This book is all about those moments in your life when you took the most important decisions. Great Moments by Prakasha Shanbog is, in fact, as the author says, ‘the moments of taking the right ethical decision.’
The author further adds, “With our entire life being a series of moments, we are primarily responsible for each moment. We can shape it into the way we want it to be. The choice is ours, either one can make the moment a great or just let it pass by and get left behind in the history of time.”
With his vast experience of having served in big companies and NGOs, Shanbog has brought out a collection of essays on divergent topics and issues that have been put together in this book. Each chapter, highlighting different subjects like ambition, wisdom, values, success, the mystery of time and a host of other aspects that we face in life, has been told through simple and thought provoking tales from the Panchatantra, Hitopadesha, Mahabharat and various other epics.
To explain the meaning of many important things in life, he further uses the teachings, life sketches and sayings of famous seers and teachers like Aurobindo, Patanjali, Shankaracharya, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda as well as modern thinkers and scientists like Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Arthur Eddington and Dr Bruce Goldberg. With each chapter focusing on a particular issue like, for example, in ‘Success’, the author writes that it is an exciting concept where some people pursue success for years, maybe throughout their life but somehow they do not reach it.
“Success eludes them, others achieve success almost instantaneously. The meaning of success is different for different people. At the core, it boils down to actually what you are searching in life. In a sportsman’s dictionary, the meaning of success is something, which differs from one of a musician or the one of a painter struggling to paint his masterpiece.”
Now why does a moment become great? Who makes it great? Is it the individual experiencing it? Is it the surrounding ambiance responsible for the great moment or is it with the people whom we are associated responsible? The author subtly stresses through each of his essays that these are the questions to be debated.
The book is written in a simple and interesting style with anecdotes, sayings, quotes, stories and ultimately makes one think and ponder about great moments in one’s own life.