Contact me at bala@balaramadurai.net.

Learning

Books n Stuff Podcast: S2 Episode 06 - Dune Part One with Parvathi Ramkumar

Welcome to the Books n Stuff Podcast.

Diving into the Dunes: A Spirited Book-to-Movie Discussion with Bala and Parvathi

In this episode of the ‘Books and Stuff’ podcast, hosts Bala Ramadurai and Parvathi Ramkumar dive deep into the vast universe of ‘Dune’. From comparing notes on the film and the iconic book series, to unravelling the complex world of interstellar politics and economics, no stone is left unturned. They offer intriguing insights into the key characters, dissect pivotal scenes, and dive into the labyrinthine plot intricacies. The detailed discussion serves up a unique blend of humor, passion, and animated debates. Tune in as Bala and Parvathi embark on this exciting journey across the mystifying dunes, all set to continue in a follow-up episode. Got book recommendations or Dune theories of your own? They want to hear them all, so don’t forget to share!

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Books n Stuff Podcast: S2 Episode 05 - Meet Author-Editor Dr. Pallavi Narayan

Note - This summary was written by the AI module in Descript online software and not by me

Introduction:

Hello readers and book enthusiasts! Today, we have an exciting blog post for you based on an intriguing podcast episode. In this episode of the “Books N Stuff Podcast,” we meet Dr. Pallavi Narayan, an author and editor extraordinaire. She joins host Bala to discuss her incredible journey in the world of writing and publishing. So, grab a cup of coffee and get ready to be inspired!

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Books n Stuff Podcast: S2 Episode 04 - Sci-fi Authors with Sumit Shetty, Pune Writers Group

Welcome to the Books n Stuff Podcast.

A very simple question to you. Just take a piece of paper and pen or a your mobile device. Think of any authors or creators that come to your mind when I say the phrase science fiction.

Just the top 3, 4, 5 names maybe.

How many Indian science fiction writers popped up in your list? If you are anything like me, my best guess is you probably have none in your list.

But Sumit Shetty from the Pune Writers Group can rattle off a dozen names from the top of his head. In my chat with him for the Books n Stuff podcast, he didn’t stop with Indian Sci-fi authors, but also covered Chinese (Chinese origin too!) Sci-fi authors as well. We, Earth people, haven’t colonized Mars yet, or we would have had Sumit rattle off a few Martian Sci-fi authors as well.

Till that happens, check out some of the stories and authors that we discussed about in this exciting podcast episode:

  • Inspector Matadeen
  • Gollanz Book of South Asian Science
  • Kyla chandar dutt - 1835
  • Anil Menon
  • Arjun Rajendran
  • inconceivable idea of the sun by Anil Menon
  • Leila by Prayag Akbar
  • The woman who thought she was a planet by Vandana Singh
  • Things we found during the autopsy
  • Moustache by S Hareesh
  • Broken Stars and Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu
  • Three body problem by Cixin Liu
  • Story of My Life by Ted Chiang

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Books n Stuff Podcast: S2 Episode 03 - Scarecrow Chronicles-Written and read by Pathik Mitra

Welcome to the Books n Stuff Podcast.

Imagine you have 48 hours in a day and 14 days in a week. What all would you be able to achieve? Without changing your achievements, change the number of hours in a day and days in a week to the usual 24 and 7. Look through your list, you can achieve a lot more than what you think, correct?

This is the kind of thinking that Pathik Mitra seems to have taught himself. He holds an engineering degree and an MBA. He works in a company, has the same duties and responsibilities that each of us has, yet, he’s managed to generate those extra 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week to publish his book and direct several plays.

His secret sauce - he argues with himself using a 1 member WhatsApp group and irons out his ideas when he has to wait in line or wait for boarding a flight. His other succesful idea is to sacrifice sleep.

I spoke to him about his book “Scarecrow chronicles”, in particular and how to nurture your creative life, in general.

He spoke about some of the stories in his anthology, particularly “Roots” and “A1 Jaggery”

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Books n Stuff Podcast: S2 Episode 02 - Legends and Lattes: Discussion with Parvathi and Medhavi

Welcome to the Books n Stuff Podcast.

In the second episode of the Books n Stuff podcast, Parvathi Ramkumar and Medhavi Dhyani discuss the book “Legends and Lattes” by Travis Baldree. Bala Ramadurai quizzes the two readers and finds more about the book.

The summary:

This book is called Legends and Lattes. It’s by Travis Baldree. It’s also published by Tor, which is an imprint of MacMillan in the US. This book is about a certain adventurer called Viv. She’s tired of adventuring. She’s seen her share of battles and all that. So she decides to come to a very large city called Thune, and there she decides that she wants to open a coffee shop there. And basically that’s all the plot is. She comes to the city, she opens a coffee shop, she adds more things to the menu. She has a nice time, she makes friends.

And the twist here is that she has a certain artifact with her that she got on her last adventuring mission. And some people know that she has this artifact and that causes her a bit of trouble with a former adventuring partner and the local crime lord.

All’s well that ends well.

That’s basically it. It’s simple.

Wow. It’s very simple. This is the shortest summary we’ve had in this entire podcast.

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Books n Stuff Podcast: S2 Episode 01 - Foundation by Asimov - Read by Parvathi

Books and Stuff - The BS Podcast

Welcome to the Books n Stuff Podcast.

Foundation is the first book in the Foundation series of books. There is a prequel to this book, but we’re not gonna talk about that. We’re just gonna focus on Foundation. So what we have here, the plot basically is that the 12,000 years there’s been a galactic empire.

Imagine that a 12,000 year old galactic empire, and this empire is dying, and one person called Hari Seldon, he’s a psychohistorian. And he’s basically a doomsayer who’s predicting that this empire will fall. Of course, the empire hates that this guy is predicting their fall, and he has a lot of followers and a lot of people who are working with him, mathematician, scientists, and not many psychologists for reasons I’ll tell you about later.

However, the empire does not like this, and he and his followers are exiled to a far flung planet. Far away in the galaxy, right at the wings of the galaxy, somewhere really, really far away. And there they have to continue working on an encyclopedia that this guy wants. He cannot travel with them because he’s too old.

However, he knows exactly what will happen. And basically what he says will happen is that the empire will fall after 12,000 years and then there’ll be 30,000 years of darkness. He knows a way to kind of forestall that darkness and bring about a new age of enlightenment because 30,000 years is a very long time to remain in the dark.

According to him, if he and his followers work on an encyclopedia, they’ll be able to bring back a second empire. So basically that’s what the plot is about. However, as his followers discover over a long span of time, nothing this man says can be taken at face value. And he has his own agenda.

The Foundation, the novel, is split into five little novelettes and each are interconnected, each deals with a different period of time. And only the first section actually has this man, Hari Seldon alive. And each time he makes an appearance as a hologram, he guides this planet called Terminus. It’s got absolutely nothing, and he guides this new civilization towards this intended goal.

So each time there’s a crisis on the Terminus, this man makes an appearance right on cue and they’ve come to expect it. And it’s almost like clockwork that he makes an appearance, everything that happens to this planet Terminus, he’s able to guess. And because of psychohistory, which is basically a mix of mathematics, science, and psychology. And anything the human race does, this man is able to predict because apparently we are not as free as we thought.

And everything can be predicted. Everything is set into a pattern. So that’s what this book is about.

Enjoy the Books and Stuff Podcast!

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How to manage your personal finances

Money doesn’t make the world go around, (gravity, stars, other planets, and all that other stuff is responsible) but managing the money in your pocket can help you go around the world.

How does one manage one’s money?

About a decade ago, one of my colleagues wanted to go on a European holiday, however, she confessed that she had no idea if she had enough money to go on this holiday or not.

“Bala, I am really poor at money management, besides when you buy a house, all your money, time and attention goes into that,” she said.

I told her “Anything that you measure, can be managed.” So start with measuring.

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Books and Stuff Podcast - Episode 10 - How to use diversity in perspectives for the sake of investing

Welcome to the Books and Stuff Podcast Series.

Books and Stuff Podcast series - What can you learn from philosophy, physics, maths, sociology to help you in investing? A well oiled mind to look at the stock market from various perspectives and hopefully, benefit from these perspectives. This is precisely the core idea of the book that Krishna to discuss with Bala - Investing - The Last Liberal Art by Robert Hagstorm.

Enjoy the Books and Stuff Podcast!

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Thirukkural - 223

My 10-year old and I have been reading one kural a day (from Thirukkural, a set of poems about life) for almost 200 days running now. Some very interesting stories and discussions have come out of that. I am sharing some of them with you. Hope you find it useful.

குறள் 223:

இலனென்னும் எவ்வம் உரையாமை ஈதல்

குலனுடையான் கண்ணே யுள.

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Books and Stuff Podcast - Episode 9 - How to invest the Warren Buffett way

Welcome to the Books and Stuff Podcast Series.

Books and Stuff Podcast series - Earning and learning seem to distinct spheres of life. However, Warren Buffett through his investing has shown us all that they needn’t be separate things, in fact, Bala and Krishna believe that they are one and the same. But how does one learn about earning?

The book The Warren Buffett Way written by Robert Hagstrom points out the 4 mined from the billionaire investor’s life long learning, er… earning, er… investing journey. (These questions are our own interpretations of Hagstrom’s explanations)

  1. Business Tenet - Do you understand how the business makes money? If you were the chief of the company, would you know how to make money?
  2. Management Tenet - Do you know how the people run the business? Do you know who the leadership is? What is their unique management style?
  3. Financial Tenet - After crunching numbers, are you able to understand if the business has indeed been profitable?
  4. Value Tenet - Is the stock available at a discount from its projected value? How do you project value?

Enjoy the Books and Stuff Podcast!

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