It is one of the paradoxes of success that the more power you gain, the more you lose control.
I completed the third book written by a well-known Indian writer Vikas Swarup, the man behind’Q & A’(on which Oscar winning movie’Slumdog Millionaire’ based). I have read all his novels. For me’Six Suspects’ was good, ’Q & A’ was better and this book’The Accidental Apprentice’ was a good read too, Watch out for Vikas Swarup. He is currently working as India’s consul-general to Osaka-Kobe. He joined Indian Foreign Service in 1986. His first book, the well-known’Q & A’ was released in 2006, and won’Exclusive Books Boeke Prize(2006), and it has been translated in 43 languages.
This book was released in Feb 2013, my copy was published by Simon & Schuster, and the book goes for 436 pages(22 days), divided over 7 chapters, prologue, epilogue & acknowledgements. And this is a thriller book.
What if one day, in busy street someone comes to you and tell you that he is a big big BUSINESSMAN, and he wants to make you his company’s CEO, out of blue, just like that, how will you react! Well I can guess that - what a crackpot that person is, and am I the only fool he saw on the city filled from fools. The same thought came in the mind of a small salesgirl Sapna Sinha, when she is confronted by Vinay Mohan Acharya, the owner of renowned ABC group of Companies, in a Hanuman temple in busy locales of Connaught Place. He is there to offer a position in his company, the position of CEO! But the position comes with an effort and a price, she has to complete 7 tests, and if she is successful in those tests, she can as well become the CEO. She finally falls in the lure, since her house’s condition is very bad, and she has to pay a huge amount of sum as rent. She has only 1 surviving mother and 1 surviving sister Neha, she has already lost her father and her other sister Alka. These are the compelling conditions of the tests-:
*1. Once you started, you cannot quit the tests, only if you fail, the offer gets terminated.
- You’ll be paid Rs.1 lac for giving the tests, if you fail, you can keep the money, if you pass, you’ll get the CEO post.*
Throughout this whole test she saw her full life turning upside down, and she dont know why these problems are happening, but as her best friend Karan Kant always warns her, that all this is a hoax and a trap, she still keeps falling in. What happens thereafter is the crux of the whole story. Believe me, its a thriller story with MBA lessons thrown in!
The best thing of the book is the simple language, anyone can read it, you don’t need to be literature-lover to understand it, dictionaries! NO SIR! The book is a general story of a general women, going on lazily, as everyday happenings come in, its what a negative and a positive point for the book, on one hand its as simple and habitual as it could be, on the other hand, its the best part which keeps you engage till the end, as you expect more to come, but it is not boring, all the 7 tests are wonderfully devised, each test teaches you a business lesson, through real-life events. It’s how you handle them make you a good businessman. And anyone can become businessman, if they know how to handle every-day situation.
Book’s pages can stop a bad reader in between, but not an avid reader like me, and since this book is thriller you want to go till the end. I must say that the end was just perfect with thrill at the peak, even a little horror feeling also thrown in. For this book I paid Rs.205 to Amazon.in. The plot and thinking was awesome, here and in other books of Vikas Swarup.
Do order this book and read it as you may like it. My take 3.5/5.
*GRuchirG.
Leadership, Integrity, Courage, Foresight, Resourcefulness, Decisiveness, but the most essential quality of a leader’WISDOM’
Katl bhi hue hain hum aur kasoorwar bhi hum the,
Apne hi katil se ishq me giraftar bhi hum the:)