The self proclaimed Management Guru... you know who am I talking about!!

I have started reading “The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New India” by Siddhartha Deb. The cover of the book has a warning, “The first chapter of this book has been removed in accordance with a court order.” I got curious to find out more about the chapter which has been removed. Thanks to google I found the chapter. The chapter is titled, "The Great Gatsby: A Rich Man in India." It was first published in the magazine "The Caravan' under the title, "SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS - How Arindam Chaudhuri made a fortune off the aspirations—and insecurities—of India’s middle classes." Here’s a link to the chapter: http://rationalzom.blogspot.com/2011/06/sweet-smell-of-success-siddhartha-deb.html

In case the link doesn’t work by the time you access it, please drop me a note in the comment section. I will mail it to you.

Frankly I don’t want to comment on Arindam Chaudhri. However, at times I really get pissed off by the way he brags about himself. I mean he is the only person in this world who thinks that his last book “Discover the diamond in you” was a bestseller. There is an advertisement on this book being a bestseller every week in one of the business news channels such as CNBC TV18 or NDTV Profit. I would really be interested to know how many copies of this book have really been sold till date. Is Mr. Arindam Chaudhuri listening?

9 years back I bought a book (The great Indian dream) written by this fellow and his Father. The punch line of the book was, “a must for every Indian.” After reading the first few chapters I really hated myself for buying the book. The Managing Partner of the firm (a very well read Man) that I was working with saw the book with me once. He said, “You should make good use of your hard earned money.”

The Caravan removed the story from their wesbite. As I mentioned earlier, you can read it by doing a google search. You know what….Arindam Chaudhori has sued Google India as well! I fail to understand why has he filed a suit in Silchar District of Assam when he is based out of Delhi and even Delhi Press (the owner of ‘The Caravan’ magazine) is based out of Delhi.

The book including the first chapter is available in the international market except India. So what's the point in filing a lawsuit and removing the first chapter in India. Guess Mr. Chowdhri is still living in the 18th century. He should know that these days books are sold internationally. I thought he was a marketing and management consultant!! Or, may be he thought (and wrongly so) that like his books, even Siddhartha Deb's books will be sold in India only. Or (let me try one more) may be he realized (and rightly so) that no one knows him outside India.

By the way, let me unravel the mystery behind the title of this post, "the self proclaimed management guru." I was looking for a suitable title for my post. That's when I googled "the self proclaimed management guru" and guess what... the first few links were pages on Arindam Chodhry.

Let me come back to the controversial chapter on Arindam Chowdhary. According to the Caravan magazine “The 10,000-word story was the result of several months of work by Siddhartha Deb, whose exhaustive reporting included interviews with Arindam Chaudhuri himself and several of his close associates who spoke openly about the IIPM and its critics, coverage of Chaudhuri’s public functions, and an account of considerable time spent on the IIPM campus."

By the way the book “the beautiful and the damned” is a nice and thought provoking read. The book has five stories of life in India on subjects ranging from farmers in Andhra Pradesh to a Manipuri waitress working in Delhi. Here’s a para from India Today’s review of this book published in Sep 12 issue:

“…In his introduction Deb recalls two stories he worked on as a journalist-the first when he took a job in a call centre in order to be able to write about it from the inside, and the second his coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster. He finds the 'fake' technology-driven world of the call centre contrasts with the dogged determination of old-style activist Abdul Jabbar who has devoted the large part of his life to fighting for the poorest of the victims of Bhopal. Deb finds them co-existing in the New India and they are the spur for him to strive to describe the different realities of this country through the lives of individuals.”

On removal of the first chapter, Deb rightly said, "..but that in itself says something about the state of affairs in India these days, where critiques of the powerful and wealthy, no matter how scrupulously researched, are subject so often to intimidation.”

Here’s an interesting extract from press release by The Caravan magazine:

“The suit against The Caravan, which seeks huge damages, has been filed not in Delhi, where both the IIPM and the magazine’s publisher, Delhi Press, are based, but 2,200 km away in Silchar, Assam, 300 km from Guwahati, Assam’s capital. The IIPM filed the case at the Court of Civil Judge in Silchar district, through one Kishorendu Gupta, who operates Gupta Electrical Engineers in a Silchar suburb, and is the first plaintiff. IIPM is the second plaintiff.

In addition to The Caravan and its proprietors, the suit charges Siddhartha Deb, Penguin (the publisher of the upcoming book by Deb in which the article is a chapter), and Google India (which, the suit alleges, has been “publishing, distributing, giving coverage, circulating, blogging the defamatory, libelous and slanderous articles”).
The civil court in Silchar granted the IIPM a preliminary injunction, enjoining Delhi Press to remove the article in question from their website, ex-parte, without any pre-hearing notice.

Kishorendu Gupta is a commissioned agent who works for the IIPM on a contractual basis. Although Gupta is called a counselor, a contract between Gupta and IIPM shows Gupta is a recruitment agent who has commercial interest and is paid for his service on a commission basis. IIPM’s contract with Gupta states:

“for number of students enrolled between 1 to 24, the compensation would be 75,000 per student …[and] for anyone who crosses the 25 students mark, the compensation would be 90,000 per student…[and] for anyone who crosses the 50 student mark, the compensation would be 1,25,000 per student” (From the agreement submitted by the plaintiffs in the court).

It is learnt that the IIPM has filed similar lawsuits against certain other publishers, also in Silchar, Assam, rather than in Delhi."

It will be interesting to see the outcome of the above cases. I am still curious as to why are these lawsuits filed in Silchar???

I hope that Mr. Chaudhory doesn't file a lawsuit against me now and that too in Silchar. By the way if there's one surname that I can never spell correctly, it has to be Chowdhary. I mean just look at this one post alone. I probably have used 10,000 versions of Choudhory -- Chaudhari, Chaudhri, Chowdhary, Chowdhari, Chowdhri, Chaudhry, etc. etc. you can go and on by playing with the 'i's and the 'y's and the 'a's and the 'o's.

Don't ask me if the above post is about Arindam Chaudhri or the book, "the beautiful and the damned." I leave it upto you to decide.