Book Review – If God was a Banker

“If God was a Banker” is Ravi Subramanian’s first novel published way back in 2007. As an IIM Bangalore passout who works in HSBC, he seems to have the quintessential characteristics a young Indian writer needs in today’s world or so it seems. I wanted to pick up the book since quite a while and finally when I did, it took me few months to come up reading it. Not because it was boring but because I was busy.

It is about two guys – Sundeep and Swami. Both are as different as chalk and cheese. While the former is money minded and would even sell his wife to make some quick bucks, the latter is the idealistic man who would give his other cheek if slapped on one ala Mahatma Gandhi. And true to what you must be thinking right now, both are adversaries in the true sense of the word. 

The story traces the lives of these two along with their respective wives, Aditya Rao (the one who is responsible for giving them the push to make their career reach dizzying heights), bosses who can do anything for money, secretaries who are ready to have sex at the drop of a hat and vendors who can do anything to make deals. But despite this New York International Bank has raced to the top making others seem mediocre in its path. Sandeep has upstaged Swami in the battle to the top BUT…..

The good guy is too idealistic and the bad guy is amazingly bad. You can surely guess the ending by know, can’t you? 

The book starts off at breakneck speed as Ravi introduces his characters pretty well and gets the story going from the word go. But somewhere midway the plot just meanders to the mediocre and finally to pretty disappointing in the end. It seemed as though he wanted to make a Bollywood flick and that’s the reason he messed it up.

In terms of characters, only Sandeep and Swami’s have been defined well. Aditya Rao, Kalpana (Swami’s wife), Natasha (Sandeep’s wife) all look pretty lost in the whole story. 

Many questions are left unanswered. There is nothing on whether Natasha comes to know of Sandeep’s misdeeds. There is nothing on the way Suneel Dutt, the new CEO come to know of Natasha and Sandeep’s exploits in the toilet. Only in an idealistic world would Aditya have given a job to Sandeep.

All said and done, Ravi’s writing style is easy and simple to read. Despite its shortcomings it makes you want to read more. I went on and on thinking something great would happen in the end but was dejected to the hilt.

But I would surely give him credit for the fact that he managed to convey the biggest moral of doing ones duties with ethics.

The CHILD model is really inspiring

C – Commitment

H – Honesty

I – Integrity

L – Leadership

D – Determination

Average – 2.5/5

PS – Aditya Rao is Jerry Rao ( Former CEO of Mphasis)  Swami is Ravi Subramanian (The writer) and Sandeep is Sandeep Soni (Former CEO of Citifinancial)