Book Review: Dare to Be- 14 Fearless Women Who Gave Wings to Their Dreams

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." This is what I concluded from this book. I spotted this book as a recommendation on Amazon. The title of the book was powerful enough to make me read the description. And I pre-ordered a copy, subsequently.

This is a book on success stories of 14 women who decided to embark on the journey of living their passion by calling it quits to their stable corporate career. All this was to live their dreams, irrespective of hurdles and naysayers in their way.

The debut authors Puja Singhal and Rinki Paul have compiled the interviews they conducted of 14 women who quit their high paying corporate jobs to pursue the road seldom taken- standup comedian, authors, models, singers, dancers etc. Undoubtedly, this book is a great source of inspiration for those who want to transform their passion into profession, but are held back by naysayers and by the fear of taking a chance against their stable corporate careers.

Each chapter is an account on the success journey of one of these 14 woman. Diligently penned, women-only stories, this book gives a sense of confidence to aspiring women entrepreneurs. However, it does not focus on empowering womanhood, but on tapping the power of actuating one's dreams, which is applicable to both the genders. This is a plus of the book.

With good vocabulary, brevity of the content and ability to cover the whole in a concise manner, the authors have delivered a book which is one of its kind!
While reading you may find yourself encounter multiple emotions every now and then- smiling, eager, angry, sad, relieved, stunned and lot more!

I have compiled a few of my favorite quotes from the women featured in the chronicle-

1) "It's better to live with 'Oh, Shit!' rather than 'What if?' - Neeti Palta, Standup comedian
2) "Close your eyes and imagine what you would do for the rest of your life if no one paid you to do it. That's what your job should be, and that will get you paid."- Miss Malini, Blogger
3) "Women are no equal to men, they are better. "If you do not feel the pain, you will never know joy."- Sonam Kalra, Singer, Musician, Writer
4) "All you touch and all you see, is all your life ever will be."- Monica Bhide, writer
5) "You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart."- Sucheta Pal, India's first Zumba trainer
6) "...rejection means nothing more than someone being unable to see what you see."- Abha Maryada Banerjee, Motivational speaker, author
7) "Nothing works unless you do." "Add life to moments, instead of moments to life."- Neeru Sharma, Co-founder- Infibeam.com
8) "The only naysayer in my life is me."- Dr. Rangana Rupavi Choudhari, International speaker
9) "Money is important to survive, attachment with it is not."- Pooja Warier, Social Entrepreneur
10) "Jump towards the side where the heart lies and rest will be magical!"- Yukti Kapoor Mehandiratta, Entrepreneur, model and anchor
11) "As long as you are sure of a roof on your head and food on your table, you cannot go too wrong."- Anisha Singh, Co-founder & CEO- coupon provider, Mydala

My rating for this book is 4 on 5. Awaiting the next one by the authors, hopefully on a similar theme.

(PS: the reviews expressed here are based on my personal reading experience, and do not intend to defame, derate or 

degrade the sale or vice-versa for the book. I am not paid for writing this review.)

If you are an author and want your book to be reviewed, drop an email at bookreviews@mansiladha.com.

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A Blank Notebook

Amidst eerie calm of the midnight, she was tossing and turning on the bed. All that was audible was the clock ticking near the door. On that full moon night, a glint of moonlight was peeping past the curtains, adding dim light to her room. The king size bed was too wide for her to lie there alone. Like every year, December weather in Bengaluru was not that cool. Anamika was all alone at home, her husband had been out for three days to attend an official meeting at Chennai.

Lying back in her cozy pajamas and loose tees, thoughts came in and passed as she was having a sleepless night. She had been missing her husband, who was a source of inspiration for her every time she was low. While Anamika was looking towards the window, from the little space left uncovered by the curtains, a thick lock of hair falling on her forehead was bothering her. She moved it slowly behind her ear. Her eyes fell upon the clock, the time was 1:10 AM. Nevertheless, she ain’t going to sleep tonight.

Something was keeping her awake. Anamika’s husband, Rishi had his client presentation the next morning. So she did not want to call and disturb his slumber sleep. If she called him at this time in the night, he would get worried for no reason.

Thoughts climbed up her mind as and as the night passed.

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It all started a year and half ago. She got married and moved to Bengaluru. Life was a joyful ride since then. Having someone to share your joys and sorrows with, to be cuddled and cared for, to be accompanied in all endeavors and choices, is one of the best feelings. It was then Anamika had started penning down her book, her OWN book. It’s been a dream since years. Her husband kept her encouraging to give it a start. Rishi often said, “If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you are right.”

“Eureka! I did it. I wrote my first book.” After multiple drafts, series of writing, re-writing, feedback, editing and burning the midnight oil, Anamika had completed her book. Now the time had come to share the script with the publisher. He was already impressed by her manuscript. Anamika had been on cloud nine since then, her husband equally happy. They had submitted the script to the publisher. For a week, Anamika and Rishi had waited for the publisher’s phone call. Every morning they woke up with vigor, anticipating his call. But success was not supposed to knock so soon on Anamika’s door. The script was rejected. She was shattered. The book was her baby. Thereafter, she spent days and nights in despair. Rishi tried his best to condole her, to convince her that it was the first but not the last time. He insisted her to try writing again. Anamika was too discouraged to write again. She said, “It is not my cup of tea. How could I even dream to see my book in people’s bookshelves? I was much better writing poems and short stories.” She engrossed herself in everything else and stopped writing.

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This time, in Rishi’s absence, Anamika was revisiting the past events for the umpteenth time. She recalled that while leaving for the airport, Rishi had asked her to open the first drawer of her “writing desk” for once. In excitement, she jumped out of the bed and moved towards her “writing desk” in the other room. The door knob was closed, which she opened quickly. The desk was marvelously decorated and on the walls behind were pasted various posters, print outs of her poems, articles and stories, inspirational quotes- all very lucrative for a writer. In the drawer was a folded paper which was hand-written by Rishi for her. The letter just mentioned-

“Sometimes our power resides not in what we do, but in what we don’t do. There is only one difference between dream and aim. Dream requires effortless sleep and aim requires sleepless efforts. Sleep for dream and wake up for aim. Get up and write :)”

Beneath the letter was lying a notebook, a blank notebook. The scent of fresh pages and the sight of an un-scribbled notebook was so soothing. Anamika pulled out a pen from the holder. She opened the blank notebook. And in no time, started writing her destiny - her book, once again!

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

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Endoscopic View of Real Beauty by Twitterati

Meanwhile they were participating in a beauty contest on twitter. I mean, a contest wherein the organizer was giving away vouchers to the winners based on answers to a series of beauty related questions.

The contest's question #1 was about what real beauty is.

It was exasperating to see prompt answers by the participants, flooding with sugar coated definitions of real beauty, all in the race to win the contest!

Quoting a few of those tweets below-

"For me Real Beauty is about taking stand for yourself."
"Real beauty means the lovely soul.."
"Real beauty is not what the eyes can be hold, but what the heart can be hold"
"Real Beauty is being Strong. It's about putting your opinions and not afraid of what 'Chaar log kya Kahenge' "
"True beauty is reflected in one's soul—being truthful, honest, helpful, and trustworthy. "
"Real beauty is not synonymous with outer look.. it is deep within."
"Real beauty is something that is born inside and gradually grows to the outside"

After reading the last couple of responses, I was wondering how do you dig "inside" and certify the "inner beauty" of someone. May be the lungs of the person are beautiful, or is it the food pipe, or is it about the 7 meter long beautiful acid-filled-intestine! Wait... that requires endoscopy... 

It was jaw dropping but amusing to scroll infinitely and see the extent of generosity of people on the contest board! Seeking the FREE shopping voucher from the fashion brand was all they striven for, I believe.

So, I was curious to explore the literal meaning of "real beauty". Merriam Webster dictionary says beauty is-
The quality of being physically attractive; the qualities in a person or a thing that give pleasure to the senses or the mind

The dictionary doesn't feature the word "real" alongside "beauty". But they don't give "fake" meanings either.

Pun aside, simply stating, I am unsure how many of the participants would ever recall and for that matter, go with their homemade definitions of the real beauty. Because in real sense, it's all about physical beauty in this real world! Have you ever seen a matrimonial ad stating- "looking for ugly girl, must be beautiful inside."?  And I don't need to type in the rest :). Think yourself...

(Disclaimer: This post does not intend to harm, defame, or hurt the sentiments of any person, gender, religion, political party, news channel, religious belief, god or to whomsoever it may concern. I sincerely apologize in advance if it is so.)

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Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use. ~Wendell Johnson

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