In My Beginning
Description:
Pages: 196
Year of Publication: 2014
Price: Rs 300
ISBN:
978-93-5045-086-4 (9789350450864)
About the Author:
Sanjeev Gupta is the nom de plume of Arabinda Ray. Born in 1930, educated in Kolkata and graduating from Presidency College, he likes to describe himself as a first-generation professional manager. In 1970 his book of essays The Indian Manager in Search of a Style, published by Economic Weekly (precursor of EPW), was widely acclaimed. Several other books on management styles followed, and a novel, Sorrow Is Knowledge (Arnold Heineman, 1979). For forty years he worked on the topmost rungs of the corporate sector and was a non-executive director in several well-known organizations in the private and public sectors. He was also on the guest faculty of leading management educational institutes. A serious attack of poliomyelitis when he was 33 years of age enforced manifold restrictions on him but in spite of this, he has always striven to live as normal a life as possible.
About the Book:
A romantic novel set in Calcutta in the 1950s, when it was still the commercial capital of India where young men from modern families from all over northern India came for a career. They were all first generation business managers from family backgrounds of law, medicine, landholding, teaching or government service but not business. The main job providers were British firms who were opening the gates slowly and reluctantly to Indian so-called “covenanted” officers.
These men lived in tight circles of their own, trying to do the “done” things as they perceived from their seniors’ lifestyles. Into this scene arrives the central character, Arani, who conforms as much as the others do but finds a touchstone to release him – albeit not as happily as one might have hoped.
A review of the book can be read here.
Contents:
Postscript / 9
Book I
THE PARALLEL / 13
Book II
THE CIRCLE / 57
Book III
THE POINT / 113
The Epilogue
TWENTY YEARS LATER / 187