Keeping it Real - Wall Street Journal
These days the L word is all over. Even the tabloids focus on people getting laidoff than laid! To think that when I submitted the manuscript of Married But Available in July 2007 for publishing, India Shining was the phrase in vogue. As we moved into editing, in December 07 the Sensex was more sex than sense. People told me that since my novel had a piece on layoffs, it would not be topical. Change the story some people advised me. Sadly the world has changed so radically since then. So suddenly the questions from the media are all about how real the story is. Taneesha Kulshrestha met me in the studios of Mint. Once in the studio the army of technicians take over and we are ready to roll. I like the summary headline they put on the story -
"Don’t ever take the business card so seriously that it defines your entire identity and you feel helpless without it"
At a time when pink slips are flying thick and fast and the nightmare of a lay off is threatening to come true for many in India, Abhijit Bhaduri’s novel Married but Available has become quite topical. Bhaduri has worked as a human resources professional for over 24 years, leading HR teams in companies as diverse as Microsoft, Pepsico, Tata Steel and Colgate.His protagonist Abbey, a young graduate from a premier management institute, struggles to strike the right balance between ambition, peer pressure, money, power, success and happiness. If these pressures were not enough, he also faces the sudden prospect of a layoff with a change in his company’s fortunes.Failed relationships and marriage, politics at work, a tough boss, firing workers and doing the right thing are issues that young managers like Abbey usually deal with, even as they try to figure out the meaning of life and form an identity that is not dependent on just the visiting card, he says.At the end of his book, Bhaduri dishes out advise: “Power, money and in some cases, even your relationships are not real. You are only as powerful as your last business card. Don’t ever take the business card so seriously that it defines your entire identity and you feel helpless without it.”Bhaduri, himself a management graduate from XLRI Jamshedpur, says he has brought insights from his daily interactions with young managers into his book."
His protagonist Abbey, a young graduate from a premier management institute, struggles to strike the right balance between ambition, peer pressure, money, power, success and happiness. If these pressures were not enough, he also faces the sudden prospect of a layoff with a change in his company’s fortunes.Failed relationships and marriage, politics at work, a tough boss, firing workers and doing the right thing are issues that young managers like Abbey usually deal with, even as they try to figure out the meaning of life and form an identity that is not dependent on just the visiting card, he says.At the end of his book, Bhaduri dishes out advise: “Power, money and in some cases, even your relationships are not real. You are only as powerful as your last business card. Don’t ever take the business card so seriously that it defines your entire identity and you feel helpless without it.”Bhaduri, himself a management graduate from XLRI Jamshedpur, says he has brought insights from his daily interactions with young managers into his book."
