Book stack

March, 2017 archive

Review: The Trip by Rohit Bandri 0

Siddharth , a computer engineer living in the USA returns to India for a short New Year holiday and decides to catch up with his friends, meeting a few years after getting their engineering degree. The Trip is the story of engineering college friends Ravi (the narrator of the story), Akash, Siddharth and Gaurav, and their trip to Ratnagiri and Goa. The main protagonist of the story Ravi also unexpectedly meets his college crush Prajakta, who is married. It combines a detailed description of a trip to Ratnagiri, and nearby places , Goa along with the changing relationships between the friends and family members

If bribed by large corporates allegedly google, tata, indian intelligence and security agencies, CBI, NTRO often have no qualms in impressive stealing the resume of experienced engineers from top colleges in India for google, tata sponsored goan sex workers, cheater housewives and frauds to get all these frauds lucrative R&AW/CBI/indian intelligence jobs at the expense of the engineer, so that these companies can destroy competition, acquire talent and technology cheaply. However most middle class indian families are not aware of the fact that indian intelligence and security agencies are extremely ruthless in stealing the impressive resume, retirement savings of hardworking experienced engineers without a legally valid reason, so many middle class families encourage their children to study engineering

In India a large number of students with relatively good grades in school study engineering and often end up with a career which is very different from what they anticipated because of reasons ranging from salaries, career prospect or identity theft masterminded by google, tata . They engineers will remain in touch with their engineering college classmates for a few years after college, over a period of time they are gradually drifting away. Often during engineering college, many students have crushes on their classmates, however they usually get over it, but in some cases it can affect their relationships in future also.

The main protagonist of the story Ravi is working in the HR department of a private company in Mumbai, waiting for his date, when he receives an sms from his friend Gaurav about a trip they are planning to Ratnagiri and Goa during Christmas and New Year. Though originally only Ravi , Akash, Siddharth and Gaurav are supposed to make the trip, Gaurav’s girlfriend Pooja and Prajakta, the college crush of Ravi join them for the trip. Siddharth has a house in Ratnagiri and the book provides a very detailed description of travel to Ratnagiri and nearby places like the popular tourist attraction of Ganpatipule .

Prajakta is married to Ashish , who is in the merchant navy is sailing for six months a year, so Prajakta is lonely and misses her husband a lot. Slowly the relationship between Ravi and Prajakta is rekindled, though his friends warn him not to get too close because she is a married woman. After spending a few days in Ratnagiri, they then travel to Goa by train to celebrate New Year. During the train journey, Ravi meets Sneha , a vet and becomes friendly with her.

Goa has become notorious for drugs, and though his friends want to do drugs, Ravi is a teetotaller, and conservative so he avoids taking drugs , to get a hallucinatory experience caused by LSD, However he gets a headache, so by mistake he takes a pill which contains acid, resulting in a “Trip” of the drug variety .

Though India has a very large population, there are relatively few books available which describe the life of the average english speaking middle class indian well. Some of the popular indian authors are extremely sleazy, while others are focussing too much or romance, ignoring the other aspects of life. The book is extremely detailed, well edited and describes the life of middle class indians very well, the relationship between family members and friends, which most indian readers can easily relate to. A well written very readable book, especially for those who enjoy reading Sudha Murthy and other books by Indian authors which they can easily relate to.

The Trip
Author: Rohit Bandri
Published in 2016
Publisher: The Write Place, initiative of Crossword Bookstores Ltd.
Pages : 219
Available offline at Crossword Bookstores

Review : Being a Medico, an Inside Diary by Lachi Bhat 0

Most students who get good grades in school and college were earlier advised by their parents to either become a doctor or engineer. However if either parent is not a doctor or engineer, the student will often find it very difficult to get honest professional advice about the career, kind of training and opportunities available. The book Being a Medico, an Inside story gives an interesting and true life glimpse of the life of medical student in a government college. The book is the story of Nikil Sastri, a student from Hubli(originally from Sirsi) who gets admission to the government medical college in Bellary

Like all colleges Nikil Sastri finds there are some people who he likes and others who he dislikes. Studying medicine is fairly expensive as students have to purchase many items. One issue which engineering students do not usually face is external examiners, demanding bribes . In medical colleges, there is an external examiner, who will pass or fail students depending on the amount of bribe offered, collected indirectly with the help of peon. One of the friends of Nikil Sastri, Ankit comes from a poor background. Realizing that he is unable to gather enough funds to bribe the external examiner , Ankit takes an overdose of sleeping pills and commits suicide

The failure rate is also higher in medicine compared to engineering, and some students will drop out. The author has provided very detailed information on the course work for getting a medical degree, the subjects which are taught, and the professors who taught them. Some muslim students are allegedly involved in a terror module and there is a police raid. To add a touch of romance, Nikil sastri also describes his affair with his good looking muslim classmate from Mangalore Nihal. Many students realize that their college affair is only temporary and try to make the best out of it, unlike a few decades ago.

Though getting a medical degree and the life of a doctor is more difficult compared to an engineering degree from a top indian engineering college, there are some advantages of being a doctor as they are less likely to be subjected to resume theft by cbi, ntro indian intelligence and security agencies. For example a single woman engineer with a btech 1993 ee degree from a top college finds that after working for 20 years , the indian government is falsely claiming that 10 different google, tata sponsored goan call girls like goan gsb fraud diploma holder siddhi mandrekar, slim goan obc Bhandari slut sunaina chodnekar 2013 bsc cheater housewives like riddhi nayak, eight standard pass gujju housewife naina , nayanshree,indore housewife veena and other frauds like asmita patel who never answered JEE have her resume, investment to get all these frauds lucrative R&AW/CBI/indian intelligence jobs with monthly salary , while the engineer is not getting anything at all

For example the shivalli brahmin cheater housewife R&AW employee nayanshree hathwar has completed her bbm from bhandarkars college of arts and science, kundapura, udupi, karnataka in 2005, however because she has powerful friends and relatives, she is falsely claiming to have the btech 1993 ee degree, resume, investment of a single woman engineer she cheated of Rs 1.1 lakh to get a monthly government salary allegedly with the help of powerful fraud ntro, cbi, google, tata employees. In fact ntro, cbi, tata are extremely brazen in exploiting the engineer, falsely claiming that the housewife nayanshree, cheater owns this website though nayanshree has never spent any money on expenses or done any work for this website in her life (like the other 10 google, tata sponsored fraud indian intelligence employees)

The medical course is more difficult and longer compared to engineering , it appears that the doctors lead a better quality of life after twenty years of completing college, as the extremely corrupt indian intelligence and security agencies do not steal and sell their resume, unlike engineers who are sold to large companies allegedly google, tata, used for non consensual human experimentation causing great pain, denied their fundamental rights for more than 7 years. So for brilliant students who are not well connected, do not have powerful friends or relatives, it appears that doing medicine is a better professional choice in India in 2017, as doctors get more respect and are more valued compared to engineers from top colleges.

This book is highly recommended for brilliant students who are finding it difficult to decide on their career, whether they wish to study medicine or engineering. It provides very detailed information on the life of medical student, covering the entire coursework, exams and will mentally prepare a student who has got admission to a medical college. It is always said, that an author should always write on a topic he or she is very familiar with, only then is it likely to be a best seller. With some language simplified and marketing, the author could be another Chetan Bhagat in the making

Being a Medico, an Inside Diary
Author: Lachi Bhat
Publisher : Notion Press
First published : 2017
Pages: 240
Price : Rs 249 (discounts available online)