was ‘Howard.’ That, in short, sums up pretty much how the gender scales are tipped.

However, Sandberg reasons, when there would be a great number of women at the top, how many would you be able to hate? (Can’t argue with that!) But more than that, she talks about building a feeling of the “common good”, where women help other women to the top. And the men who would like to see the world better balanced could lend a hand, too. Not tagging affirmative action as “asking for special treatment” is surely a good way to start.

Arguably the best part of the book is the very down-to-earth advice for achieving that “work-life balance”. “Done is better than perfect”,  which simply means that striving for perfection in both your workplace and your home will only end up making you feel like a failure. Prioritising what needs to be done 100 per cent perfect and what can be tolerated at 90 per cent makes up an essential part of this ideology.

The chapter ‘Make Your Partner a Real Partner’ busts one great myth: women who have no family responsibilities have a better shot at getting to the top. Sample this statistic: “Of the 28 women who have served as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, twenty-six were married, one was divorced and only one had never married.”  The secret of their success, obviously, was a partner who understood that not only must women be more empowered at work but “men must be more empowered at home”, sharing their half of the home-and-child-care.

Sandberg acknowledges that this is a slow-moving process and requires both internal as well as external barriers to break down. But meanwhile, you’d do good to lay your hands at this book. And keep it by your bedside— forever. Or at least as long as it takes!