Book Review - "The Joy of Dreaming" By NR Panicker.

A couple of hours after I finished reading this autobiographical work of my former colleague and friend of last over three decades, I was listening to an HBR Ideacast (podcast) that had the Associate Dean of Yale School of Management, Kyle Jensen as guest, with the title " when entrepreneurs distort the truth". The title of the podcast said all about the discussion that were to follow. The expert who had vast experience on the subject was saying that every successful (and not successful too) entrepreneur lies his way out to build an enterprise.. he lies to investors to get funding, he lies to professionals who he wants to work with/for him, he lies to customers by selling them an untrue dream. Everyone he lies to also knows this but still work with him and help him build a "successful" enterprise, because they all feel that no matter what he says or does should he succeed, they all will achieve their goals.

In my opinion, Kyle didn't know NR Panicker. Having known him for a long time, I can assure you that Panicker may never have lied to push his way to become a successful entrepreneur. I am not sure had he done that whether he would have been even a bigger entrepreneur or had just remained a professional in a corporate as an employee and long retired by now. He may never have succeeded, as by lying he would have presented himself as someone that he was not and when you do that, you fail.. perhaps, only people who succeed with that 'feku' personality are politicians.

I first met Panicker when we both went to attend a colleague's wedding in Tambaram a suburb of Chennai in Dec 1988. We worked in different offices of HCL and the colleague who was getting married was working with me at the time and had worked earlier with Panicker. Having recently come in HCL fold from Bombay I took PanicKAR for any other Maharashtrian like GavasKAR, TendulKAR etc and struck a  conversation in Marathi.. he kept responding in mono syllables and in hmmms, haans. After about five minutes when I asked him something, this decent fellow who never wanted to hurt me, apologetically said, "I haven't understood a word of what you said" and said although his last name ends with KAR, he is Malayalee and to educate me, he further said "it's a common surname in Kerala, haven't you heard of the famous poet Panicker?" .. I hadn't.

We reamined friends till date. But having come to Delhi office soon afterwards. Our interactions in those days when Internet was not around, remained far and few. However, I kept myself abreast of his entrepreneurial journey. Reading his autobiography had shown a far deeper and sincere person who I knew will succeed in whatever he did, but never thought that he will reach to this level. Humility, that I have seen as most important andcommon factor in most successful entrepreneurs (with exceptions like Steve Jobs) never left him.

The book talks about the difficult and poverty stricken childhood that he had and normally such circumstances will consume a person and they will never be known outside their immediate neighborhood. How he fought that and managed to graduate with fanfare, not just in academics but also as a singer that could have been his alternate career and which helped him make his success in initial life easier. An engineering degree, a dare venturing in far flung Delhi and later to trouble-torn Nigeria and eventually starting on his own putting aside all doubts and risking a well established job, even going against the advice of legendary Shiv Nadar (the founder and then CEO) who initially got annoyed with his decision, but as a matter of chance supported him after he shown the unstoppable will to succeed.

The book is inspiring, actually Panicker is inspiring and the book makes an interesting dreamworld like story that's a testimony of humilty, hardwork, ambition, risk taking ability, ability to fast forget failures and quickly learn to bounce back. But a person who has a good heart often is taken advantage of and inspite of being cautious, falls into the same trap and loses all he builds.. but a bit of luck and all that is needed to succeed kept putting him back on track.

Now on his second innings, after losing his dream to some "fraudsters", whom the world calls agressive professionals, he is on a different path to help build another world, that often times people his age would give up and relax on the Kovalam beach or in Mahabalipur or even in Ibiza. 

Overall the book makes a great reading and pumps up your adrenaline and fills you to have an ambitious journey for yourself.. for youngsters in their first innings and for people his or my age in their second or third or whichever game you want to start playing.