The Ineligible Millionaire by Tarun Varshney | Book Review

There was a time when reading was considered only a literary pursuit and reading for entertainment was a leisure activity that not many people found time for. But as the world changed in the nineties and more and more people started working for international companies, a lot of these young professionals started to pen successful books that are stories of the modern youth of India and how their lives progress. There are so many well-known authors who are engineers/bankers/management professionals in their day job and writers by passion.

Here on Thinkerviews, we have shared many such works:

• Chennai To Chicago – Memoir Of A Software Engineer by Sriram Ramakrishnan
• Love Trumps All! by Sudarshan Mahabal

And recently, I had the time to read Tarun Varshney‘s first book – The Ineligible Millionaire on Kindle. Tarun Varshney is a well-liked blogger who shares his adventures and stories through his blog and now he has put together this story of a young software professional. So let me share my thoughts on it on behalf of Team Thinkerviews…

Book Cover:

Being a key to a portal to a fantasy world, the book cover plays quite an important role in influencing purchase and/or reading decisions. So, let us take a look at the cover page of “The Ineligible Millionaire” to find out how appealing it is.

The title is a good play of words on the popular expression about ‘The most eligible bachelors’ 🙂

The book is an inspirational journey and thus showing a welcoming horizon on the cover page is a good decision. You can see the protagonist looking towards the bright future. Also, 1 million = 10 lacs, so the designer has highlighted two letters of the title to represent “10” in a thoughtful way.

Overall, a comparatively simple cover page that remains faithful to the book plot.

Book Plot:

Arjun is a young B.Tech. student at a college in Noida going through the first rounds of placements as we meet him. Due to distressing personal circumstances Arjun didn’t achieve first class in his 10^th and 12^th studies, and now that is hampering him from getting hired by reputable IT companies in spite of his technical capabilities. He watches with sadness as his batchmates get placed at TCS, Wipro, HCL, etc.

At home conditions get worse, and Arjun and his parents have to vacate their apartment and look for a cheap place to rent. He also looses his motorcycle and is really keen to reduce his father’s financial burden. The only plus of the new rental place is a chance for him to be friends with Shreya – his love interest from college.

Arjun and Shreya’s friendship is blooming when suddenly one day, she cuts all contact with him.

Luck is not in Arjun’s favour as he finishes his degree with no prospects of a job. He struggles for months on end trying multiple interviews. He attempts to do some web-designing projects but his clients cheat him and he ends up without payment.

At long last, he finally manages to get a job – although not as well-paying or glamorous as his other colleagues. But he works hard, shows initiative and keeps striving to make his situation better.

In a few years, it looks like he has achieved everything – he has paid all his debts, bought an apartment for his parents, has a dream job in USA, has love of a lovely girl called Nupur. And when he relocates to India, in a few months, he builds a successful company with a lot of hard work…

But it is at this point that he finds out why he lost the love of his life…

Will all his success bring him the happiness he desires…?

Views And Reviews:

Reading this book is like reading a diary of a boy-next-door called Arjun. We all have seen such earnest, young students whose parents make a lot of sacrifices to ensure they get good education. Arjun is also an example of how sometimes fixed criteria from recruiters are not fair on students who faced some sort of bad luck during the crucial exam periods – whether it is illness or financial crisis or accidents – and couldn’t score well. But, as much as we talk about circumstances, the fact remains that once a score card or a marksheet is printed, it can decide someone’s whole future.

Arjun’s story is an inspiration as he deals with one failure after another and still continues to look for opportunities. He always makes friends and keeps good relations with people in his workplace. He is aware of his limitations and keeps learning from web tutorials, youtube videos and takes classes to improve his public speaking skills. He helps his friends when they are stuck with problems in their projects.

We can all identify with such characters in one circumstance or another. It is good to remember that life does not always give you opportunities on gold platter. You need to be prepared at all times and work hard to take advantage of such opportunities. Also, no matter how many times we fail, if we keep trying, success will be ours in one form or another. When we are looking for financial security, we only look for a job in a well-reputed company. But, there may be lot more money in freelance work or having your own business. You only need to look around and build your network. But as there is also more risk in such endeavours, it is something only to be attempted after sound financial analysis.

Tarun Varshney tries to show us all this through the ups and downs of Arjun’s journey. The book is written in a very simple, day-to-day language. Let me share some quotes I liked from the book about showing compassion to others who are less fortunate than you:

Life is such a drama. Some people are born rich, some poor; some healthy, some handicapped; some people, like these children, do not get the love of their mother and father, while some don’t have siblings.

God gives you everything from birth. He asks you to start your journey from there. You cannot argue with him. Still, we crazy people keep fighting for silly things with each other. We don’t think about helping others, even when we can.

Throughout the book, the author keeps showing us the importance of family values and love. Arjun never forgets his duty towards his parents and the sacrifices they made for him:

Sometimes sitting next to your parents and listening to them silently gives you a chance to know them more.

Friends? They keep changing with time. Everybody gets busy in their lives after some time. Then you find only your family members next to you.

There must be so many Arjuns on this Earth who are far away from their parents. There must be so many parents who are waiting for their child to come back and live with them. How selfish was I? I loved Shreya so much that when she left me, I broke. My parents loved me most of all. How must they be feeling now, that I have left them for so long and am delaying my return?

One of the most inspirational things about Arjun’s journey is how he keeps trying in spite of many failures and attempts to learn from them:

Learning is very important. There is no project that you can deliver easily. If a client asks you to implement “A” and you do not know about “A”, then you should learn “A” and implement it to deliver the project.

Sometimes we don’t see the day-to-day stress and struggle of the IT professionals. We only see that such and such has gone to USA. But, they face a lot of pressure to work in unfamiliar places and delivering projects to very tight deadlines. Sometimes they have to work in areas that they do not like just to keep the job. In a similar situation if you protest, the project managers have a ready answer:

Actors go to Bollywood, to become heroes but they don’t always get the hero’s role. They get the villain’s role, yet they do it because no other options are available. They become famous with that villain role.

But life is not all work :). One also must find enjoyment in it while you can. There is so much beauty and peace in this world that goes unnoticed while we immerse ourselves in routine of our lives:

As I fell, I felt something magical that I had never experienced before. It was so peaceful in the fresh air and the beautiful sky. I was free-falling at a speed of 120 mph, but I felt like I was flying. For the first time, I saw with my naked eyes, not on television or a laptop, the beauty of the earth and the sphere of the planet. For the first time in my life, I experienced incredible peace.

Summary:

A simple, inspirational read if you have 2-3 hours to spend with your kindle…

Around 7 out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy Book From Amazon India – Kindle EBook
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Kindle EBook

Over To You:

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