A dedicated fiction reader, who once upon a time used to complete a 400 page book during a Bombay – Delhi – Bombay flight including the waiting time at the airports; over the past year or so found my reading habits breaking away completely, more maybe from the fact that I do not travel at all these days, a little less from the fact that have been watching more movies, tweeting?

Having said that had decided to rectify the situation this year. Flipping thru Flipkart sometime a fortnight ago, saw some Indian authors, whose books sounded simple, in terms of story & price both. Ended up ordering the following:

Love, A rather Bad Idea….All it gives is a lousy hangover by Anirban Mukherjee
Zero Percentile..Missed IIT Kissed Russia by Neeraj Chhibba
Nothing can be as crazy by Ajay Mohan Jain &
The Dork by Sidin Vadukut (heavily tweeted on twitter by his well wishers)

Whilst this was in transit, I made a trip to Malvan and picked up a book at the Goa airport – Devil in Pinstripes by Ravi Subramanian having read his earlier ‘If God was a Banker’

Then overcome with work, did not even glance at those till, last week, when glancing through them, saw that most of them were 200 pages easy to read font & decided to go for them & so began:

Devil in Pinstripes – A good book taking a look at the Banking & financial segment, boss, mentor, couple relationship etc. nudging & offering some insight of what it is all about in a superficial way.

Dork – A good enough book, that gives an insight into Management placement, Consulting industry, taking a swipe at the perception & hype created vs how actually it works.

Zero Percentile – Halfway decent writing, that takes a look at lower middle class home, destiny mish mash. A book that can be missed without missing anything

Nothing can be as Crazy A decent book on the Banking Industry with neither a complete coverage on banking or institutional politics. There but cannot be there.

Love, A rather Bad Idea – A breezy book trying to convey that IIT has everything that the world can show and friendship, love, loyalty overcomes everything.

Having said that, some common factors which are not so surprising:)

Out of the 5 authors 2 are from IIT & 2 are from IIM or combination of both.
All the books can be called “ILIT” that has sex, loyalty, destiny, family & happy ending with of course IIT or IIM as background.
A bit of superiority “we were there, we are better, and now besides we can write” comes through.
The cost of the book is sub 200/- something like ‘chiclit’ take it on the flight & throw it.

As the DNA & Sunday Midday of 22nd February says that 1000 copies is enough to break even all of them have broken even, if nothing else but through their network, loyalty, friends & relatives.

What is painful is that such intelligent (obviously with IIT & IIM tags) people have chosen extremely mediocre, flat subjects to write their novels on, truly hope that they come out of their comfort zone & contribute more.

The Question this raises now is – “Do Indian Authors need to be IIT or IIM”

BUT in the end Hey they have written, published & people read, whilst I have not, so whilst this may sound, it is NOT sour grapes.