A tale of software, corporate fraud & mom-approved romance

We’ve had books about call centres and thrillers about the world of finance. We’ve even had one or two about the murky world of media. And now it’s time for one from the IT sector. Hickory Dickory Shock, by Sundip Gorai is the book we’re talking about. No, this one is not the run-of-the-mill boy-meets-girl, office politics kind of a story. We’ve had enough of that. Gorai’s debut novel is a thriller on a different level. It reminds you of the Satyam fiasco that we’re still reeling from.

The protagonist is a math genius, Maninder Tuten Chatterjee aka 210 (born to a Bengali father and a Punjabi mother at 2.10 am). 210 is recruited by Shivan Computers. In the thriller, his Punjabi mother Gurpreet has a significant role to play, as does Geetika Chopra or Geeks, the girl that Gurpreet wants as 210’s wife. She works for Shivan as well.

The story starts in 2006, right when the IT bubble in India was puffing up. Two years down the line, the software visionary of Shivan —Dr Sarin— and its product architect Smita Kulkarni are murdered. 210 stands accused as the murderer of Dr Sarin.
Before this happens, 210 has been privy to a web chat between two chatters, Hickory and Dickory. He learns of a conspiracy brewing inside Shivan. A masked man disappears with LoRD, a cutting-edge software invention. Things take an even murkier turn as Raja Reddy, the chairman of Shivan Computers, hatches an accounting fraud (ring a bell, anyone?). LoRD is actually Reddy’s means of doing this.

The story takes off from here and covers much ground at frenetic pace. 210 pieces together an emerging pattern on Shivan’s financial mess, tracks down a couple of CDs that a now-dead employee of Shivan had unearthed. The CDs contain further proof of the fraud. The company flounders as one of their biggest customers terminates a contract, since the product is in direct competition with LoRD. And 210 chances upon a set of riddles, on a poster of a contest in the company cafeteria.
210 then has to go to the US to demonstrate LoRD to Bank AI. Geeks and Gurpreet find LoRD and launch it when 210 begins his demonstration and help him bag the deal. The next day, Raja sells LoRD to a venture capitalist, Tech Gajendra. Gajendra, with 210’s help and the recovered CDs, exposes Raja’s financial irregularities as well as the secret behind LoRD’s design. This book is worth reading as much for the thrills and the plot as the well-fleshed out characters and the healthy dose of humour with which they are introduced to the readers.
There’s Gurpreet, the formidable former kabaddi champion, who thinks it’s infra dig that her son is going to work for a chips company or even worse, a cheap one, as 210 tries to explain the merits of the term blue chip. Then there’s Geetika Chopra, prankster par excellence and mother-approved romantic interest, into whose arms the hero falls, with complete disregard for cliché, on his first day at work. Even the minor characters are etched out in details that compel the reader to take a note of them.
Sundip Gorai is an IIT alumnus with an MBA from IMT. He has fifteen years of experience in business intelligence and analytics. He has seen the underbelly of the software industry and has travelled extensively. He currently lives in Atlanta, USA.
    m_anindita@dnaindia.net