What If Ram Were a Startup Founder? Prachi Garg’s Book Answers

JeevaNayagiLeave a comment

Reinterpretation of mythology or mythological fiction isn’t my favourite genre. In my opinion, many of these are an attempt at fan fiction and most of them do fail terribly. I talked about it here. So, when I picked up Prachi Garg’s Startup Secrets from the Ramayana, I was reluctant. Nevertheless, I was intrigued because the blurb said it is the story of Ram’s struggle of setting up his business empire from scratch in fourteen years. Prachi, who is also the founder of ghoomophiro.com has authored a few books in the genre of business fiction including the ‘Super’ series. So obviously she seems to know her trade well enough to put my anxiety to ease from the beginning.

The tale opens with a scene of Ram standing at the brink of victory against Ravan and flashes back into his struggle of fourteen years. Prachi’s Ram doesn’t carry a quiver full of arrows but business strategies and solutions for any business-related problem. Yet, he loses his business empire and is forced to move out of Ayodhya to start fresh along with his closest aide Sita and loving brother Lakshman. So, the lessons start from there. As the tale progresses, you will also meet many characters from Ramayana, when the trio work hard to establish a collaborative business Platform, called Kutumb, In Chitrakoot, that functions as a co-working space for small and large scale entrepreneurs. Then arrives Shurpanakha, followed by Ravan and his company HeadHunters from Lanka who pursues an aggressive business strategy to establish a monopoly over the Indian market. So the tale goes.

For those readers, who are familiar with the tale of Ramayana, it will be interesting to note how Prachi has picked a handful of characters and events from this epic and has successfully woven into a business fiction. I understand it isn’t as simple as a mythological fiction, to tell a tale with the same sequence of events but in a business language. I for one was constantly curious to know how each character has been recreated and how Prachi fit them into a modern-day business world. I liked Prachi’s diligence on how she tried to bring some of the finest details of the epic like the golden deer that lures Sita, the Nine-Sister’s alliance, Hanuman bringing the entire tech-hub because he couldn’t find the correct router. While some of these reinterpretations might come-across like force-fit, a lot of them do bring a smile.

There are occasional slip-ups in the plot which is barely noticeable, thanks to Prachi’s skillful narration. The best part of the book for me is the end of every chapter, where Prachi summarizes the learning from those episodes. In only 126 pages, Prachi covers a lot of ground from ‘The Value of Disruption’ to ‘Financial Stability’. The choice of language is simple and spiced up in moderation with business jargon, which makes it an easy read even for beginners.

 

I must also warn the readers to not expect a thorough reinterpretation of Ramayana in Prachi’s book, especially those readers who have studied Ramayana extensively. I would say read this because it is a fun read with some insightful secrets for the startup-enthusiasts.

Moola Ramayana

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It was peak afternoon and Yayati ground was crowded with people all around waiting for Prasanna’s talk on Moola Ramayana. Prasanna hails from a theatre background and has founded the influential Kannada group Samudhaya in 1970. Apart from that, he has directed plays in Kannada, Hindi, Punjabi and English. 

 The speaker expressed his joy about Ayodhya verdict and he felt it was a coincidence that he got to speak on the same topic. He added, after many decades all the political forces have taken a good decision to build the nation as a whole. According to him, Ramayana was very crucial in building this country as a whole. The speaker’s project on Ramayana actually began in the early ’90s when he resided in Delhi. The speaker was back to his old days when he was unable to help during the crisis in Ayodhya. He called himself as left-wing who was desperately trying to stop the demolition of the structure. But then the speaker started telling his friends to understand what Ramayana is and fight for the cause. The speaker clarified stating all great struggle started from the name “Rama”. His act of understanding Rama led him to do a play called “Uttar Ram Charith” in 1991. His play on Gandhi in 1992 is now published in Kannada as ‘Kondavaraaru’ (meaning who is the killer).

The speaker shared his experience from his mentoring and acting days. He used to weep, scream and put all his efforts to get the character right. Since then he has kept chasing this epic which made him to publish the verses of Ramayana in 2018 in Kannada as ‘Moola Ramayana‘.

The speaker explains why he titled the book as Moola Ramayana because it has original text and he has deeply got into the original metaphor of Ramayana. The speaker questioned the gathering as to what is the metaphor in Ramayana. Breaking the silence he answered Ramayana is the only epic all over the world that starts with a core and continues with core metaphor till the end. He further compared his answer to a banyan tree with its branches and roots. The core of Ramayana got defined even before the story begins. The speaker detailed the reason for what made Valmiki pen down Ramayana. Ramayana unfolds the truth of Prakriti and Purusha living in the proximity with each other. The speaker highlighted the point that all these theories are what all Eastern philosophy talks about. 

 The speaker also explained about Ayodhya in his session. According to him Ayodhya is not just called Janma Bhoomi but also as Seeta ki Rasoi which means Seeta’s kitchen. He mentioned that the sacred place belongs equally to Seeta as well as Rama, which portrays Seeta as food giver and Rama as administrator. 

 The speaker also suggested that Ramayana can be looked as a solution to the three-prong problem the humanity is facing today namely job creation, ecology and morality. He also spoke about Kuvempu’s ‘Ramayana Darshanam’  

Prasanna ended his discussion by suggesting we should dwell in a minimum civilized world. Excessive civilization is like Ravana. He also insisted that mythology is not imagined past, but an active metaphor which keeps growing and shaping every moment. 

 

 

About the Author: Bhuvanashree Manjunath is an Engineering student, also an avid reader, poet, and a blogger. She also works as a book reviewer. She currently writes for TheSeer.