IIM-A student set to follow Chetan Bhagat path

To pitch his book as a movie script.

After Chetan Bhagat moved from the literary arena to Bollywood, another Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) student is set to pitch his latest fiction novel as a film script. Rajesh Singh, a post graduate programme for executives (PGPX) student, who recently released That Hardly Happens To Someone, plans to promote it as an ideal film script.

According to Singh, the book’s story revolves around Rajiv and his journey from a small village to cities in pursuit of financial success. “The central idea of the novel is about how many ups and downs a person hailing from a rural area faces in terms of societal, financial and peer pressures. Since I have traversed various cross sections in my life from serving Indian Air Force and State Bank of India to getting enrolled in a premier management institute, around 40 per cent of the book mirrors my life,” said Singh, who hails from Kushinagar near Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Talking about the book acting as an ideal script, Singh added, “The way it has been written, several of my batchmates at IIM-A said that it tends to be a good script for a Bollywood movie. It has that element in it to be made into a movie. I will be waiting for sometime for the book to become popular before I start pitching it as a script.” Singh is yet to meet any representatives of film industry to talk about his novel.

Singh, who recently completed the PGPX course from IIM-A, claimed to have written the book in less than two months. “I got some time during the international immersion programme under which we had been to the US. Since most of the things reflected my life and I wanted to pen those things down, I completed the first draft in less than two months. Later, I gave the draft to one of my friends for editing. In no time, my publishers, Diamond Books, were ready with the copies,” Singh said.

In less than a month of its release, Singh has sold over 100 copies of the book.