It's Not About the Bike - Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong, seven time winner of the Tour De France, reveals in this stirring memoir his life as a cancer survivor and his resurgence in the aftermath of the treatment. The narrative has been rendered from an athlete's point of view about how the game has as much to do with the constitution of the mind as with the physical training of the body.

As Armstrong survived cancer and came back to competitive racing, he notes that his illness had taken away about 15 pounds of his body weight, which made it easier for him to climb the Alps then ever before. Every adversity, however appalling, brings along some element which leaves its stamp somewhere on the soul, it changes something in us for good. And it makes sure that however high we might fly in life, we are never too far from being cut back to size and fall back to zero. As Armstrong says, its definitely not about the bike. Its about the will to keep fighting, to rise every time we fall.

A very inspirational book.

A couple of standout quotes from the book:

"Why did I ride when I had cancer? Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that its absolutely cleansing. You can go out there with the weight of the world on your shoulders, and after a six hour ride at a high pain threshold, you feel at peace. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain. At least for a while you have a kind of hall pass, and don't have to brood on your problems; you can shut everything else out, because the effort and subsequent fatigue are absolute."

"Once someone asked me, what pleasure I took in riding for so long. "Pleasure?" I said. "I don't understand the question." I didn't do it for pleasure. I did it for pain."

I guess this one from the movie Rocky Balboa sums it up:

"You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"

India after Gandhi

Young India will definitely find this very informative, as Mr. Guha correctly points out, history taught in schools in India ends with the independence of India. It was enlightening to know the way the land was ruled under the Maharajas and the British Empire, the factors that led to partition and the mayhem created as a result of it.

Enlightening to know that to build a secular and democratic India from the remains of British Raj was a most difficult objective to attain, with as many as 502 princely states. It was an incredible job indeed by Sardar Patel and civil servant Mr. V.P. Menon, to form states based on linguistic lines, some as diverse as could be from others, and integrating them into one nation. The origins and effects of insurgency and trouble in Kashmir and Punjab have been described in detail, along with Naxalism in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.

Writing this book must have called for enormous and painstaking research. The details into specific events in the nation’s history about half a century ago have been noted with specific dates. Moreover, uprisings and events of significance which took place in each state are described in detail. Incredible research!

A sad part of the country’s fate lies in the fact that all the good leaders have disappeared. Interesting to read about men of the likes of Sardar Patel, Bhimrao Ambedkar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Morarji Desai, and in days when India was considered a country of poverty, famines, and fanatics. These and many other men and women of values were at the helm of affairs in regional and national politics and in other roles during the early years of the country’s birth, but gradually faded into oblivion and what remains now are mostly self centered politicians, many of who come from criminal backgrounds. It makes one wonder as to why the country does not make real leaders anymore.

Mr Guha takes us into the minds of the leaders at the helm of the country, beginning with Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai etc; people who helped form the course of the nation’s path, to modern day politics of the early 21st century. Facts about people and policies are backed up with demographic statistics.

One excerpt from the book that stands out:

“Through most of its history as an independent nation, India has heard altogether different tunes being sung. After every communal riot, it was said that India would break up into many fragments. After every failure of the monsoon, it was predicted that mass starvation and famine would follow. And after every death and killing of a major leader, it was forecast that India would abandon democracy and become a dictatorship.”

Even though considered by many as flawed, the notion that the country still stands as one nation, unifying innumerable diversities is a spectacular phenomenon, unlike Europe or Africa where the regional differences have led to breaking up of continents into independent countries.