The office loser and some animal love

Dork by Sidin Vadukut
Penguin, Rs 199

11.15 pm, Thursday
Dear Diary,
I am miffed. Not without valid reason. Yet another Indi-blogger is hand-picked to write a book. It is a fiction about the job and love life of some Malayali guy in Mumbai. Must be a real dork! HeHe!
I smell an old rag here. Haven’t we had a rash of IIM, IIT graduates
writing books about all that happens in our haloed institutions, about college crushes, classroom wankers, eggheads and noobs, even idiots (1, 2, 3, I have lost count) in recent years?
Why do we need someone who is of suspicious character writing a book again on the same subject? And the author is Sidin Vadukut an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad (Mani Ratnam is an alumni — take that Mr Mamooty without the keratin on upper lip, you, you), and holds a day job as an editor with a newspaper. Impressed, are we?
11.18 pm, Thursday
OK, there’s been a slight misreading, Diary. Dork is not about campus stuff. In fact, there is just the beginning bit about this hero taking his placement interview in the campus. That’s about it.
More like corporate cock-ups and girlfriend goof-ups. What a way to sum it up!
The story is about Robert “Einstein” Varghese who goes to Mumbai to work on his first job in a company called Dufresne Partners and tries to hold down his classmate from B-school as his love partner and make “animal love” to her. Grrr! Maybe even purr!

11.20 pm, Thursday
The story is recorded in the form of diary notes through the book.
Cute. Bridget Jonesque.
But I’m a tough reviewer. I shall be critical and disgruntled. Who writes diaries these days, I ask you? Especially in times of SMSes and twitter? Book reviews in diary notes? There are exceptions, you know.
11.25 pm, Friday
Nite, nite Diary. Need to get my beauty zzz. Can’t waste my time on reading books under 15-watt energy-saving bulbs and give myself puffy eyes.

11.28 pm, Friday
Mmm, might as well finish reading the book. Kinda’ loopy but I am hooked, Diary.

11.37 pm, Saturday
OK. Here’s the thing, Diary. Dork is a witty, funny read with a flair for the absurd and ludicrous. And Vadukut is easily one of the best blog authors whose book is true to the character of the blog.
Vadukut’s wit is elegant, prose is pithy, irony is buffed, scepticism is healthy and observations are intuitive and he is an unpretentious writer. He spots the loser in the competitive world of consultants, bankers, management heroes, smart honchos. It’s a world beset with pressures of deliveries and social scaling, of undercutting and racing ahead for bigger bounties — be they BlackBerries, top positions or bigger bonuses.
The hero flails with this woolly headedness, his naiveté is alarming, his belief in his abilities unwavering despite his preposterous bumbling.
A laughathon, this book is.
Avoids clichés like the one just mentioned. Teehee.

11.50 pm, Saturday
I told you I was miffed, didn’t I earlier on, D.D.? That’s ’cause I am a blogger, you know. I too have a following. Yeah, lump that Vadukut. His blog Domain Maximus might be mighty popular, and followers of his blog will find it easier to love him more after this book, but not me.
Sheesh! The day is not far off when fancy editors will spot my abundant talent — like Vadukut did of Robert Varghese — and let my blog shine.

12 Midnight, Sunday
D.D.: I am off later in the day to gift Dork to my friends. That’s how much I enjoyed it!

Sudha G. Tilak is a Gurgaon-based writer