The Last Lecture

Preeti once asked me my opinion on Gays and gay marriages and I told her sincerely that I don’t know for I can’t feel like them. Had I would, I would definitely told her.

The character of Rajesh Khanna in Anand who knew he is not going to survive more than 6 months because of an incurable disease was also a similar problem to me; for I was never able to co-relate with the Anand's character.

Later in the years I read a lot of books and articles to understand the dilemma’s of this character.

But for the first time I have read someone describing it as an engineering problem.

As engineering is not about perfect solutions; it’s about doing the best you can with limited resources.

Randy Pausch is a successful Professor who is suddenly in face with the approaching death. As a college ritual he decides to give a last lecture to his fellows and students but the only difference was that this lecture was not for the ones in the room. It was for his kids to watch when they grow up. On the unprecedented success of his lecture, which touched hundreds of hearts, he poured his complete lecture into his book – The Last Lecture.

The book has been a real revelation to me to understand Anand better. Even the my last article was the reason that the book has touched some cords deep inside me.

The book starts with a very promising introduction and some hard hitting and passionate writing. Randy describes life as a game of cards where “We cannot change the hand which has been dealt just how we play the hand”. He reviews his complete life to understand why he is, what he is. With the help of small fables, he talks about everyone who has touched his life and lessons he had learnt from each one.

Randy acknowledges that his life changing event was the lottery he won – The parent lottery. He was born with the winning ticket and that is what made the real difference.

As we enter the later half of the book, it becomes preachier and I started loosing interest but stopped here and there to enjoy the anecdotes.

Randy says that he was a brilliant salesman and that was the reason to join the field of education. Though the book is heart touching but difficult to read full out due to its preachier nature, I am sure Randy would have done a brilliant job in delivering The Last Lecture in which he packed the full stuff in an hour’s talk. I am currently downloading to check out the lecture.

Overall, I would rate this book as work giving a look for the litterary interest and read it for the passion of the author (at least the first part).

Manish Saini