Book Review: MBA is not about Money, Blazer, Arrogance by Krishna Kranthi

Synopsis:

Like many, Revant has dreamt of getting that fancy and highly regarded MBA degree. After working hard, finally he gets an admission to one of the top Indian B-schools. His excitement is short lived as the overwhelming pressure and the vague defin­itions of management boggle him down. He gets frustrated with the people around him who see MBA as a purpose of earning higher salary and getting superior designations and indulging in unneeded arrogance. He thinks this is not what he wanted to learn out of his MBA. But then, something changes and Revant experiences the true purpose of pursuing an MBA. An inside story of MBA graduates, the book helps one realize that real purpose of a MBA degree is not confined to money, blazer, arrogance but it is more than that.

About the Author:

Krishna Kranthi is a management professional from Hyderabad. He has pursued his studies from CBIT, worked with lnfosys, Amazon be­fore pursuing his MBA from SPJIMR, Mumbai. In his own words, he describes himself as "Eccentric, Honest, Optimistic and Passionate". This is his first novel. [www.krishnakranthi.com, hello@krishnakranthi.com]

Genre: Fiction (real-life inspired)

Publisher: Nivasini Publishers

ISBN: 9789350675007

Price: Rs.150/- [A part of your money from this purchase goes to the NGO - Vigyan Ashram in form of educational scholarship to the Students]

Story:

The book follows the story of Revant in first person, from the time he is set to join a reputed B-school for his 1-year MBA programme till the end of it. Prior to it, he had worked for some top firms and due to the widespread notion that MBA will provide him with better work portfolio and compensation as a management graduate, he opts for this programme at SPJIMR. But he remains confused regarding the true purpose of his MBA for most of the time, as he discovers his batchmates going crazy about Money, always in Blazers, and becoming
increasingly Arrogant.

Trying to figure the MBA puzzle out, he enlists the help of Prof. Sugandh, who advises him to build up on his Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude (read the book to know how he manages to do all this). In the meantime, he gets to work with NGO Vigyan Ashram as part of his curriculum, where he understands about the concept of Social Entrepreneurship on-hand. Using his acquired K,S,A and his NGO experience, and applying the definition of MBA to it, he  finally understands the true purpose of his MBA (again, read the book to find it out; it's the crux of the story and handled very well).

The book is divided in 12 chapters based on 12 months of Revant's MBA schedule. Most of the story is like a regular campus happenings (like other novels out in the market), just that it's the first time the story is primarily set as a full-mode MBA life (leaving the 2 States out of this context). His learnings at college and abroad (under student exchange program), feelings of love towards a campus girl, familiar family pressures form the most of the content.


Likes:

The language is simple and very easy to understand, and the use of MBA jargons has been kept very less and to the point, without stretching unnecessarily.

Description of his journey/sight-seeing abroad is lively and exciting to read.

Nice peek into a MBA student's life for the first time

A nice, happy ending; with a message to everybody out there

"I am not the person I wanted to be; maybe I am the person I needed to be."


Dislikes:

The language is erroneous at times with spelling and grammatical mistakes occurring too often.

Neither very much exciting, nor inciting much curiosity in the reader's mind (but still a smooth read overall)


Well, to conclude, I would say that it's not really a coming-of-age story, rather it's about discovering yourself and the purpose of one's life in a new light, that of the MBA degree.

My recommendation: A must-have book for the MBA aspirants and to-be-and/or-already MBA graduates. A nice one-time read for the others with a nice message hidden for all.

Rating: 3.25 stars out of 5

P.S. -- The book was received as part of Reviewers Programme on The Tales Pensieve.