Don't judge a book by its cover. When a book lies among a hundred others on the shelf, it is the cover that first catches the eye. Thereafter the seduction of the reader is unabashed. through great graphics or visuals, maybe through an interesting title or through a controversial quote or a celeb author's photo or endorsement, the cover tries to get you to cough up the money and take the book home.
I have been lucky enough to live in several different cities of India. Having grown up in New Delhi, India my view of Mumbai (actually it was called Bombay then) was colored by a collage Bollywood cinema scenes from various movies from the black and white era to the times when color films were the norm. They would always show the millions of daily commuters who would cramp themselves in local suburban trains and spill out at Churchgate Railway Station or Victoria Terminus Railway station to get to their office in the commercial hub of India.
A Blog is like a baby - very easy to conceive but very hard to manage. And yet - people have them ( I mean blogs, not babies). Everytime someone is swelling up with the deep desire to educate or entertain the world, a blog is a great place to start. A blog is not just about self expression, but it is also about throwing your ideas up for scrutiny. You will get appreciative responses and they are easy to deal with. Blush and be coy. But are you also prepared to deal with a swift hurt on the anatomy (figuratively speaking) and ego (literally, not figuratively)?
Abhinav will be the favored name for all new born males in India for a while. Reality shows will invite him to pronounce judgment on bump and grind routines being done by 10 year olds. Mahesh Bhatt or somebody from Bollywood will announce a film that chronicles Abhinav’s life story – complete with a Rakhi Sawant doing an item number in the last scene when the hero wins a gold medal at the Olympics. And why not? Unlike countries like China, US, Japan, Korea and so many of the East European countries, we have it easy. After all we do not have 30 gold medal winners, 40 silver and 52 bronze medal winners in every Olympics to celebrate.
You flip through the set, smiling at your own cleverness. The trick is to choose something that everyone can be trained on. Finance for Non Finance comes to mind. Everyone needs to do it - including some of them in the Finance department itself. Didn't they all go for it last year? Fuggedit. Going through spreadsheets can be painful. How about Marketing for Non-Marketing or Human Resources for Non Humans... naah... they don't even offer these much needed training programs.
Antara Bose of The Telegraph says, "XLRI alumnus Abhijit Bhaduri is ready with his second book that will hit the stores sometime in September. Abhijit’s first book Mediocre But Arrogant (2005) was a bestseller and he may hit the jackpot again with Married But Available (2008)."
