The banned biography of Dhirubhai Ambani speaks - Nothing succeeds like success!!

Currently, I am reading, ‘The Polyester Prince - the rise of dhirubhai ambani’, the banned autobiography of Late Dhirubhai Ambani. The book is a step by step detail of how Reliance grew from zero to a conglomerate of magnitude which even Dhirubhai would not have imagined. When he wanted to do something, it means the thing has to be done, no matter how. One thing which is pretty clear from the book is that law is not bigger than money and if you have enough money to fill the coffers of people at the helm of the government, one day you can become bigger than the government, bigger than the press and bigger than the judiciary. Reliance is a testimony to this fact and it has become so big that nobody dares to ask how it was made possible.

It makes me think that, there are biographies of JRD TATA, Mr. Birla and many more business barons but not a single book on the biggest and the mightiest group of India, Reliance. Is it so that Dhirubhai never wanted public acclamation, fame and media attention or because he was apprehensive and unwilling to share it in public? I think the later cause seems to be more appropriate, as is clear from the fact that this biography was banned as soon as it was launched. The book was launched just a day before the issue of Reliance Energy and was banned in India due to obvious reason. The Australian journalist has spoken very explicitly about the ways and means in which government officials were tamed to frame the rules in favour of Reliance.

I am finding the book extremely interesting and it is a must read for all those who are interested in getting an insight of the way India’s biggest corporate house was built. But everything in the book can not be considered at par as the book has no comments from the Ambanis’ themselves and in wake of absence of any other evidence we have to believe the author as he has cited reasonable sources of evidence in the book.

Please let me know, if anybody is willing to read the book!! I will share the same with you. See you soon with a review on the book as I expect to finish the book this weekend.

After 5.Someone and ON@TCC, Chetan Bhagat releases his third book !!

Chetan Bhagat is back with his third book, ‘The 3 mistakes of my life’. Well! I personally do not believe in reading fictions but when it is by Chetan, the IIT, IIM guy, I too don’t want to give it a miss. His first book, Five Point Someone, is the best fiction I have read ever. Trust me, even if you belong to non fiction and biographies gang like me , break your rules and standard once to spare four hours for , ‘Five Point Someone’ and who knows you may never turn back to non fictions.
It is not that I had never read non fictions. I too had my share of non – fictions and romantic love stories during my plus two and college days but by the time I had read some 15-20 novels of the very beloved and most wanted author, Mr. Seldon (Sidney), it was sounding a bit monotonous. When you read SS, one thing which is common to his novel is that the protagonist is always female and the theme is almost same in all his books except a few like ‘Tell me your dreams’ which talks about double personality. These are my personal views and I hope Late Mr. Seldon takes it in the right spirit.
Coming back to Chetan, one fine evening I was completely bugged up with studies as exams were knocking at the door and looking for a break of an hour. I borrowed this book from one of my hostel mates which had become famous by then and Started going through the back cover and preface of it. The preface was so mesmerizing that I could not resist myself from reading the book and it took me little less than four hours to reach the last page. It was a great reading but by the time I had read the book, I realized the cost of doing right thing at the wrong time. Some silly things done at the wrong time make the mischief more interesting but thankfully I was able to manage with studies even though I spent four hours for something which was not meant at that time. ‘Five Point Someone’ is all about college life of an IITian, of how he makes his college days full of fun and ends up landing in the five pointers gang which is considered to be under performing group. Since, the book is about an IITian, this makes it more interesting because I have a special fascination for this talent group. But make sure that you don’t take any inspiration from this book as it is a fiction and not a reality and I keep saying this to my little IITian brother – “Hey! I don’t want to see you in Chetan’s Five Pointers gang.”
His first book was so interesting and captivating that I was dying to read the second book even though my exams were just a week away. But this time, I did not wanted to take any chances and bought his second book, ‘One Night @ the Call Centre’ only after exams. My expectations were very high and but obvious I was expecting it to be better than 5.Someone but frankly speaking his first book remains a benchmark till date.
Although I have completely given up reading non fictions but I don’t want to deprive myself of the pleasure of reading Chetan’s non fiction. His third book, ‘The 3 mistakes of my life’ will be released on May 8th in Mumbai and I am anxiously waiting to enjoy the pleasure. I am pretty sure that this one will definitely live up to the expectations.
Happy selling to Chetan and happy reading to readers!!