Moolah mantra

Moolah mantra

November 2014

By Satish Purohit

Mad Money Journey, A Financial Adventure, Mehrab Irani, Jaico, INR 299, 229 pages

Mehrab Irani’s book offers exactly the sort of advice that financial fools especially those of the educated variety like me should heed and profit from. It covers quite a bit from buying insurance to investing in stocks, and creating an investment corpus. There is also a bit on spirit mediums. The big USP of the book is that it has been written as a thriller where the protagonist, a big shot doctor and an even bigger financial fool, is sent by his school dropout billionaire friend on a journey across the world to learn secrets of creating, investing and spending money wisely. The doctor, despite his degrees, has come to a stage in life where his poor knowledge of monetary matters pushes him to attempt suicide. So our doctor learns about the art of abundance from several colourful characters including an ex-terrorist in Afghanistan, a former sex worker in Bangkok, a long distance runner in Nairobi, and a beautiful widow in South Africa. The rules are simple but the learning takes time because it is never easy to convince the mind to abandon the herd.

One finds faint shades of Rich Dad-Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki, and of The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason in Irani’s book. However, Indian readers are likely to find Irani’s clear prose, gripping story-within-story narrative and fascinating change of locale more engaging than anything they have read on saving, investing and creating abundance so far. The book is rich in entertainment, education and spiritual sustenance.