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Book Review

Joker in the pack – Book Review

January 11, 2008

Just finished reading this book yesterday. I had picked up this book while traveling at some airport. Well, the cover design as well as the line “An irreverent view of life at IIMs” were self explanatory & it was no-brainer to guess that its another one after “Five Point Someone”, “Mediocre but Arrogant”, “Anything for you ma’am”, “Above Average” etc etc. I still picked up the book as I wanted to read some light stuff.

After Chetan Bhagat’s huge success I guess it has almost become a trend to come out with some novel with theme around “Life at IIM/IIT/X/Y/Zs…”. Surely five point someone was interesting and I personally had enjoyed reading it but similar theme of campus fiction repeated over & over again… ummm nah, I guess its too boring now L.

Joker in the pack written by Ritesh Sharma & Neeraj Pahlajani is all about Shekhar Verma (the main protagonist) & the great Indian middle class dreams. Its about Shekhar’s run in the same rat race of performance & excellence in education so as to get a good job with lots of money & foreign placement. Its about all the extras in life who take so much of interest in your performance and the world where performance doesn’t meant your own performance but performance as compared to others, well as you say typical RG (relative grading) culture!!! It surely gives a detailed view of life at IIMs, hostel life, summer placements, final placements & professional-personal life balance. Well some of the things like summer placements, hostel-life etc are so relatable to not only IIM guys but to other business school pass-outs as well. The hostel life description & Shekhar’s encounter to reality during summer placement days definitely made me nostalgic J. The summer placement part & placement description created some excitement in me as reader but rest all other parts were too predictive. Hmmm and like a general happy-ending plot this book also ends with Shekhar realizing his ultimate dream of job, foreign placement & money. The only sentence which touched my heart was the last sentence “I realized my dream but in all this never realized that I’ve lost the main force who was the motivation for my dream”. Well, in this performance obsessed world I guess this is happening with many professionals of our generation.

To sum it up, I will say it’s an average book with some interesting plots. Its one of those books which you can read casually, finish up fast & forget it immediately. Positive points – light humor filled language & effort of the authors (I must say it’s a commendable job to write a whole book with full time jobs) & Negative points – Too predictive & repetitive plot, well old wine served in a new bottle.

Piece Of Cake

April 21, 2006

Just finished off the delicious, tasty & yummy “Piece Of Cake” & mmmm….I am still relishing its taste. It was simply great, so delicious & so funny. FUNNY??? Yes, funny. Arey I am not speaking of any cake from some famous bakery shop rather I am speaking of the“Piece of Cake” baked by Swati Kaushal. It was such a fun read & kudos to Swati Kaushal for coming out with such a relatable & captivating story.

Piece of Cake is about a 29 year old girl Minal Sharma who has got loads of attitude with a hyperactive conscience. Its about a girl who is struggling hard to survive & succeed in the tough corporate world without losing her ethics & morale. The best part is that the character Minal is not someone who is really idealistic, i.e., neither an extraordinary combination of beauty & brains type, nor resembling to any of those present generation very beautiful mangal-sutra, sindoor & gold clad Bollywood/ TV female protagonists who are an idealistic bahu, patni, ma, tyag ki devi & what not at their home and at the same time running a successful business empire or having a great corporate career. Minal Sharma has been given a very realistic image, a simple girl with average looks who has to struggle hard to fight against pompous people like Rana Bhatia (opposition character in the book) in her organization & at the same time facing the nuances of matrimonial candidates selected by her mother & juggling hard to find a suitable match for herself.

The style of writing is really humorous with all those satires & funny dialogues by Minal. Having worked on a similar portfolio, I found the story to be too interesting & so relevant. I was so engrossed in that book that I almost jumped out of my seat while reading the chapter where Minal realizes that her ads have been leaked, as if it has happened with me!!! Good lord, what a misfortune. But hats off to the determination & spirit of Minal that she took on everything & finally managed to prove herself right.

Swati Kaushal herself being a management graduate from IIM & with her work experience in similar field has managed to give a very pragmatic picture to the corporate world. I think it’s a MUST READ for all brand/product managers as it will give them a very true insight to a real marketing career & I am sure they will enjoy every bit of it.