Personality clashes, family swings, business
flings with secretaries, fun and lethargy at the company’s expense, extravagant
dance parties, insomniac business deals, shrewd business intellect, workaholic
lifetimes and millions of dollars is what this book talks about.
Sundeep Srivastava and Swaminathan are juxtaposed
to project the two sides of a different and difficult profession; retail
banking. While Sundeep is aggressive and ambitious, Swami is evenhanded and
sensible. Their careers with the New York International Bank zoom meteorically
but on different planes. Sundeep is ready for any compromise to get promoted,
project and achieve his goals and Swami prefers to go slow and steady adhering
to ethics of the profession without being overzealous. The novel unfolds as a
flashback of
Sundeep Srivastava before a crucial trial. The innumerable
characters apart from Kalpana, Natasha and Aditya walk through the novel but
each one makes an impact on the readers which is the strength of Subramanian’s
narration. (In fact, he is also one of the characters in the novel towards the
end!). The novel travels from Chennai to Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata to New York and
London.
It is a true story of a leading bank that had
launched its retail banking in the 90’s.I came to know from the blogosphere
that the people who have been talked about are big names in the Financial
Services Industry like Survesh Swaroop, PS Jayakumar, Nanu Pamnani, Ashok Dutt,
etc. The author himself was part of the happening and close aide of Swami (book
name). Also, it was learnt that the author has deliberately changed the story
at some places. Sundeep and Natasha getting married, Swami and Kalpana getting
married, Ram Naresh based out of Kolkata (he was actually a Delhi guy) are
cooked up stories. In real life it is said that they marry different people.
After lots of books on campus life (Five Point
Someone, Keep off the grass and many more..) by IIM alumni, this one concentrates on the
corporate lives after passing out of these prestigious colleges. The author
goes on and on about the nitty-gritties of sales in banking industry,
describing each selling campaign & business operation in great detail. But
inspite of the details it is like movie ‘Lagaan’ which was epitomized around
cricket but everybody loved the movie. I would admit there are some minor flaws
in the presentation of the story, like Swami threatening of resigning from the
job if anything happens which he doesn’t like, it never happens like this in
real life. But that is immaterial as long as the reader is satisfied with the
content and flow.It is, in fact, a good trend that the creative writing bug has
bitten many a corporate personnel in recent times. It is all the more enjoyable
to read novels based on their personal and professional experience in that
chosen area hitherto not explored by writers fully.
All said and done the book was an interesting read
and I will recommend it to others as a “Good Read”.
My Rating: 
Shattering keys…
K
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