You can be sure that intelligent people would say that nothing could be worse than a mediocre life. T.G.C. Prasad, will agree, in fact his book, “Unusual People Do Things Differently” (Penguin; Rs. 399) is about all those people who go that extra mile to do better the things they do. “In this book, I have covered profiles of 65 people, who are striving hard to do extraordinary things. It is a book for every student and every working professional,” says T.G.C at the launch of his book at Reliance TimeOut.
The launch was in full attendance by some of the people who were featured in the book, each giving us a quick recap into their success and management tips. The book features the views and experiences of people like Azim Premhji, Mike Lawrie and Mother Teresa to a chef, a masseuse and a service boy all of whom have inspired T.G.C.
The author T.G.C. Prasad took to jogging a little late in life and was stringent about his routine which eventually led to him suffering from repeated stress injury. It was around this time that he met Dr. Keyur Anil Bach who operated on both his ankles and even re-inforced his faith in a life he had resigned to wheelchair.
“I jogged incessantly for almost five years and suddenly there was a pain in my ankles which increased. The doctors said that my bones were dying due to repetitive stress injury (RSI) and there was no clean cure for my ailment. I tried all kinds of methods which obviously didn’t work. Finally I went into infusing my own bone cells into channels drilled in my ankles grown out of bone-cells extracted from my iliac-crest. And fortunately this method worked and restored my dying bone,” narrates T.G.C.
He went through multiple surgeries for his ankles and was eventually confined to his house and a wheelchair. After endless hours of television, reading and music in a flash it occurred to him, “I decided to write and it consumed me. I wrote a hundred pages of my learning experiences working with wonderful individuals and that’s how ‘Unusual People...’ was born.”
While “Unsual People...” was written when he had the left ankle surgery T.G.C. has also tried his hand at comedy and wrote “Along the way”, a book about three software engineers working at TCS, which he wrote after his right ankle surgery. “I think this is the best example of turning a deep problem into a world-class opportunity. I shifted careers and became an author.”
