MBA for the
Mafia
Copyright © 2014 by Kunal Sharma.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Contents
Acknowledgements 10
A Night for a Hunt 16
The Best Job for an MBA 19
Hit the Ground Running 24
A Whiff of the Alluring 31
Suffering the Grind 34
No Night for Rookies 42
Know Thy Co-Workers 48
IIT and then IIM 54
Papa and the Hot Potato 59
Nakul’s Financier 63
As Good as a Replay 68
Pigeonholed 72
With a Little Help from My Friends 75
Bottles and Models 79
The After Party 87
The First Day of the Rest of Your Life 93
Pencil Nose 97
Playground 108
Friday 115
Night Lovers 122
A Million Dollar Startup 126
The Purist 131
Retrospection 135
The Conference Call 141
Employee Incentive 146
The Planning for the Face Off 150
Blessings 155
A Time to Plant and a Time to Reap 159
A Time to Change 169
Talukdar 175
A New Page 184
Ever After 190
About the Author 199
For Late Shri I.D. Sharma, IFS
Acknowledgements
The only time in my life when I had a Godlike feeling was the moment that I completed the final manuscript of this work. I had just created a universe, set its rules and ordered the inhabitants around. I also decided their fates. Then, after a few minutes of blushing from ear to ear, I realized that I was sweating. I had begun to weep then. For a while, I was being served a cocktail of feelings as I reflected on the many nights that I sat click clacking on my laptop, creating and defining Nakul’s world. I wiped my tears and looked around to make sure no one had witnessed this panorama of emotions while the magical moment faded away to give way to all that is real.
Was this book a solo effort? I don’t believe so. In many ways, writing this was a journey comprising many a roller coaster ride. The ticket to these rides was expensive. My wife Aditi vouched for the expense in the form of her assistance with freeing up my time in whatever way she could. She was ably assisted by my parents who seized the busiest job of all: taking charge of our toddler, Sannidhya. The effort was further facilitated by others. They held my hand through Nakul’s arduous journey. Foremost of all, my brothers Tushar, Aayush, Gaurav and Karan who’ve been active critics of the plot, the language, my one-time haggardly beard, and basically anything that they presumed to be out of place. My aunts Anju and Shefali, along with my mother, are an example of an airtight friendship that would put the bonds between other famous friendships to shame. The sisterhood was nurtured patiently by my maternal grandmother. I am proud of that. I am also proud of my friends and I would like to take this opportunity to thank some of them: Nishant Katoch, Asif Equbal, Soami Bhatnagar, Meirisiyang, Ayaz Shaikh, Paras Mantri, Kushal Bhammar, Sandeep Banerjee, John Kunning, Maharnav Patir, Prof. A. Shipilov, Hetroy Stephane, Subhrangshu Sarkar, Vaibhav Soparkar, Antonis Pantazopoulos, Sachin Dev, Sushil Singh, Sharad Tiwari, Manoj Poonia, Raghu Ballal, Jose Paiva, Subhajyoti Paul, Vikram Mohan, Karan Jain, Sumeet Chopra, Praveen Ranawat, Anil Kumar Sahu, Orly Dias, Avijit Choubey, Nirmalya Chakraborty, Atanu Rudra, Sid Chhikara and the divas: Debarati, Mousumi, Jomol and Pankaja. This book was possible because of their experiences in life. I would like to express gratitude to Mrs. Durga Rajpal and Mrs. Radha Gaur for contributing the lovely Hindi poem for this work.
I would like to make a mention here of the writers who I’ve always considered to be the champs of writing: PG Wodehouse, Tom Sharpe and Oscar Wilde.
Lastly, a thought for my pet turtles, Bo and Peep. I lost them due to a mistake on my part. I hope I’ll be able to put the learning to good use sometime in the future.
And so dear readers, without further ado, let us dive into Nakul’s ambitious new world.
Mother, when night sets in, where does the moon go?
Where indeed go the stars?
And mother, where do all those go whom we love so much?
My child, the moon hides away
So do the stars
But my dear, our loved ones…they remain deep in our hearts
Lullaby from Chamba, Himachal.