Hair Yoga

Hair Yoga

by Jawed Habib

 

Paperback, 150 pages

Published: 2014

Publisher:  Random House India

ISBN:  9788184004618

Blurb: Everyone today, whether man or woman, has some or the other concern about their hair. We all want beautiful hair and have different definitions of what beautiful hair is:shiny, thick, lustrous, soft or flowy. 

Everybody wants beautiful hair and all of us have at least one hair problem. Hair Yoga is a book by Jawed Habib who is a professional whom one can trust with their hair. He has his own salon in India and is responsible for the gorgeous hair of many celebrities. He is also the one to come up with the Xpreso cut which costs only Rupees 99. In this book he gives you the styling and hair care tips that every individual requires so they can have a good hair day every day. 

Who in today’s world doesn’t know Jawed Habib? I remember being just a little child when I first heard there was this fellow called Jawed Habib who was the hairstylist of many a celebrities and had a chain of salons of his own. I was quite smitten back then.

Now, when we had a book by him and with a person as me who has hair issues as one of the biggest of her life, I didn’t want to miss this one. After all sorts of information one would gather on the internet, there was something to actually rely on and which came from a real expert. Who would have wanted to miss the chance?

Like the book says, everyone wants great hair. Everyone has tried something or the other to make their hair better and almost everyone has a theory about how it should be done. Now that the expert himself is guiding the way through, I wanted to go by real tried and tested remedies than just the theories. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the book.

The book tries to touch every aspect of hair care that concerns an average person. Telling us of different types of hair, Jawed Habib first of all helps us to figure out our hair type. Then he enlightens us busting all the myths of haircare. Mind you, many of them pretty much left me absolutely appalled realising that we hold so, so many myths about tending our hair. The best of it was when it reduces to dust the most popular Indian concept that oiling hair helps hair grow fast. ‘Oil feeds hair. It never helps it to grow. Oil conditions hair… It is just an external hair care process and has no relation with hair growth,’ it says.

Oil being so important as a part of the Indian culture, a separate part of the book is dedicated to facts about oil and what kind of oil would suit what type of hair. Further, after oiling, washing it off is important. With separate chapters each on shampoos and conditioners which suit particular hair types, Jawed Habib repeatedly tells us that ‘everyday shampooing ruins hair’ is all a huge hoax. He tells us how shampooing is the best thing one can do for their hair.

 

Even though the book has many further chapters on myriad of things including brushing, styling, colouring, hair protection, seasonal care, hair care for children, the book still seemed somewhat incomplete to me. However, it convinced me well enough to have my waist length hair cut down to a bob, which is a proof enough that it is very convincing and informative. Yet, a lot of my questions remain unanswered in hair yoga, the questions I actually hoped to have my answers to when I bought the book.

I wouldn’t say it is the hair bible that you would ever want, yet it tells you a lot of things which you might not come across anywhere else. I would say, it is a 50-50 go. You’re definitely going to add to your knowledge if you read it, however there isn’t something great to miss on if you don’t.

Fitness on the Go

Fitness on the Go

By Abhishek Sharma

Paperback, 313 pages

Published:  2013

Publisher:  Ebury Press

ISBN:  9788184001792 

Blurb: The anytime, anywhere workout fitness guide for busy people

·         Is your weight under control?

·         Can you climb a few flights of steps quickly without going out of breath?

·         Are you able to concentrate well in your work?

Looking slim isnt the only marker of being fit. Fitness means having stamina and strength, being able to do your everyday tasks better and being calm and focussed. Now celebrity fitness trainer Abhishek Sharma shows you the perfect exercise regime that:

·         Works on both body and mind drawing elements from yoga, martial arts, and athletic workouts

·         Can be done anywhere and without machines and includes a range of exercises such as brisk walking, jogging, skipping and cycling

·         Helps you achieve a focussed mind by teaching breathing and mind centring exercises

·         Is great for people on the move since the emphasis is on using your natural surroundings

·         Is boredom-free as it is utterly versatile and can be changed around constantly

·         Will make you more confident, fearless and is a great self-defence tool

Fun, challenging and flexible, Fitness on the Go has worked for celebrities such as Ranbir Kapoor, Akshay Khanna and Bollywoods fittest heroine, Deepika Padukone. Supplemented with photographs and celebrity secrets, it is the one stop solution for the modern warrior.

After reading plenty of fitness books in the past few months, I finally got my hands on Abhishek Sharma’s Fitness on the Go.  The title seemed quite interesting and with the comments by all the big shot people on the book, I thought to pick it up. I am glad I did.

Abhishek has written this book exclusively for people who have a tight schedule and always use it as an excuse to refrain from exercise on the pretext of not having enough time to join a health club, or a gym, or engage in any regular rigorous physical activity.

Abhishek in his book, unlike a few other books that I have read, doesn’t give us measures to stay fit which are just limited for to carry out by the elites. I liked this approach that the author, who has been training all the loaded and affluent people like Deepika Padukone and Sonam Kapoor since ages, has tried to share his knowledge of fitness with the common man, which anyone can easily apply into their lives.

Though the book primarily is centred around workouts and exercises, it also stresses n various other activities and lifestyle changes. The exercises that have been very clearly and comprehensibly explicated in the book are not just the ones that’d help you reducing flab. Although reducing flab is a part of it, but the exercises simultaneously concentrate on strength, flexibility, stamina, balance, improving posture and meditation.

While many books surprisingly say that Yoga isn’t that great an approach to get fit, Abhishek Sharma lays his focus on the importance of Yoga in the said motive. Also, the book explains the importance and effect of the most underrated of exercises- breathing. It was quite interesting to know that breathing could do wonders to help people stay fit.

Moreover, the author is a great motivator. The motivation filled in the book to lose those extra kilos and stay fit is incredible.

The workout routine of the book seems totally injury free. There isn’t anything maniacal in the book like drawing your legs over your head. The postures, the workouts, each step of each exercise is brilliantly explained, with the additional aid of pictures. Squats, Cardio, Crunches or Yogasanas, the book has it all.

Incidentally, I tried a few aasanas for my backache and they worked like magic!

This book is totally worth the price. It saves up a lot of your time and energy. Not just in one way, but in plenty. If you are thinking of buying it, you definitely should. Thumbs up!

In the Body of the World

In the Body of the World : A Memoir

by Eve Ensler

 

Paperback, 220 pages

Published: April, 2013

Publisher:  Random House India

ISBN:  9780805095180

Blurb: From the bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues and one of Newsweek’s 150 Women Who Changed the World, a visionary memoir of separation and connection—to the body, the self, and the world

Playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body—how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent much of her life disassociated from her own body—a disconnection brought on by her father’s sexual abuse and her mother’s remoteness. “Because I did not, could not inhabit my body or the Earth,” she writes, “I could not feel or know their pain.”

But Ensler is shocked out of her distance. While working in the Congo, she is shattered to encounter the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer, and through months of harrowing treatment, she is forced to become first and foremost a body—pricked, punctured, cut, scanned. It is then that all distance is erased. As she connects her own illness to the devastation of the earth, her life force to the resilience of humanity, she is finally, fully—and gratefully—joined to the body of the world.

Unflinching, generous, and inspiring, Ensler calls on us all to embody our connection to and responsibility for the world.

Lately, I have been in love with reading Memoirs. After reading some quite nice ones, when I got my hands on Eve Ensler’s In the Body of the World, I couldn’t wait to get through it. As I read it, I realised I have become a sucker for memories. Be it mine, a friend’s, or an author’s. I love the idea of memories.

I had heard a lot about Eve Ensler before I got to read In the Body of the World. Her very acclaimed book, The Vagina Monologues had gathered all the praise it could. Being a burgeoning feminist myself, I instantly became a fan of Ensler for all that she has done for the women on the face of this earth.

Ensler’s memoir, In the Body of the World is primarily an account of her fight with her cancer. A uterine cancer that emptied her from within, quite literally.  This book is as much an account of the atrocities meted out to the women of Congo, and the making of their dream place, the City of Joy.

The first thing that intrigued me about the book was its index. She called it SCANS. I wondered what the SCANS was about. And just as you are through a few pages, she tells us why. And you are just awestruck at her capabilities and the uprightness that she shows towards life.  

The book, if to be described in a word, should be ‘heart-wrenching’. The images that Ensler shows us are vivid, and explicitly disturbing. Ensler doesn’t  hold back. She gives you the details of every damn disturbing thing in such a raw and graphic language that you would squint your eyes and say ‘Ew!’ Until now, of all the books I have read, In the Body of the World was the most disturbing one. And I loved it for that.

The women of Congo, the centre of attention for Eve even during her turbulent times of cancer, steal the show. So much that has been written about them, it made me feel more and more related and identifiable to them.

No wonder that the book is depressingly explicit in terms of the imagery, it is humorous. You would want to laugh in all the heart ache that Ensler gives you. This is the biggest thing that makes obvious the brilliance of Ensler as a writer. The way she marries laughter with tears, my hats off to her.

Eve’s language (Gosh, I am addressing her as Eve as if she were my childhood chum! But I felt closer and closer to her as I read the book. OMG! She is such an amazing writer) is like a conversation. You feel like she is talking to you; sitting in front of you sipping coffee and telling you everything that has gone by in her life lately. The book sounds like a diary. It is filled with casual but strong metaphors. And what took my heart away were the short chapters. Yes, I am a sucker for short chapters too.

She makes you feel ‘in her head’.

At last I would say, Eve Ensler makes you introspect. Whether you want it or not. She is a spiritual guide! I found it out right when she talked of the somnolence in all of us.  “The choice between being awake or half asleep,” she says.

You got to read the book to know it all. It is totally, totally worth your time.

Beating the Blues

Beating the Blues : A Complete Guide to Overcoming Depression

by Seema Hingorrany

Paperback, 224 pages

Published: 2012

Publisher:  Random House India

ISBN:  9788184002836

Blurb: Can’t sleep soundly? Don’t feel like stepping out of the house? Having suicidal thoughts? You might be depressed and don’t know it yet. According to a WHO study, a mindboggling 35.9 percent of India suffers from Major Depressive Episodes (MDE). Yet depression remains a much evaded topic, quietly brushed under the carpet by most of us. In Beating the Blues, India’s leading clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and trauma researcher Seema Hingorrany provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to treating depression, examining what the term really means, its signs, causes, and symptoms. The book will equip you with: • Easy-to-follow self-help strategies and result-oriented solutions • Ways of preventing a depression relapse • Everyday examples, statistics, and interesting case-studies • Workbooks designed for Seema’s clients With clients ranging from celebrities and models to teenagers, married couples, and children, Seema decodes depression for you. Informative and user-friendly, with a foreword by Indu Shahani, the Sheriff of Mumbai, Beating the Blues is an invaluable guide for those who want to deal with depression but don’t know how.

A thing that is seen all over around us these days ubiquitously is depression and stress. People suffer from this noxious illness even without being aware of it for ages. Research has proved that about 35% of Indians suffer from depression. Many of them don’t know it, those who do either don’t take it seriously or don’t want to seek help professional help about it.  Here, Dr Seema Hingorrany comes to the rescue of such people.  

This book helps a person understand this under estimated disease better, and it would help you figure if you are a victim, and if you already know it, it’d make sure you see a doctor about it. The best thing about the book is that it tells us how to identify depression from normal life stress, for the term ‘depression’ gets misquotes a billion times in our day to day lives.

From explaining the symptoms to telling us stories of her own patients, Ms. Hingorrany had tried her best to get us acquainted to the malady and has made reading the book exceptionally interesting.

One more thing I would want to talk about Beating the Blues is the cover. Whether a person is suffering from depression or not, he would invariably get attracted to the book just seeing the cover. From my five year old cousin to my forty year old uncle, everybody would sneak a peek at the book just because of its cover, and most probably would comment on it.

This book is a bible for people who are under depression or know someone who is. It not only helps you understand the disease better, but it also helps you come out of it. It most importantly breaks the myth about shrinks. Dr. Hingorrany says that there have been times when a person would tell her that they didn’t see a psychologist because they were scared. Some would even fear that they would be given shock treatments right on the first day. Beating the Blues explains almost every step that comprises the treatment of depression. From Play Therapy to side effects of anti-depressants, the book has it all.

I recommend it to everyone who feels the need to know about the subject, and to the ones who wonder if they are the victims of the disease or know someone who is or might be. It is a Must Read!