“Fifty Shades Of Grey”, By E. L. James

I definitely picked up this book based on the publicity that it was getting in media and social networking sites and the way it was projected as Twilight like series and also the re-emergence of female erotica writers. But after reading “Fifty Shades of Grey”, I am now confused as to what I liked more in this book. Of course, the explicit depiction of physical relationship between Christian Grey and Ana is interesting to read. At the same time it is more interesting to follow the thought process of Ana that has been explicitly depicted in the book. You are looking into the mind of Ana all the time and sometimes wonder whether all women think so much and like this. It also reminded me of the movie Amelie that is featured from viewpoint of young girl.

The author E. L. James has managed to create an interesting topic as well as storyline and made it a legend with generous use of erotica. The story is about young college graduate Anastasia Steele and business magnate Christian Grey who wants Ana as his submissive. Ana is in love with Grey and also in awe of him but she is also fiercely independent girl with her own thoughts and draws her own boundaries.

When Ana is in presence of Grey, she is hardly able to express her thoughts but she is able to do that very well in emails. It is one of the first books where I found email communication added as part of the text and it makes an interesting reading. There is an element of thrill where you keep on wanting to know how their relationship will evolve. I am not sure whether I am going to pick up the sequels or not but I enjoyed reading the first part.

“Dork: The Incredible Adventures Of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese”, By Sidin Vadukut

It is a perfect light reading book when you really do not wish to worry about literature or history. “Dork: The incredible adventures of Robin Einstein Varghese”, is a new age chick lit that leaves you laughing and wondering about consulting business as well. I should not be saying that Sidin Vadukut has followed the style of Chetan Bhagat but still there are many similarities in authors as well as writing.

This book is about a management graduate who gets into a job in consulting industry and his whole life seems to be a series of goof-ups. The preposterous way of him getting a job, the way he ends up in wrong situations at wrong time, the complete absurd-ness of doing consulting work but most of all his confidence in himself that never goes down. When you read about a character who is facing trouble all the time, you normally feel sympathetic towards him but in this case, the author has not left a single good thing about him. In fact, I felt bad when he actually tastes success through another series of goof-ups.

I am not sure whether I should call it my fortune or mis-fortune but I have not seen this aspect of the industry in my career. I was trying to find out something good about the industry in the whole book but it was satire all along. Some of the episodes in the book really stand out. The idea of using excess ball-bearings to create a memorial of a dead dog who died due to ball-bearing is absurd and really innovative. The interview of Einstein in the end is horrible and hence extremely funny.

I feel that there must be a lot of Robins out there. It will be fun to meet some of them sometime.

Abhijit Bhaduri’s MBA “Mediocre But Arrogant”

There are now so many new age authors in India and many seem to be the ones who have done MBA from some prestigious institute. Maybe, it was Chetan Bhagat who started this trend but no one else has got the same success. Abhijit Bhaduri is also one of those authors who did his MBA and “Mediocre but Arrogant” was his first book. I had not heard about the book before and just picked it up while browsing in the book store. I was intrigued by the title. He has kept the title such that acronym will be MBA. In fact, he did the same for his next book as well but that story some other time.

The book is an average story about life in the institute. The whole idea of staying in hostel and making great friends at this stage of life itself is worth a story for everybody who has gone through this phase of life. On top of it there are idiosyncracies of various teachers, pressure of studies and combination of freedom away from home creates some of the unique experiences in life. Then there is masala about girl friends, open relationships and you have an interesting book to time pass.

One thing that I remember about the book is the incident about quintessential Canteen owner (Almost all institutes have one whom everybody remembers) who is friend, philosopher and guide to all the students besides meeting their requirement of food and long credit lines. This canteen owner has a very unique way of identifying which companies pay better. If a student gets a job in a company and comes back to pay his dues then that company is good and pays well but if the student does not come back to pay the dues then the company where he joined must not be paying enough salary. The simple logic of a canteen owner surprises and amazes you. He believes his students all the time and gives them benefit of doubt even if they do not pay his dues.

You can find more information at

http://mediocrebutarrogant.blogspot.com/

http://abhijitbhaduri.com/category/mediocre-but-arrogant/

http://www.amazon.com/Mediocre-But-Arrogant-Business-School/dp/8187981822

http://www.flipkart.com/sem/book/p/mediocre%20but%20arrogant?gclid=CLeusPKU06kCFQt66wodCg7pMw

 

 

Bollywood Chicklit “Right Fit Wrong Shoe” By Varsha Dixit

Even though I have never read “Mills and Boon” stories but this book must be close to them based on whatever I have heard about them. Varsha Dixit is first time author and in her book “Right Fit Wrong Shoe”, she has captured urban middle class life with lots of cynicism and fun. This is one book where every chapter has a Bollywood movie name as title. There is a good amount of hindi dialogues throughout the book and lots of acronyms that I could not understand, many of them are cuss words. In summary, lot of crap but a fun book to read.

The story essentially is about rich boy meets poor (not so much) girl. Both of them fight with each other but slowly realize their love for each other. After that a misunderstanding, revenge, fights, jealousy and a happy ending. Along with that, there are friends, families, lecherous colleagues, attempted rape, parties and all the possible masala. Sometimes, I wonder whether the book was written based on a movie story or written so that a movie can be made on this. Dialogues are too dramatic, scenes are just out of movie setting and theme a perfect for song and dance ritual. There are also references to Bollywood movies and the way dramatic scenes are enacted in movies. I also wonder whether urban India is really like this. If it is, then I seem to have missed it by a long distance or maybe it is generation gap.

Even after all this, I enjoyed reading the book as long as I do not worry too much about details of the story. It was literally a breezy read.

Swati Kaushal’s Chicklit “Piece Of Cake”

The “Piece of Cake” was another chicklit that I read and liked. It is not a great story or piece of literature but a great time pass reading. Once again, I was drawn towards this book looking for contemporary English writing and the synopsis of the book sounded very interesting and I was not disappointed and I went back to read another book from her as well.

The story is about hyperactive MBA girl Minal who wants everything in life. She wants a great career, a lifestyle to match and a cool guy as husband. The plot is about how she struggles in her career and the choices of suitors and how her marketing project fails for which she is forced to take a blame and then a demotion to small time sales job. Eventually, she turns back that job into a success and also finds out the real person behind her project failure.

There were parts in the book where I laughed but there were also parts that I wanted to skip over. But still it was an interesting book to read. I do not know how true it is but I read about corporate rivalry to get ahead on the marketing ideas and preempting launching of your competitor’s products. There were some interesting things about sales jobs and dealing with sales persons who go out on the road to make sales.

For me it is about reading the thoughts of people who are same age as mine and have the same sensibilities with some exaggerations. The book may not be accurate in its description or great in language but it is a good time pass.