Book Reviews: 'The 3 Mistakes of My Life' and 'Joker in the Pack'

So here I am once again to share the pearls of wisdom with the rest of the world. Don't know how much wisdom gets bestowed to you guys, but these posts are surely pearls for me. Well, sitting idle in Business Wait or what is popularly known as 'Bench' amongst the software engineers in an MNC surely has its own pros and cons. The cons being letting yourself kill to boredom while searching arbit images in Google or spamming the mailboxes of your friends by re-sending crappy forwards that you once sent 1 year back, but we won't get much into that!! Well the advantage of 'Bench' is that you try out such hobbies that you haven't tried in the holy 20 years of your life. And this time I've picked up...well...Reading.

So here are the two books that I've read recently and are claimed to be best-sellers, which I rcommend as a must read....

1. The 3 Mistakes of my Life

So our very own ace author Chetan Bhagat is back to recreate the magic of 'Five-Point Someone' and 'One Night @ the Call Center' with his latest venture 'The 3 Mistakes of My Life'. Based in a lowly locality of Ahmedabad, this book capture the story of 3 youths mad about cricket. How these guys start a small business of cricket goods and dream to make it big but get entrapped in the claws of mighty politicians, blood sucking warriors of religions and also get face obstacles in running their business. The story of Omi, Ish and Govind takes you to a roller coaster ride of ups and downs and never makes you keep the book down. You can feel the intensity of cricket in Ish, the insensitivity of a wannabe businessman in Govind and the extremity towards a religion in Omi and all the emotions like love, betrayal, extrimism, hatred, passion,etc that run high as you travel this thrilling journey through the backwaters of Ahmedabad. The best thing about the story being based in Ahmedabad is that in the background it has the essence of all the fiascos - The Bhuj Earthquake, the Destruction of the World Trade Centre in US, The Godhra Killings - while the story moves forward. Really a must read for everyone as it is fiction at its best. Let's raise a toast for Mr. Bhagat!!

2. Joker in the Pack

So, here comes a treat for all the wannabe MBAs and the dreamers chasing the big middle-class-2-top-tier dream. This book tells you about the story of Shekhar Verma, who despite facing the hardships of life and being a mediocre performing graduate, ends up being at the dream-land for many of us, IIM Bangalore and finally graduating from there to end up as an Investment Banker. But hey...mind you...the hardships never end at the IIMs and everything is not as rosy as we think it would be. Shekhar Verma being a graduate from a lesser known college, competes with the stalwarts from IITs and other top-grade colleges and this acts as an obstacle as well as a morale booster for him as he sky-rockets himself towards success and catches his big middle-class dream. Well this will surely help all the guys entering into B-Schools, that to get a six-plus-figure pay packet you can't just cool off your heels and cruise through. You'll have to slog and compromise on your sleep to stretch the limits of your biological cycle and only then you'll end up being succesful. You can say, that the book is to guide you on how to live the 2 years in a B-School successfully and finally end up converting your dreams into reality. A real eye-opener to those who think MBA students live it in style and a must read for everybody with The-Big-Middle-Class-Dream !!