Tuesday, June 13, 2006

My obsession with autobiographies

Everyone asks me why I like reading autobiographies. It's not that I have any objections to that... I like reading autobiographies! No more questions, please...

The first autobiography that I read was Wings of Fire by Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. It was a gift from my cousin brother on my birthday (many years back, maybe when I was in higher secondary; I don't exactly remember). I must admit it has left a lasting impression on my life. In fact, I liked it so much that I also read its Marathi translation, aptly titled Agnipankh.

I have recently started reading The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed. It's not an autobiography (and I cannot explain why it happens to find a place here). From the reviews, it looks like an absorbing book till its very end. I have heard that it does a fantastic job of plotting the meteoric rise of Google from "being nowhere to being everywhere" ;-)

Last month, I finished reading Just for Fun by Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux operating system kernel. Since Linus, Linux and Just for Fun have found a mention in many of my previous posts, I won't bother you with all the gory stuff (see, not even the links are there!). Just for the record, Linux happens to be the largest collaborative project in the world. Three cheers for Linux!!!

I am yet to read the story of another collaborative co-operative movement, the largest of its kind. This one is called I too had a dream, and it is the autobiography of Dr Verghese Kurien, "India's milkman" (as he is fondly called), the "architect of Operation Flood" and the "father of the White Revolution". He is the one behind Amul, now a household name all over India...

I plan to read The Google Story and I too had a dream in parallel (pipelining, as one of my friends puts it!). That's it for the moment... Let's see which interesting autobiography comes my way next... Don't worry, I'll keep you posted on that!

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