Along the Way

Title : Along The Way
Author : TGC Prasad
Publication : Rupa Publications India Pvt.Ltd.

TGC Prasad's , Along the Way is a story about software engineers who become friends in NIT Kozhikode as students and continue to be friends as IT professionals . The main protagonist Venkat along with Anjali , his girlfriend since college days and his close friends Raj And Adi go on to join TCS Bangalore , while Anjali's best friend Srila joins TCS Chennai . Venkat along with his friends goes through the typical life of a fresher joining a MNC .... working hard , been given a hard time by his boss , buying his first bike , enjoying life and freedom , his first trip abroad and making out with Anjali . The story continues with Venkat trying his best to impress Anjali's Coorgi parents , with Adi and Raj's help and convincing them that he is a good match for their daughter, inspite of cultural and background differences of their families . Furthermore how he convinces his traditional conservative family that Anjali is the right girl for him . At a juncture in the story , out comes a skeleton from Adi's closet about his sexual preferences and how all the friends react to it . Then there are also Raj and Srila and how they come together .

The story is fast paced but the author some how loses the plot at places and has thrown in sex at such times , which he has not been able to handle in an aesthetic way , it comes out in a raw and crude form . He has written about the "Indian joke " how Venkat and Raj " admire and grin at Jenny's assets " , I personally think this really reflects badly on Indian IT professionals . Then there is the trip to "Atlantic City " , what I could not grasp was that why Prasad wrote this part , whatever his reason might have been but it adds sleaze to the story . The book could have been better without this part . It seems that Prasad is highly impressed with movies , his characterisation of Anjali's father seems to be taken straight out of old Hindi movies, shown as an Army officer with a lot of interest in drinking and little silly with his"trivia " and then there is SRK calling and of course there is the time and again reference to Mario Puzo's The Godfather .There are also instances where the author seems to take a flight of fancy , like where Raj a fresher has the temerity to refer to "Amit Gupta a senior HR guy in TCS " as " Pappu " on his face . In the beginning ,Prasad has used a lot of IT jargon which is boring for the regular reader .

TGC Prasad has shown quite a bit of humor and wit in the story and the trivia part is interesting . There are bits and pieces in the story with which one can very easily co relate with .But inspite of all the 'ingredients ' being there the book does not create any impact .