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From a street urchin to a media magnate and now an author, Jaswin Jassi or 'Just-win Just-see', as he puts it, has walked the plank with aplomb. His wit and humour leaves one and all wanting for more. A well known face on Doordarshan for over two decades, Jaswin Jassi read the news at night and created his own during the day as he graced the mighty Limca Book of Records as the Fastest Film-Maker in India. He has a production house by the name of Arohi Cinematics Pvt. Ltd. and refuses to stop at anything. Jaswin Jassi Exclusive
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Jaswin Jassi |
Jaswin Jassi The story of Punjabi chutzpah Randeep Wadehra THE saga of Punjabi refugees from Pakistan - peppered with rags-to-riches tales - has become a genre in its own right. What fascinates one is that the tales invariably shut out the bloodstained past and tackle the here and now. This volume, too, narrates the true story of a refugee kid who started off as a pavement seller and is now, apart from being a familiar face on Doordarshan, the owner of a successful media production house. But before he reached this comfortable perch Jassi had to go through a rather long period of struggles and waywardness not to mention problems and discords within the family - especially with his elder brother. Although he completed graduation, Jassi is candid enough to confess that he had cheated during the exams. At college he had earned notoriety as a gambler, drinker and a lothario. However, his wife appears to have been a stabilising influence on him. It is an interesting read but would have been better off without the overdose of miscued American slangs and mixed metaphors. More diligent editing could have made great difference to the quality and flow of this narrative. The Tribune |
Jaswin Jassi ‘Have Guts…!!’, published both in UK and India, focusses on the life and times of a Delhi boy - his failures and successes, his grief and joy, his dreams and realities, his irritations and calmness, as also his edginess and pushiness. The straight-from-the-heart real stories written with very simple style and admirable honesty portray the variety and colour of Indian life, so much so that one can associate with the boy in the book. The boy, who progresses to become a man, could be living anywhere in the world. Reading about him is sure to bring back lot of old memories. There are unforgettable stories for everyone in the just-out book. “If I manage to connect with even one of my readers, if I manage to guide some to a life less ordinary or make them realise that all’s never lost, all the effort will be worth it,” says Jassi. Why not, when for most of us, failure often brings shame, a feeling of inadequacy, and even rejection. Failure is one of the topics we don’t like to think about much less talk about. Most people also do not take any risks for fear of failure. “But,” he says, “where would we be if everyone who feared failure refused to take risks?” True, history is full of people who failed but their failures often led them to even greater successes. In ‘Have Guts…!!’, the protagonist grows up to face the storm in the eye and paves his own path. Despite being treated as a misfit by his parents and siblings, he doesn’t lose hope and stares adversity in the eye, taking up every challenge circumstances throws at him. He fails some of course, but with each failure he learns. Athletes fail, but the truly great ones strive harder to win the next time. Buildings and bridges that collapse under stress are redesigned to newer and better standards. Scientists spend much time documenting failure after failure before discovering the cure that will save many lives and ‘Have Guts…!!’ teaches how to cash in on failure, how to turn failure into an opportunity for success. Probably,
Jassi is the first Indian author to write a book without having read one.
“I’ve never read a book my entire life, so writing one was completely out
of question. Or so I thought. It so happened that an ordinary lunch meeting
with
friends turned into an extraordinary affair. To kill time, I decided to
let them in on a few incidents that happened in my life. Kind of like a
story telling session, just that the stories they were hearing, were all
true. I was talking about my life after all,” his foreword reads. Oh! Jassi
may not have intended to make a full-fledged career out of writing books,
but the success of ‘Have Guts…!!’ is sure to make him think twice.
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