Food, friendship & start-up recipe

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Of late, there has been a spurt in youngsters starting their own ventures. But given the skilled manpower we possess, we are still far from producing adequate entrepreneurial ventures, feels Aditya Mukherjee, a strategy consultant with a global management consultancy and an IIM-Bangalore alumnus, who has recently made his literary debut with the novel, Boomtown, which has entrepreneurship at its heart as well as ample doses of friendship, romance and adventure.

“India is a nascent economy and there are a lot of opportunities to start something new and exciting with existing skills in youth. After spending months thinking about what kind of venture would be interesting for fiction, I decided to deal with a group of people who come together to start a chain of restaurants. Restaurant business is something which all of us relate to and find aspirational,” says Aditya, who himself had been a part of a team that ventured into a start-up that dealt with BlackBerry applications.
And yes, being a quintessential Bengali guy, Aditya has always been a foodie. “So the restaurant business in my book was also my comfort zone,” he winks.
The novel tells the story of an eccentric idealist and scion to a wealthy family, Jacob James (JJ), who is determined to make it big on his own. A chance meeting with Jaaved, an innovative young chef at an iconic old Delhi restaurant, triggers an idea. As JJ embarks on his entrepreneurial journey, he convinces two other friends to join him — Roy, a disgruntled engineer and JJ’s roomie from his engineering days and Sheetal, a feisty single mother who works in the hotel industry. The book traverses through lanes of old Delhi, Gurgaon and Bengaluru.
“Suburbs like Gurgaon are becoming the hub of immense activity and have a character of their own. Being well-versed with the capital, as I spent a considerable time of my formative years here, the bylanes of old Delhi have always held a special charm and lure for me. Bengaluru is another city where I have spent quite a few years and completely love its cosmopolitan nature. So I chose to plant my characters in familiar terrains,” says Aditya. He believes that there is a major transformation going on among youth in the country and this change is across social and economic stratas. “A guy in old Delhi also has entrepreneurial aspirations as does an urban Bangalorean,”says Aditya.
Boomtown delves into the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem and begins with people who intend to start something from scratch, ideate, brainstorm and come up with a plan and have to deal with different hassles and finally get going.
Talking about his writing aspirations, the management graduate says he had written his first science fiction in his Class IX. “I always knew at the back of my mind, that I would be writing a book eventually. I have always loved reading, especially pulp fantasies and science fiction. But I also enjoy G.B. Shaw and Mark Twain at the same time. For me, books have to be entertaining and absorbing and not just have ornate literary value,” he says. And that is the precise reason he presented his story on entrepreneurship by youngsters in a light and entertaining way.
Although his debut novel has just hit the stands, he already has something brewing for his next. “I have written it down and it will be a different genre. I have been receiving good response for my debut novel, in fact better than I had ever imagined,” he shares.
Would he like to give up his management job for writing books full time? He smiles and signs off, “Well, who wouldn’t! I would love to take up writing full-fledgedly.”