‘kwench Co-founder Prashant John talks about his book, opinions on wirting and other stuff in an interview with THE HINDU in Bengaluru!

It’s been a month since the Second Degree: One Crazy Year at IIM-A was launched at Crossword Ahmedabad. At his reading session at Bengaluru, Prashant chatted with THE HINDU where he talked about his book, his take on the popular fiction vs quality writing argument and lots of other things.

Here is the text of the article. (Source: THE HINDU)

“Joining a gruelling management course after working for a few years is indeed a different experience. It throws you out of the comfort zone you may have created for yourself. It is fun and strenuous at the same time. This book aims at charting such a journey,” says Prashant John, the author of “Second Degree”, a book that deals with his experiences at IIM Ahmedabad.

Prashant insists though the book is about campus life, “it is fairly different from books such as ‘Five Point Someone'. ‘Second Degree' is basically a humorous take on the academics that make the IIM's the best B-school in the country,” says Prashant, who quit a cushy IT job to join a one year management course at IIM Ahmedabad.

He says, “I had been working for a few years and had tuned out of the concept of studying per se. The course is very intense, but we did manage to have a lot of fun. The idea for the book germinated when a regular blog I maintained at the institute used to receive a lot of attention from fellow batch mates.”

The Mumbai-based writer says: “The book is not very similar to the blog. The blog will not be understandable to people who were not part of the batch. Moreover, it lacked continuity. The book is generous mix of imagination and real events.” Apart from writing Prashant also manages Kwench, a company he co founded with three others from IIM. Kwench aims at providing corporate library solutions and enables employees to access books that cater to their professional and personal reading needs.

“It basically aims at popularising reading in India.”

Prashant feels that any book that manages to draw people to towards reading is successful.“I find the entire debate over good literature over popular fiction rather futile. If your books are being read, it is a positive development. I feel Chetan Bhagat's books have helped generate an interest towards reading. We need more such authors.”

Talking about bloggers turning into authors, Prashant says: “Maintaining a blog and writing a book are very different from each other. You can blog about anything that catches your fancy and you can get away with it. While writing a book, you need to capture the attention of the audience otherwise, readers will soon lose interest and tune out.”