Along The Way

Along The Way
By T.G.C Prasad
Rupa Publication
Rs. 295

TGC Prasad's book "Along The Way" took me by surprise. Apparently it might seem like just another book  dedicated to the software engineers and everything else that surrounds their lives but when probed beyond the surface it becomes a book all of us will be able to connect with, the characters are almost three dimensional because we have inevitably come across real life people exactly like them in our everyday lives; their love story becomes our love story, their experiences are things we have read about in the newspapers, the reader begins to feel like the narrator is not only telling his own story but also the stories of every other person that one might bump into somewhere along the way.

Venkat the "hero" of this book and his darling "heroine" Anjali fall in love while they are both in college. Their subsequent romance and cute petty tiffs are stuff that fresh young love is made of. The couple long with Raj and Adi make quite a youthful and dashing group who have chosen to step out of their middle class comfort zones and experience the life that awaits them beyond their homes.

A few incidents from this book, for instance Venkat's attempt to win Anjali's father to his side by bribing him with a bottle of expensive scotch, made me smile to myself because this is exactly what my fiance (now husband) had done when we were dating. Raj's complaint about South Indian food is typical of most North Indians as they all seem to find it extremely challenging to survive down south. Apart from all the fun and frolic the book also touches upon some serious issues like the homophobia and reckless alcoholism.

The author employs this group of youngsters as an instrument to highlight a few vital factors that seem to steadily become a reiterative trait in our society. The social alienation of the ones who belong to deviant sexuality, the steady rise in the number of youths who die because of drinking and driving or attempting to do feats without the required professionalism.

The book has been a good read not because one gets to know about something that one had hitherto never heard of before, but, because it compels one to recall certain personal experiences, or bits and pieces of information that had carried a lot of value for the time being, but which sadly faded away with the years.

Trans Ganization

Trans Ganization

Rohit Arora
Times Group Books
Rs. 225

To begin with let me firstly warn my readers that I had always presumed Management to be way out of my league. I am a student of literature and I was never a genius in mathematics so when I picked up Rohit Arora's book "Trans Ganization" I was not sure whether I was biting off more than I could chew...so I asked my fiance Debarata Basu to coauthor this review with me. Thankfully he agreed, the pages kept turning, printed words made meaning and finally I did not regret taking this up.

In his book "Trans Ganization" Rohit Arora deals with a phase in change revolution called “Crisis of Leadership”. Change is the most inadvertently unpleasant yet unavoidable organizational phenomenon. A change however minuscule requires great foresight, belief and determination from an able and adept leader in order to be successfully implemented. A phase which demands a full-scale organizational shift in control from entrepreneurs to professionals calls for a lot of apprehension, confusion and dilemma for the employees. The focus here is to elaborate on “how to” instead of “how I did” make a change. 

Arora's array of pictorial representations, cases, tabulations and simple language is very involving and academic. Unlike other books dealing with similar topics which goes on to narrate the personal victories, and biased point of views of the authors, Arora has successfully managed in maintaining a very textbook-like and systematic approach while narration. The book also comes with a complimentary CD which further graphically explains what the author attempts to communicate.

His book is indeed very simplistic in approach towards a very complex yet everyday need; this at times may make it seem like the author is deliberately following a safely traveled path by adopting a highly measured approach and catering to a wider base of readers and addressing too many of them simultaneously. However he has evidently taken pains to map small chapters and lay down steps to explain, communicate, standardize, benchmark and evolve change. Another unique point about this book is that the author has touched upon topics like 'Non Market Factors' which are rarely discussed whether in books or boardrooms these days. 

 With his impressive academic background and extensive experience as a change leader, in diverse industries, Arora has beautifully scripted the human like journey of an organization through multiple phases of change in crisp concise chapters. Management can be made everybody's cup of tea if authors like Rohit Arora take the initiative of launching books which simplify and explain each terminology instead of complicating it even further. 

If I Pretend I am Sorry!

If I Pretend I am Sorry! : Will You Pretend and Forgive Me?
By Prashant Sharma
Publisher: Srishti Publisher
Rs. 100

Prashant Sharma has a knack of surprising his readers. The element of surprise commences with the cover page of the book. What at first sight may seem to the unaccustomed eye as a teenage romance love guide will actually prove to be a thriller once the pages are slowly turned.

The story spins around the lives of three ruthless men who seek violence to achieve their private aspirations: some worth remembering while some worth questioning. The book which is tripartite in structure is neatly joined towards the end as the actions of each character enmesh the events which surround the others’ lives. The book really is a whirlwind ride that takes one into the very core of the Mumbai underworld and unfurls the ways in which it governs itself. 

His witty phrases and ability to construct mind boggling situations, charges this book with breath taking suspense and enormous thrill. Through love, deceit, bitter hatred and vengeance the characters construct the plot and the end leaves the reader spellbound as everything neatly falls into place. The overall experience of reading was nothing short of watching a blockbuster action packed movie unfold in front of my eyes! 

India Was One

India Was One
by An Indian
Pothi.com
Rs. 393

Jai and Kaahi’s relationship captures the two neat divisions of India. The book “India was one” etches the plot which demonstrates how India is bisected into two halves: North and South. We as Indians are thoroughly aware of the categorizations that have always been a part of our history. Be it because of culture, cuisine or climate what we are all well versed with is the “northie” and “southie” divide existing in India. The North Indians have taken a considerably long time to warm up to idlies and dosas and the South Indians cannot understand the elation associated with khichdi. I was thus particularly drawn by this unique and powerful concept taken up by the anonymous author.

The book and its characters are what we as Indians can surely relate to, and gradually as the story progresses one witnesses how each of their lives gradually begin to demonstrate different aspects of an Indian and NRI’s socio cultural domain. But after reading the book one would perhaps wonder who the target reader must be? Because the people in India do not require a thorough translation of every minute Indian detail, is the target audience then NRIs or foreigners? Is it another book that wallows about the whole “discover India and its culture” context? Perhaps not. The whole point of the book remains in its metaphor of territorial division. The division in land is a reflection of the division in people’s mind and such divisions are not only present in India but also throughout the world! The book tries to portray snippets of glances from college canteen, youthful friendship, India vs. Pakistan cricket match, passionate love and marriage beautifully throughout the pages leaving the readers craving for more.

All in all the book boasts of its genuine and attractive story but the moot point of the whole book: the main story, the division of India, abruptly opens right towards the end. The readers, quite like Jai and Kaahi, are caught off guard by the suddenness of the development. The reader perhaps won’t mind a parallel narration of the gradual demise of India’s sovereignty as a change from the rich couple’s honeymooning across Europe.

The thought behind composing the book is indeed very noble but at times it seems like the agenda is bigger than what a single book can carry. There is enough desi tadka in it to make a spicy read and it raises an issue that we as Indians should pay more attention to before our next generation says “India was one”.




p.s check out the map to know some more about the India which the author is referring to http://www.indiawasone.com/General/About.aspx