If God was a Banker

What will happen if a regular banker decides to write a novel?

He might call it A Banker’s Life and write about the nine to five job. It might have mind numbingly boring stuff like tallying accounts and counting notes. And probably the joys of happy and secure family.

And what if a storyteller who has to work in a bank for a living comes up with a novel? Then he would call it ‘If God Was A Banker.’ Ravi Subramanian has tried hard to break the myth of the ‘regular banker’ and given us a juicy read.

The plot of this novel is inspired by the tale of the hare and tortoise. Swami is the poor little good guy, and since he fails into a stereotype, he is left alone in most of the pages. Sundeep, the villain of the story gets the major footage as his career rockets up in spite of, or because of his unethical and unconventional modus operandi.

Swami and Sundeep, both management graduates join New York International Bank at the same time. Sundeep’s classmate, Kalpana, is impressed with Swami’s honesty and marries him, leaving Sundeep heartbroken. Sundeep marries Natasha on the rebound, but harbors revenge towards Swami. As they swiftly climb the corporate ladder, Sundeep keeps trying to pull Swami down. On his way, Sundeep meets ‘bad company’ and gets sucked into murky waters, where ethics come last, and women are nothing more than sex objects.

Swami’s perseverance gets tested many a times, but something keeps him loyal to Sundeep. Sundeep, on the other hand, is blinded by his success into arrogance and selfishness.

This book offers some inside looks at MNC’s culture, or the lack of it. Page by page, it demystifies the stereotype of banking.

If you have a lot of money in a bank, you can treat this book as an entertaining guide on ‘all that can go wrong with your savings’.

What I disliked about the book:

The language is at times unnecessarily repetitive and simplistic. The characters lack depth. The good guy is saccharin sweet and the bad guy is black as coal.

The only grey is the marriage that survives in spite of the wayward husband. Natasha is the ideal doormat of a wife, she does not even tell her husband of the indecent pass made by his boss.

The plot towards the end is unconvincing. It seems that the author realized that he better be politically correct and so he takes a moral stand on his naughty protagonist.

What I liked about the book:

The narrative has a smooth flow and reads easily.

Like Alfred Hitchcock, Ravi Subramanian does a guest appearance as one of the key characters in the book. Yes, he has used his own name, probably to buy belief into the make believe world he created. Somehow, it works.

The book devotes an entire chapter that questions the way women are treated in the corporate culture.

If God was a Banker throws up some deep questions at the corporate way of functioning. How do we rate our performance? What yardstick do we use? Is success so one-dimensional that it can be counted on our fingers? Why have we become so superficial? Let us step out of the ra(bbi)t race, let us join the tortoise.

Indiaplaza Golden Quill 2008

Indiaplaza.in, India’s largest online bookstore recently announced it’s annual book awards – The Indiaplaza Golden Quill, an award for the best Indian authors. The awards were given away for the category of English fiction and translations. Two awards- one chosen by a team of jury members consisting of Ms.Mahasweta Devi, Ms.Anita Nair, Sir Mark Tully, Ms.Shanta Gokhale – The Indiaplaza Golden Quill critic’s choice and The Indiaplaza Golden Quill reader’s choice, chosen by an online voting system set up on the Indiaplaza website were given away in August 2008.

‘Naked In the Wind’ by Brinda Charry ( Penguin India publication)won the critic’s choice and ‘If God Was a Banker’ by Ravi Subramanian (Rupa Publication) won the readers’ choice award.

for more details about the award go to www.indiaplaza.in/goldenquill

Foreign Body : A Book Review

Foreign Body, by Robin Cook

Yet another medical murder mystery by Robin Cook. This time, Robin travels to India, to New Delhi, and then to the burning ghats of Varanasi. Rather, his characters travel, all the way from US, to dig up a few dead bodies and study them for possibility of murder.

When Jennifer Hernandez, a fourth year medical student at UCLA hears about her grandmother’s death in a hospital in New Delhi, she does not weep. She demands that the hospital authorities preserve the body, and she takes the next flight to India. Does she react like this because she is an American, or because she is part of a murder mystery plot?

And because Jennifer is studying medicine, it is natural for her to have good friends in a forensic lab. But that they travel all the way to India, to cut up a dead body to find possible glitches, is rather far fetched. The only reason their presence is justified is that they are a couple going through infertility treatment. After all, Cook has to update us with some of the newest developments in the medical world.

And that includes medical tourism in India. Although these deaths happen in Indian Hospitals, the culprit is the greedy medical fraternity in America. We are talking of organized crime here, that which works hand in hand with the top beurocratic creeps who have their stakes in health industry of the US. But they are not all that organized, at least not as smart as the mafia. When they panic with Jennifer playing detective, they send two killers after her, and neither knows what the other is up to.

It is obvious that Cook visited India, probably to write this book. His impressions are superficial and fresh, though not very original. The poverty is represented by the beggars in the street,
and adventure is equivalent to sitting in an auto rickshaw for the first time, and holding on for dear life!

What is more interesting, however, is the difference between the approach to forensic medicine in India and US. It seems that Indian Hospitals, even ones made for the purpose of medical tourism, which means state of the art technology, do not have a regular mortuary to preserve their dead. It seems only a magistrate or the police can authorize an autopsy, and not a relative who suspects murder. This laid back attitude to the dead is portrayed as a ‘religious sentiment’. The Doms at Varanasi, the ‘cultural guardians of corpses’ further establish the untouchabitlity of the dead.

As a plot, Foreign Body moves smoothly. The killers, and their motif is given away in the beginning itself, the book merely catches up as the victim unravels the mystery and finally meets the murderer.

A page turner, that does give insight into the Indian psyche from a western perspective. Not a book for insomniacs, for it won’t let you sleep. Not till you have finished it.

A Girl Like Me – Review

A Girl like me, by Swati Kaushal

Book Review

Were you ever a teenager who had problems? Were you ever a teenage girl who had problems with her mother? Have you ever been uprooted from one country and put into an unfamiliar environment, and expected to excel? Do you still harbor grudges against your parents? Or, even more dangerous, do you still hero-worship your parents? On the other side of the spectrum, do you wonder what your teenager thinks about? Are you concerned about your communication levels with your teenager? Are you a single parent, juggling both career and home?

If you have answered yes to any of these questions, a girl like me will unravel a few mysteries, and maybe untie some knots. A good book is something of a magic mirror. It helps you look at what might be happening behind your back. And an excellent book is one that helps you see what is happening at the back of your mind.

Teenage is one of the most unconscious and fast moving time of our lives. It is so rare to come across a teenager who talks to you.

If you meet Anisha Rai, the protagonist of this novel, outside the pages of the book, you will probably think that she is a snobbish, US returned teenager with an insufferable attitude. But when you open the book, Swati Kaushal unveils the inner reality of a troubled life.

Ani, or Annie, has promised her father on his deathbed that she will keep her mother happy. She will be a good girl. It is this promise that proves to be the bane of the crumbling communication between mother and daughter.

Less than two years after her father has died, Ani’s mom, Isha, announces that she has found a wonderful job in New Delhi, and they are moving to India from Minnesota, where they have lived since Ani was born.

Moving back to India is a wonderful, much needed home coming for Isha. But Ani is a foreigner in her mother’s country. It’s hot, it’s a lot of hard work at school, and the hardest part is to see mother dear so happy. Cribbing, or asking for sympathy is not the done thing. So Ani fakes her smiles, just to go along with her mother. And Isha? She is so busy with her new hot-shot job; she just can’t sense the façade of her daughters smile.

And these symptoms cover a deeper issue. Mother and daughter seem to have diagonally opposite ways of dealing with the grief of losing the man in the family. For Isha, work is worship. Anisha worships memories of her father.

The communication gap deepens as Ani falls for an older guy, (Electra–complex?), and Isha gets friendly with their neighbor. It seems as if Isha is too insensitive to realize that what her daughter needs is a little bit of attention, a simple chat. A successful person, a hardworking mother, she has put Ani in the best of schools, and made sure her daughter has everything she needs. But it does not occur to her that the most dangerously missing factor in Ani’s life is a mother she can pour out her problems to.

Swati Kaushal’s writing style has not changed from her first novel, A piece of cake. She makes you pause at her choice of adjectives, but she does not let you take a pause from the novel. This book can make you identify completely with the silent suffering teenager. You ache for her to relieve her angst by throwing a tantrum. However, the end takes you by surprise. You might want to call up your mother and say sorry.