Utkarsh Rai

When you have IT intelligentsia like Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani penning forewords for your books, you think why not

He may not have reached the bestseller league but Utkarsh Rai is determined to continue dabbling in the world of letters. And, when you have IT intelligentsia like Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani penning forewords for your books, you think why not.

Rai, vice president (software) of Infinera, recently released his fourth book, “Faster, Smarter, Higher: Managing Your Career.”

A month into the market, the book, with the foreword written by Narayana Murthy , has sold 2,000 copies. It offers advice on relationships at work -with team, boss, public relations, human resource, facilities and self.

“Narayana Murthy’s relationship management model at Infosys is impeccable. He was the ideal person to write the foreword. I wrote to him and he accepted,” says Rai, a computer science graduate from BITS Pilani.

Rai’s other three books also talk about the corporate world. ‘Offshoring Secrets’ was about things US and European companies should keep in mind when launching an office in India. His previous book, which had a foreword written by Nandan Nilekani, was called ‘101 Myths and Realities: @ The Office’.

His only work of fiction, titled ‘Life in a Cubicle’, starts where the film ‘Three Idiots’ stopped…on what happens at the job. Rai’s idea is to share his experiences and management models of a world he is well-versed in. His professional life has benefitted him, serving more than as a platform of ideas.

“As an angel investor, I have funded three companies. It keeps me connected with the new energy of India,” says the father of two and adds, “In return, they helped in spreading the word for my books. They are young and know how to market books through new media.”

Rai feels marketing a book is way tougher than writing it. Which is probably why he took a year-and-a-half to write it and the same duration to publish, market and release it.

Writing appears to be in Rai’s genes, so to say. His mother Indira Rai (80) recently released her latest novel in Hindi. “Ma always told me that everybody has a story to tell. Only a few know how to,” said Rai.

Rai’s next will be a book on fitness, time-management and enhancing life outside work.

First Published on Economic Times