Book Review #3 : I Bought the Monk's Ferrari.

Excited and nervous, a fresher of twenty-three, takes his first career flight from Bangalore to Delhi. He peeps out of the window as the flight takes off - and voila! He sees on the road below, fast fading from his vision- an immaculate bright red Ferrari, begins the quest of his life . . . for his own FERRARI.

In IBTMF, Ravi borrows the basic premise from Robin Sharma's best seller - "The Monk who sold his Ferrari" and tries to give it a twist in the Indian context. He pen downs the ten commandments which can make you "successful" in life.

In this catchy titled book which is going to draw attention of the readers, the author, Ravi Subramanian provides a step-by-step approach towards being successful and acquiring one’s own Ferrari. 

The Ferrari here is not a mere luxury car; it is way worthier than that . . . After all, the FERRARI is something worth dying for!!!

Review : 

Positive Points :

• The book really does starts off on a good note explaining various stances wherein the author first sights a Ferrari from the aeroplane, then sights it 13 years later at Mumbai airport and then finally gets a chance to drive his dream car- "The Ferrari." All these happenings are ought to give you a sense that this book will be quite engaging.

• Firstly, the book is divided into 3 parts which takes you onto the journey of various personalities who achieved big and learning on achieving your own Ferrari.

• The first part is a light read highlighting the above mentioned encounters with Ferrari and various instances from author's married life where he realizes how the time has changed and how one runs behind their own Ferrari.

• The second part where the real content lies - the learning or the commandments - as the author prefers to call it which are known to all of us, but the author makes a special effort to give examples of various eminent personalities like Naina Lal, Sourav Ganguly, L. N. Mittal, Tony Singh etc and teaches us what is necessary to achieve our own Ferrari. 

• The last part is where the author describes what actually is this "Ferrari" is the best part of the book.

Negative Points :

• The book begins with a lot of promise but eventually ends up in the same old routine narrative. The author expresses several of his views and his focus is primarily only on banking sector.

•  The book fails to encompass a lot of other factors that need to be addressed to in order for it to become a truly motivational book like "The Monk who sold his Ferrari". 

• All the 10 moral lessons are portrayed by various illustrations surrounding various personalities. Some of the commandments kept me engrossed but, as the book progressed, it became too much of a cliche, thus loosing its plot and author tries to regain the plot by revealing what exactly this FERRARI is. 

As per Ravi Subramanian,

"FERRARI" stands for  - Fortune for Every Right Rigorous and Resourceful Individual," not the car.

This book may add more confusion on the definition of being successful. It may raise few questions that showing off ones achievements, status, fame, money is what success is ?  Also is it rightful to measure success with ownership of materialistic things in life like having big car, lavish birthday party, holidaying abroad and alike ? Is it not important to lead a contented life with decent and humble living ? (Post your answers/thoughts in the comment section)

The usage of the language is not too flabbergasting and thus is a very short, simple read at 160 odd pages. All in all a book that you might want to read on a 3 hour flight journey, rather than the flight magazine.