The Hindu Business Line : Be constantly engaged in everything you are doing

What does `being creative' mean? Not that you were good at art at school, says Karan Bilimoria in Bottled for Business (www.landmarkonthenet.com). Creativity is not an isolated activity done in some kind of silo, but a way of life, he explains. "It is about being constantly engaged in everything you are doing. All the time try to think of original and new and different ways of doing and approaching things, driven by the knowledge that if you tackle life in this way you can add value and make a difference."

Cobra wisdom that you can't ignore!

Impacts from space!

A happy note that John Gribbin ends with in The Universe: A Biography is that once life gets a grip on a planet it is pretty resilient. Sadly, though, "the prospects for human civilisation are clouded by many uncertainties of our own making, including wars, anthropogenic climate change, and degradation of environment." Whether we survive these hazards is not a topic for scientific debate, but a matter of political will, says Gribbin.

"We have the scientific and technological knowledge to feed adequately an even greater human population than the Earth already carries, but people continue to starve in large numbers because of political decisions." The biggest threat to us may be `impacts from space' — `the same process that brought life to Earth in the first place'...

Engrossing read.

Inimitable Nani

"India is the world's greatest expert in the art of perpetuating poverty." A line, that is, from what Nani A. Palkhivala spoke at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, on October 21, 1981. All `isms' are lethal, he used to say. "If the amount of time, energy and public money which are employed in depressing our economy were to be utilised in developing it, we would experience an economic miracle. It takes a lot of doing to keep a singularly gifted and enterprising nation like India in the ranks of the poorest on earth." Thus reads a snatch from Nani A. Palkhivala: A Life, a biography written by M.V. Kamath.

Many a lingo

See `the world through the eyes of writers' in Words Without Borders. The book compiles `28 works of literature never before published in English', translated from many a language, including the Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Bengali, Persian, Arabic, Yoruba, Romanian, Italian, German, French and Spanish. The project, hosted by Bard College, aims to promote international communication. Catch up with more on www.WordsWithoutBorders.org.

Tailpiece

"We'd coached the team... "

"To play and lose?"

"No, that was only too natural for our players. So, we taught them to blame the coach for all ills!"

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

D. Murali