Synopsis

Silent Eloquence is a book that celebrates the beauty and power of words. It is a collection of reflective essays written over fifteen years, as the author moved across multiple countries (from Asia to Africa to Europe) and encountered different cultures and colorful personalities along the way.

The stories are personal, but the themes are universal. They question our need to belong and be different at the same time, balance between being a global citizen and loyalty to nationalistic identities, clash of new and old. The topics are eclectic - from appreciation of art, effect of technology on creativity, need for credibility in negotiations, increasing impatience of the modern audience, move from breadth to depth and about apathy in social life - to name a few. The book has 3 sections - Musings, Books, Places (see below).

Written by an adventurer for those who relish adventure - not just in life, but also in the world of books. For after all, you never know what you might read in the next page - that is the joy of reading such a varied, engaging, honest collection.

Musings

Musings contains my take on topics ranging from arts to technology to languages to politics. It is broad and are often general essays that defy further categorization. A handful of posts in this section tackle management and workplace, I toyed around with the idea of creating a separate section but decided against it, because these are closer to observations from an early career perspective than the kind you find in management textbooks. A few intimate, personal reflections can also be found here, making this section very diverse in what it covers.

Books

Books are my take on some of the books I read during this period, and some thoughts about writing and literature. I am a voracious reader, the selection of books I choose to review has often very little to do with how much I like the book. As I was compiling this, I tried to find a common reason why I might have picked these specific books to review on my blog, and I could find no commonality. The result is an eclectic collection of reviews, which is probably appropriate since eclectic is the word that comes closest to describing my reading habits.

Places

Places documents my journey through various lands - many are about of the countries I lived in and some are about the places I visited. Germany, Singapore and Netherlands feature most in this section. I wrote about India often during the early years of the blog, it was my way of sorting out feelings of homesickness. At some point, the umbilical cord strains and severs, I write less frequently and with greater distance about India, and I feel freer to finally be a global citizen, a child of the Earth emotionally bound by no nationalistic boundaries. I write of my travels to Marrakech, Venice, Vienna and London, thrown in with some reflections about travel itself.