14th August was a great day for the Hyderabad XL alumni. We hosted Abhijit Bhaduri, in town for 12 hours, to regale the alumni with the reading of portions from his book "Mediocre But Arrogant". 20 alumni turned up for the meet at the unearthly hour of 4 pm on a long weekend!
The venue was the picturesue covered lawns of Country Club Begumpet and we had XLers from the batch of 1974 (Hari, the sponsor for the visit and the venue!) to 1984, (Abhijit himself) to 1994 (Ravi and Vish) to 2004 !
After the initial 1.5 hrs we spent in chatting with people, Abhijit discovering old friends not just from XL but even his Railway Colony days !
Then we got down to the reading.
Abhijit was introduced to us by his senior, SV Nathan, Head of HR of Deloitte, who informed us a lot about "Abhijit's using him as a courier boy during XL days" (more grax only on verbal basis ;-)
Then Abhijit told us about the amazing journey he's had due to the fact he's promoting the book and the opportunity he got to meet XLers in Kolkata, Jampot, Mumbai, Delhi , Bangalore and now Hyderabad. He told us how Gurcharan Das said that the way English is spoken by the characters in the book showed the way English is going to develop in the future. He also shared that Shyam Benegal during the Mumbai launch said that the book was ripe for a screenplay !
He also shared that he wrote the book in a B School because that offered two things:
1. An opportunity to blend in diverse charecters
2. Focus on relationships that the characters develop with each other, their profs., the staff and shopkeepers around.
After that he had us laughing with the portions of how the protagonist, Abbey, succeeds in doing his summer project, how he gets terrorised by his QT prof and the letter he gets from the Scottish priest when he graduates.
Abhijit then fielded questions from the XLers present, where he reiterated that the book is not an autobiographical story, and therefore apart from characters like Dadu, Basanto and the roomie, Pappu, other characters are fictional. He also shared his process of writing and how the story evolved over the last 8 years ! He also shared some plans for the future and the sequels he has planned.
It was a great meet and we missed the folks who were travelling out of town.
There's no such thing as a free book, so call Hari when you need to hire HR pros or when you're looking for an HR job. Fortuna Consultants, The exclusive HR placement agency. Phone: 93911 65157 Email: hari@fortunajobs.com
regards
GG
http://gauteg.blogspot.com
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