This is one breeze of a book – in just under 170 pages, V Raghunathan, author of Games Indian Play has written a timely book for everybody wagging about reforming Indian Educational System. This one is a delightful read which exhorts parents to let children be childlike, creative, spontaneous and happily wanton in their pursuit of things in the years of growing up because V Raghunathan says life is not a sprint, a hundred meters race but a marathon with lots of ups and downs, curves and alleys and zig-zagging turns which require stamina, patience, hardwork, understanding and passion rather than short-termism, strength, roteful understanding, and exam-oriented competitiveness. He says children must be allowed to discover themselves and be intrinsically curious, follow their passions and follow their mojo - this alone makes them grow up as adults with dynamism, interesting personality and sure-fire accomplishments. Parenting geared toward sprint coaching will be dangerous and short-term because in the long-run, life is a great leveller. In driving home these points, he underlines many inter-related concepts which beautifully summarise the wisdom of approaching life like a marathon indeed instead of as a sprint. He draws many examples to illustrate how late-starters and not-so-lucky nor prodigious nor even smart alecks have made it big in the world of business, or any other field of endeavor. Examples include N R Narayana Murthy, Dr K Anji Reddy, G M Rao, Ila Bhatt, Ashwini Nachappa and others. What I like about the book is that enormous lifetime wisdom of the author has been capsuled in concise chapters, each well-illustrated and leading to the next chapter with a thought-provoking missive. The language is also amply elegant while accessible to anybody with a 2000 word vocabulary, probably less.
The book should be compulsory reading for all educators, parents and pupils and seriously anyone who thinks that the passport to sprinting ahead is to grab admissions into the best school, college or job as starters. In reading the book, the style of the author works to your advantage; its interesting, anecdotal and not really didactic, but drawing plenty from personal experience and knowledge. Having read the author’s previous books and also well acquainted with his own career – which has many interesting twists - Graduate at 17, Professor at IIM-A, Multiple stints in corporate world in Asset Management, Banking, and now with GMR, besides hectic lecturing, authorship, Masterly Writer on Financial Literacy, and one of the country’s biggest collector of locks, I can safely say Raghu is well qualified to talk about Outliers who make it in life never mind, lack of pedigree, initial push, luck or precocious academic dazzle. I have met him a couple of times in the last two decades, every time, I crossed his path, he went in a different direction creating a blaze, whether it is in First India Mutual Fund, ING Bank, IIM-A or CSR. In this smashing book which will not leave you untouched or uninspired, Raghu has delivered greatest value - if only that can be perceived by today’s generation and all those who believe in life after a rat-race. Read and Get Inspired!
For more about Raghu, visit : www.vraghunathan.com
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