Techie @ Heart is one of those books that people write on a year of their lives. They start from a day that is a turning point in their life according to them. And then just narrate a story where they went through a change of perspective in their lives. I think this is a genre of this generation, at least in India. They are all easy reads. Resemble very much anyone you know in that environment. And the realities are attempted to be camouflaged only by changing the names of the people and organizations. Not much intelligence is required to guess the places and people they are talking about.
This is the story of a software engineer. Who starts his dream job in a software company that resembles Infosys way too much, and its founder a copy of NRN. Only the Mysore campus has been placed in Coimbatore. Everything else remains the same including some of the incidents mentioned. Though the incident that happens at the climax with the author is something I had not heard of. But then I am sure there are many things that I do not know of. The personal incidents mentioned also look quite close to his life. But there is a possibility of some fiction there.
In the one-year or so narrated in the story the protagonist who is none other than the author himself, he even uses his own name, goes through a change in perspectives. Till he started working he was trying to be his parent’s dream. And lived by their worldview and despises anyone who does not fit in that framework including his own sister. But as the world opens up to him, he realizes that there are other perspectives and they are just as much right. He goes through a kind of metamorphosis as he falls in love with someone he knows will not be accepted by his family, as he deals with an utterly unacceptable behavior of his sister that he finally gets down to understand.
It is a coming of age story of a young man in new age India. Of the growing up of a student to an entrepreneur, someone who is willing to take a risk and do what he thinks he wants to do.
Language is decent, does not disappoint. Narrative linear, straightforward & absolutely chronological, just like the way techies are. Small fast read.
Software junta would connect a lot with the initial part of the book Techie @ Heart. And that should be good enough to send the book on bestseller charts.
Read it to know the life of a trainee software engineer and what they go through inside those swanky buildings.
You may buy this book – Techie @ Heart by Karthik S at Amazon.
