are my favourite objects of study. I strongly believe that each interaction helps us to shape up better; everything and everyone adds a new aspect to our views. Forget friends, even enemies and strangers help us to succeed.

During this journey of my life, whenever there was an interesting incident, either I wrote it down or remembered it, never failing to learn from that incident. Later, these very remembrances helped me compose my speeches and narrations at trainings, talks and seminars; anecdotes from my own experiences or as heard from others. It always helped me link theory to practice - which was always appreciated by the audience.

During one such session, someone suggested I write a book with all these stories. I liked the idea. And maybe, just maybe, I always wanted to do this.

My job involves a lot of travelling and from April ‘06, I started penning down these experiences during those long flights. After about two months, I realized that I had completed about 70 pages. I remembered that Toni Morrison had remarked, “If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” It was in July ’06 that I finally decided to write Why Not…! Racing Ahead with Mentors.

After having completed almost 100 pages, I showed my wife the first draft. While reading it her first remark was, ‘It does not make any sense. You must start thinking again.’ I was shocked and a bit disappointed but it helped. A fortnight’s break from writing and I finally came upon the idea of summarizing each chapter with a ‘diary’ and the inclusion of ‘Chief’ who is nothing but one’s inner-self or conscience as a parallel character to the protagonist Rehaan Sinha.

This worked well and the storyline got completely changed. The published version of Why Not…! is the fourth draft. When I go back to my first draft, I hardly find any similarity with my earlier style of writing.

The next big task was to get the right publisher to nurture my creation. After a long wait, I met Mr. Das, Managing Director of UBSPD. I never knew anyone in the publishing field and hence getting an appointment with the MD of UBSPD was a big push in the right direction. Mr. Das asked me just one question, “How is your book different from others?”

I knew I had only a few minutes to convince him. I knew I had triumphed when in the next few minutes he called for Rima (my editor) and said, “We are doing this book”. His decision was in favour of my book. Perhaps in many years that was my happiest moment.

The original title of the book was ‘A CEO’s Diary’. When I explained to Mr. Das that my target audience is the new generation, he said, “No one is going to buy a book with that title, you have to change it.”

Everyone needs a mentor and most of us are not fortunate enough to find the right one. However, we most often forget that we have mentors around us, who may not be the management gurus but have enough knowledge to guide us for the better. We also forget that our best guide is ‘our own self, our conscience’ and hence quite often we miss out on the guidance that comes from ‘within us’. Through this novel, I try to capture the fact that if we are attentive enough, we can mentor ourselves from our own environment.

It’s a novel written from practical knowledge and will help aspirants determine the traits they need to have in themselves in order to succeed. With the economy growing at a rapid pace, the present generation is probably much more ambitious than the earlier ones. What they may require is a little handholding and guidance from practical experience. I have tried to provide them that very platform made up of the various experiences I have had in years past.

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