The Exchange Bar & Grill, set amid the bustling shops and pubs of the Grammercy Park neighbourhood, is replete with a ticker tape flashing menu prices in red lettering as demand forces them to fluctuate.

Customers can move prices for all beverages and bar snacks such as hot wings ($7 for six pieces) or fried calamari ($9). The prices will fluctuate in $.25 cent increments, but will most likely plateau at a $2 change in either direction.

A glass of Guinness starts at $6 but could be pushed to a high of $8 or a low of $4, depending on popularity.

So if one drink is in heavy demand, its price will rise, causing the cost of other equivalent drinks to drop. A rush on a particular beer would increase its price, and cause other beers to drop.

Owners Levent Cakar and Damon Bae admit the stock exchange theme is a gimmick but hope a good deal on drinks and their hamburger’s tastiness will win over customers.

“Its definitely something a little bit different,” said Bae. “There is a little bit of a twist.”

Bae, 35, who has an MBA from Georgetown University and Cakar, a veteran restaurant hand, combined forces to open the airy lounge, which serves up to 60 people.

The Exchange Bar & Grill has a long bar facing the ticker tape — and flat screen televisions — as well as a few tables in the back where patrons can eat in greater comfort.

Restaurants in New York and across America have had a tough year because consumers have slashed discretionary spending in a tough economic climate. New York has about 23,000 restaurants, with about 4,400 opening each year according to the city’s Department of Health, which tracks establishment licenses.

The number of sit-down restaurants in New York dropped 9 per cent from the fall of 2008 to 2009, according to market research firm NPD Group.

Good prices and a good location should be enough to make their project work, Bae said. And, Cakar added, put in a dash of speculation and you’ve got a winning recipe.

“Why couldn’t we play with the prices like a stock market?” said Cakar, who explained that when he mentioned the bar’s concept to his liquor distributors, they laughed at him.

“One day you are all going to come to me to put your drinks on my ticker tape,” he told them. The restaurant opens April 1.

While most of us have found satisfaction and growth in diverse options (call centers, fashion designing, composing music, advertising, travel etc), there has been little change in careers that promise the maximum returns.

Let’s take a look at some professions that have continued to remain the most lucrative:

1) Medicine

Medicine is a career that has always been in the limelight. Doctors, especially in the super specialist field, are in high demand.

“The expansion and privatization in the Indian healthcare segment have added to the compensation offered to doctors. Super specialists like heart surgeons, GI surgeons etc are offered high compensation packages and incentives. A revenue share in the operations besides a fixed compensation structure for the doctors (super specialists) ensures their inclusion in the list,” says Alok Bansal, CEO, Alethia Education Services.

2) Professors

A decade back it was believed that our academic system faced a situation wherein poor compensation packages marred the entry of performers and intelligentsia in the teaching arena.

The overall push of the government, privatization and expansion of the basic education system and creation of new sub-segments like $7 billion test preparation market have all added prosperity in this segment. The hyped salary structures at the institutes of importance are passe now.

“Private test preparation institutes and private higher education companies are paying a huge premium to professors and lecturers. IIT JEE preparation players are believed to pay upwards of Rs 1.2 crore/annum to their professors. The segment is expanding and the foreign education bill would ensure that this remains a high paying career for another decade or so. A private business school professor easily nets upwards of Rs 47 lakh/annum,” says Mr Bansal.

3) Actors

A glamorous segment. Almost all successful stars from the Indian film industry are in the top taxpayers list.

Beating recessionary trends, there is no upper limit on the money being offered to them. Paid by minute calculation, there is only one way north.

Compared to the other segments there is no sure shot method of reaching the premium list here.

Also treated in a separate category, the segment operates very differently but purely on the basis of data. This is one of the highest-paying careers.

4) Lawyers

A trend which is catching up in urban India, most educated parents are exploring this as a great career option for their wards.

With the inclusion of the country in the globalised world, concern on the IP rights and a more alert society forced the Indian corporate houses to include a legal cell in the company hierarchy.

“Corporate lawyers with an expertise in M&A, business law charge by the hour. Though it is still believed that Indian lawyers get only 15% of their counterparts in the US, but even at this level it is a very lucrative career. Senior associates working with established law firms draw anywhere between Rs 60 and Rs 90 lakh/annum,” says Mr Bansal.

5) Bankers

A dream of every MBA aspirant, the choice of every graduating student of the premier B-schools in the country, this option throws a lot of surprises each year.

Even a recession offered them an option of increasing their net worth. The salary level of many top bankers in the country continues to climb. A fresh graduate from IIMs nets upwards of Rs 35 lakh/annum.

The salary at the management level varies from Rs 85 lakh for a DGM/GM level to Rs 1.2 crore plus perks for a director level professional in private banks in the country, according to industry sources.

The study conducted by consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo said 53 per cent of people surveyed check their Facebook/Twitter accounts as soon as they get up in the morning, even “before getting out of bed”. Nearly 31 per cent say “this is how I get my morning news”.

“What is it about social media that causes people to spend so much of their precious time trading information with friends, family and even giant corporations? Of course, we already know the answer; it is fun and can be rewarding both socially and financially,” Retrevo’s Director of Community & Content Andrew Eisner said.

The Gadgetology study asked consumers how they felt about being interrupted at various times and occasions for an electronic message. While 33 per cent said they did not mind being interrupted by message updates “during a meeting”, 76 per cent said they can take a break from their meal to check their accounts.

Seventeen per cent said they would read a message on Facebook or Twitter during sex, while 63 per cent said they would check out a message while in the toilet.

Thirty-four per cent of the respondents said they would check their social networking accounts first thing in the morning, before switching on the TV. About 30 per cent of those surveyed said they check or update their Facebook/Twitter accounts whenever they wake up in the night.

People under the age of 25 were more likely to lose sleep keeping an eye on their friends’ posts during the night, the study said. iPhone owners stand out in this study as more involved with social media. They use Facebook and Twitter more often and in more places.

“With over 31 per cent of social media users saying checking Facebook and Twitter first thing in the morning is how they get their morning “news”, could we be witnessing the first signs of social media services beginning to replace ‘Good Morning America’ as the source for what’s going on in the world?” the study said.

In more evidence that social media is becoming addictive, 56 per cent of its users said they need to check Facebook at least once a day, while 29 per cent said they can go only a couple of hours without checking their accounts.

Thirty-five per cent said they have to check their accounts at least a few times in a day. The sample size for the survey was over 1000 people across the United States.

According to Facebook, it has more than 400 million active users across the world. Some estimates say Twitter ended 2009 with over 75 million user accounts.

There is good news for the votaries of the live-in partners. The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that the live-in relationships between the adult couples cannot be treated as an offence.

“When two adult people want to live together what is the offence. Does it amount to an offence? Living together is not an offence. It cannot be an offence,” said a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justice Deepak Verma and Justice B S Chauhan.

Drawing an analogy from the Hindu mythology, the court said, even Lord Krishna and Radha lived together. The apex court said there was no law which prohibits live-in relationship or pre-marital sex.

The bench passed the observation while reserving its judgement on a special leave petition filed by noted south Indian actress Khushboo. She had approached the apex court seeking quashing of about 22 criminal cases filed against her after she allegedly endorsed pre-marital sex in interviews to various magazines in 2005.

The argument of the counsel was that her comments allegedly endorsing pre-marital sex would adversely affect the minds of young people leading to decay in moral values and ethos of the country.

“Please tell us what is the offence and under which section. Living together is a right to life,” remarked the court. apparently referring to Article 21 of the Constitution relating to right to life and liberty. The apex court further said the views expressed by Khushboo were personal.

“How does it concern you. We are not bothered. At the most it is a personal view. How is it an offence? Under which provision of the law?” the bench asked the counsel.

The apex court further asked the complainants to produce evidence to show if any girls eloped from their homes after the said interview.

“How many homes have been affected can you tell us,” court asked while enquiring whether the complainants had daughters. When the response was in the negative, they shot back, “Then, how are you adversely affected”?

Khushboo had approached the apex court after the Madrash High Court in 2008 dismissed her plea for quashing the criminal cases filed against her through out Tamil Nadu.

DLF had launched the third and final phase of 150 flats — each measuring 3,000 sq ft or more — of Capital Greens near Moti Nagar last Friday. A DLF spokesman confirmed the sale. “The company has received an overwhelming response,” he said, adding that the final number will be known on Monday.

The rush for DLF flats is further evidence that the Indian realty sector’s recovery is real and gathering pace after the sharp spurt in demand for affordable houses in recent months. Besides DLF, developers such as Ansal API, Orbit and Uppal are developing high-end apartments across India. Delhi-based Ansal is looking to launch upscale properties in Lucknow later this year. “The prices will be in the range of Rs 5-10 crore for villas of 4,000-5,000 sq ft,” said a spokesman.

Analysts say with the economy in shipshape and the job market ticking again, consumers are regaining the confidence to invest in swank projects despite the RBI’s surprise interest rate hike last Friday. In suburbs and extended suburbs, prices are more a function of location, supply and job creation, said a real estate analyst who did not want to be named as he is not authorised to talk to the media.

No market illustrates this facet than Delhi where the property market has long been beset by a space crunch, he said, adding that the stellar response for DLF flats should come as no surprise.

After the latest round, the Capital Greens project’s total sale value has shot up to around Rs 3,600 crore. In the first phase, DLF sold 1,450 flats for Rs 1,300 crore; in the second, it sold 1,250 flats for Rs 1,700 crore and in the last, 300 flats were sold for Rs 600 crore.

The company bought the 38-acre plot in 2007 for Rs 1,650 crore.

Even DLF, a name typically bracketed with luxury housing, veered towards affordable properties after the market got hammered by the slowdown as buyers kept away and lending dried up. But a return to upscale properties may be in order with residential prices in metros such as Delhi and Mumbai expected to firm up further in the next few months due to a paucity of supply, said analysts.

Why so? Because companies give the customers way too many reasons to make the switch, Jaffe finds. Examples he mentions are lack of care or simple neglect, poor customer service, losing touch with customers, lack of innovation, and failing to `close the loop’.

An interpretation of failing to close the loop is neglecting to use the knowledge, insights, and feedback from customers to actually change or improve things, the author explains. He rues that in today’s marketplace the relationships with customers seem to mirror the current divorce rate, which is way north of 40 per cent in the US, and rising! This is owing to an acute lack of patience and staying power when it comes to forging lifelong, inseparable ties with customers, Jaffe decodes.

FROM AIDA TO ADIA

The marketing funnel, aka AIDA (short for awareness, interest, desire, and action), produces customers, but then does nothing with them, Jaffe laments. He finds it inconceivable that with so much effort expended to produce a priceless transaction we all but abandon our intensity thereafter.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The ‘acknowledgement’ section begins with a series of questions: “When did you last thank your spouse for the hot cup of coffee waiting for you in the morning, or the extra hour you got to sleep in over the weekend? When did you last tell your coworkers how much you appreciate them?” and so on. It bridges the chasm between everything that happens when we convince someone to buy something from us and what happens next, the author instructs

DIALOGUE

Jaffe’s advice is simple: Provide the customers with multiple ways to contact at will, whether they have a purpose or not. We need to get them talking about the little things, the big things, and everything else in between, he notes.

INCENTIVISATION

Incentivisation, the ‘I’ in the new formula, is about making customers feel the satisfaction that their purchase counts and that they are not just another statistic; and that their problems are met proactively and comprehensively.

ACTIVATION

The final part of the flipped funnel, ‘activation’, is about connecting the dots of social networking to leverage the potential of the wise crowds.

Activation, as Jaffe describes, is a self sustaining environment with its own currency of both intangible intellectual property and tangible exchange of goods and services. He hopes that within the next five years or less, every selfrespecting brand will have some kind of digital or virtual community in place.

(Content provided by Matris.in)

Milkha has his reasons for turning down the eight-figure sum offered to him. If ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ were to become a hit like ‘Rang De Basanti’, inspire our young people and result in India’s first Olympic track gold, that’s reward enough for him.

Singh says, “This is the year of the Commonwealth Games. I feel sad to say that 52 years after I won a gold in the Cardiff Games, India hasn’t been able to win a gold in track events.”

Milkha is counting on Mehra’s biopic to inspire India’s youth with the story of an unassuming athlete who fought mind-numbing hardship and personal loss to win universal acclaim through sheer grit and determination.

And who among the Bollywood A-listers could best essay him on screen? Milkha is non-committal, saying the cast has not been finalised. But the buzz is that it could be ‘Khiladi’ Akshay Kumar, the most sporty of our heroes with Deepika Padukone, with her special badminton genes, playing the female lead.

A few sobs later, his heart was in his mouth as he escaped the clutches of death, concealing himself among corpses on the train to India.

Recovery wasn’t easy but Milkha conquered the odds and before long, had won the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games gold in 1958 and famously lost the 400m bronze in the Rome Olympics by the proverbial coat of paint.

“I want Indian youth to understand what determination and purpose can achieve. If a Milkha, who didn’t have access to even basic necessities of life, can aim for the skies, why not others who’ve been provided the best of facilities?” he asks.

Call it foresight or sheer good luck. The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (Reliance ADAG) had bought the distribution rights of 3 Idiots for Rs 80 crore. The Aamir Khan film, which dwells on the travails of three friends in an engineering college, smashed all records and has till date done collections of over Rs 400 crore in India and abroad. No businessman worth his calculator can ask for a better return on investment.

But Reliance ADAG knows that success of this kind is rare and happens only once in a lifetime. The movie and entertainment business, which depends solely on the taste and mood swings of fickle audiences, is full of glorious uncertainties. Before 3 Idiots, Reliance ADAG has sunk large piles of money in films like Do Knot Disturb that did not make any noise at the box office .

Prudence therefore demands that the group should have a presence in areas other than production and distribution if it wants steady revenue streams, with predictable earnings and growth. That is a natural hedge against the unpredictable and volatile, though glamorous, part of the movie business.

That is the reason Reliance ADAG now offers the whole suite of services to a film production house — cameras on hire, studios, processing facilities, post-production services and even theatres to show the movie. Such services, say Reliance ADAG executives, add up to about 45 per cent of the cost of a film (35 per cent is spent on actors, another 20 per cent or so on marketing). And it is this business — stable, though behind the scene — that the group has trained its sights on.

The person Anil Ambani, the chairman of the group, has chosen to mastermind the movie business strategy is none other but his trusted financial aide, Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, who is now the vice-chairman of Reliance Capital. This, observers say, shows the importance Ambani attaches to this business. The diversification is Jhunjhunwala’s brainchild.

“It’s a two-pronged strategy. The media services and exhibition businesses provide us stable and predictable revenues and income, growing at around 25-30 per cent a year. The other part is the content business, where the potential for value creation is disproportionately higher. We are following a portfolio approach to manage consistent growth,” Jhunjhunwala explains.

The jury is still out if it will be a good hedge against the uncertainties of production and distribution. The services are more in the nature of a labour arbitrage, say some observers, and Reliance ADAG doesn’t have a USP (unique selling proposition) or differentiator. That perhaps is the reason the group wants to take the business to a level and scale no other Indian has thought of — Hollywood.

It has begun to offer various services to Hollywood studios, set up a chain of theatres in the United States and, most ambitious of all, wants to have a large roster of films under production. A few months ago, it made an audacious bid to buy out MGM — the iconic Hollywood studio that has a library of over 4,000 top movies, including the entire James Bond and Pink Panther series. The company is tightlipped on the deal, but it is common knowledge that it is one of the suitors for the cash-strapped studio.

Size does matter

Reliance ADAG, of course, is not the first Indian company to offer its services to Hollywood studios. This is an opportunity others have spotted and already begun to exploit. For instance, Mumbai-based Prime Focus worked on some of the special effects for James Cameron’s Avatar. But their numbers are small. Moreover, none has the scale and financial muscle of Reliance ADAG.

The opportunities are huge, for sure. The first advantage is access. In just four hours, a production house based in Hollywood can now transfer an entire movie through a dedicated high-speed fibre optic line built by Reliance Communications from Los Angeles to Mumbai. The line, it appears, is in good use. In Airoli, a suburb of Mumbai, over 1,500 experts work round the clock in a facility owned by Reliance ADAG to restore old Hollywood films to digital quality. The group has also tied up with US-based In-Three which specialises in the conversion of two-dimensional films into three-dimensional films. In fact, three-dimensional films have become quite a rage in markets overseas after the huge success of Avatar. Much of this work could come to the Airoli facility of Reliance ADAG.

“It is big business. The worldwide digital services business is worth $3 billion. And we have a 50 per cent advantage in price. It needs about 300 people over three months to restore a film, which makes it a combination of artistic skill and scale. What we are creating is a facility with over 2,500 employees, which can work on ten films simultaneously,” says RelianceMediaWorks CEO Anil Arjun. The company was set up to look after Reliance ADAG’s movie service business.

Another element of the Reliance ADAG strategy is to own a theatre chain in the US. With over 180 screens in the US, mostly located in cities with a sizeable Indian and Asian population, this actually has nothing to do with Hollywood films. Arjun says that Hindi films were being shown mostly in single-screen old cinema halls, which is not the place where young people want to see films — they prefer to go to glitzy multiplexes. That is why the penetration of Hindi movies amongst non-resident Indians in the US was as low as 8 per cent. So, Reliance ADAG bought theatres and refurbished them to top standards. When 3 Idiots hit the screens, the penetration shot up to 18 per cent!

High stakes

A far bigger gamble is the production of Hollywood films. Nothing it may have done in India can prepare Reliance ADAG for the scale of things in Hollywood. Jhunjhunwala is only too aware of it. “The long-term potential of the Indian market is unmatched given our entertainment-crazy population of a billion plus. On the other hand, our partnerships in Hollywood provide us immediate scale, global reach and access to world-class creative talent and processes,” he says.

The budgets of Bollywood movies pale into insignificance when compared to Hollywood blockbusters. For instance, while the most expensive movie in Bollywood, according to industry experts, is Kites from Reliance ADAG with a budget of Rs 100 crore, Avatar cost $300 million or Rs 1,500 crore to make! The money involved is big, the stakes are huge. That’s why hardly any Indian has financed Hollywood blockbusters, except perhaps ex-tennis star Vijay Amritraj who makes small-budget movies.

This doesn’t seem to bother Reliance ADAG much. It has quietly put over $1 billion in the business, and has a war chest of $500 million for the next few years. This, it hopes, will ensure that it has a place in the world of global entertainment, especially at a time when film producers are finding money hard to come by. In Hollywood, a decent film can set the producer back by $40 million to $200 million. So how does Reliance ADAG plan to crack this new world dominated by big studios, maverick film makers and also independent yet successful film production houses?

Reliance ADAG has signed “developmental deals” with virtually all the top movie stars and directors of Hollywood like Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks and George Clooney. All told, the group, according to industry sources, will have to put in between $25 million and $50 million on ten such deals. Each partner will develop themes for a movie, some of which will be converted into scripts, and a few of them will be made into full-blown movies by Reliance ADAG.

But it’s a tough world. Industry experts say that the failure rate of such developmental contracts is sometimes as high as 90 per cent. This means that of the ten such projects that Reliance ADAG has taken up, there is a fair chance that only one might get made into a film. In other words, the group could end up sinking million of dollars before the first film goes on the floor. But Jhunjhunwala is hopeful that Reliance ADAG’s luck will be better, and it will have at least one or two movies on the table by this year. That, he says, is because the group has chosen actors who also have their own production houses, so they have a vested interest in throwing up good ideas.

Dreams at work

Before that, the wheels could begin to move elsewhere. Reliance ADAG pulled off a coup of sorts last year when it got into a partnership with Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks. Reliance ADAG will invest over $825 million in equity as well as debt to finance films in the 50-50 venture, while the distribution will be undertaken by Disney. The deal is to finance about five films a year.

Reliance ADAG will have to be careful here. It is hardly a cakewalk. Several Korean and Japanese investors have burnt their fingers when they collaborated with well-known filmmakers or Hollywood studios. They sunk millions of dollars in their attempt to finance Hollywood’s maverick and sometimes unreasonable movie makers.

Jhunjhunwala says Reliance ADAG has learnt from these failures and has gone about it in a different way. One, it is partnering only with the very top names in Hollywood, and two, it is actively involved in all its projects, as opposed to being a mere financier.

So, the Spielberg joint venture has Jhunjhunwala and another Hollywood industry veteran, Alan Levine, representing Reliance on the board of directors. The group thus has full knowledge of all projects in the pipeline, and all major decisions are taken jointly, while providing for adequate flexibility and creative space for talent.

Two, the financial meltdown has seen large funds move out of filmdom; this has moved the terms of the trade from the studios and filmmakers to financiers like Reliance ADAG, and gives them the space to carry out better due diligence on projects and proposals, ensuring a higher success rate.

But will this grandiose strategy through which Reliance ADAG is looking to become a global media and entertainment house, more or less in lines with Hollywood studios, really work? It is the first experiment of its kind in India, and its success or failure will determine whether or not this model can work for Indian companies at all.

Since then, Adlabs has grown from a Rs 80-crore company to a Rs 215-crore one now. From a few hundred employees, it today employs over 5,000 people. Six months ago, the company was renamed Reliance MediaWorks. Though it came last, the multiplex business fetches as much as 55 per cent of the business for the company. Big Cinemas, the multiplex brand, saw a 50 per cent increase in footfalls the quarter ended December 2009 as compared to the year-ago quarter. It runs 500 screens in India and abroad.

Much of it is natural growth, says Reliance MediaWorks Chief Executive Anil Arjun. “The economy was growing at 9 per cent, the service sector at 15 per cent; and we’re a film-fanatic country, only the infrastructure was lacking,” says he. “A film like 3 Idiots notched up Rs 300 crore. That means 32 million people (given the average ticket price of a little below Rs 100) saw the film, out of the population of one billion,” he adds.

KPMG’s head of media & entertainment, Jehil Thakker, too says that India is a severely under-screened country with fewer screens per million than other countries. Also, the whole film exhibition business is moving fast in favour of multiplexes. Though there are about 10,000 single screens and about 850 multiplexes, the latter account for as much as 40 per cent of the business.

Aware of this shift, Reliance MediaWorks wants to build scale. It has about 250 screens in the country and wants to add another 100 by the end of the year. “In this business, the players that build scale will see the most success,” Thakker points out.

The real thrust happened in 2008 when the multiplex chain rebranded itself as Big Cinemas with the tagline ‘Ab Bada Mazza Ayega.’ On top of that, it signed up megaplexes comprising around 18 screens in various cities. Experts feel that is the way to go. “Vast real estate development is a footfall creator. In newer areas like New Bombay, Gurgaon and Noida, people want entertainment options within the vicinity,” says Thakker.

Keen attention is paid to the format of the theatre. For instance, Reliance MediaWorks is setting up Ebony lounges which will be launched only in signature Big Cinemas. These will have fully reclining seats, the best possible sound system and an attached lounge which offers an exclusive menu. Then there’s the diner cinema concept which provides customers a full three-course meal.

At the same time, aware that a large segment of its growth comes from smaller towns where pricing may be a constraint, Big Cinemas has tweaked its prices. Cities like Tirupathi, Vellore, Madurai, Sivakasi and Dindigul account for 20 per cent of the multiplex business. To tap this market, tickets are priced economically at anywhere between Rs 10 and Rs 50. This is considerably less than what is charged in metros like Mumbai and Delhi where tickets cost up to Rs 280. In a bid to stay cost-efficient, seating quality, air-conditioning, sound and light systems, washrooms, upholstery and flooring vary depending on the price and location. “But the overall look of the theatres is consistent,” Arjun says.

More than half of Big Cinemas screens are located in 40 cities outside India, covering the US, Malaysia and the Netherlands. According to Arjun, the US has a huge NRI population, which he pegs at about four million, while Malaysia has a massive Tamil population. So Reliance MediaWorks decided to acquire small theatres in New York, New Jersey, Washington DC, San Francisco and San Jose. The move seems to be paying off. 3 Idiots raked in $4.9 million in North America, compared to $1.9 million from Om Shanti Om in 2007. Not surprisingly, Reliance MediaWorks is hoping to do the same with European markets. It has partnered with Pathé Theatres to open three Big Cinemas screens in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.

But even as all these initiatives are underway, there’s a battle raging with longtime rival Inox over the acquisition of Fame. Inox acquired 51 per cent in Fame India. But Reliance MediaWorks claims it offered a higher price. Now it has made a counter offer. Whatever the outcome, it is pretty clear, that the battle for the multiplex chain has only just begun.

If you think IITs and IIMs are the only settings for alumni fiction, here’s a new one. Arjun Rao’s debut novel, Third Best, which will be hitting stores soon, is set in a boarding school.

Third Best is the story of Nirvan Shrivastav and his friends within the precincts of the prestigious, co-ed Shore Mount boarding school—where the rich and connected from all over India, and outside, send their children to study. But competing on the playing fields, or for the romantic attentions of a classmate, or in class, can become a violent and ugly affair, and not tattling on your classmates—no matter what they might have done—the one unbreakable code of honour. So, when Nirvan is called upon to denounce the particularly nasty doings of his classmate, he is unsure what to do.

Arjun Rao studied in The Lawrence School in Lovedale and now teaches history in The Doon School, Dehradun. It is then perhaps inevitable that his book is set in a boarding school. “It is the story of three young boys who join a boarding school and what happens to them over the next five or six years. They are completely different from each other and they are drawn together in a way only boarding schools can manage,” says Rao.

While the book has been tempered by Rao’s experience with boarding schools, he says he has consciously avoided writing about events he has witnessed.

“I had a story in my head for a long time. In fact, I came up with the title of the book three years ago. During this time, whenever I got a wave of inspiration, I would write a couple of pages here and there,” he says. In 2008, he decided to put it together and because the story had been brewing in his head for such a long time, it came together quite easily. What wasn’t easy, however, was cutting it down from its original length of 700 pages to a more “manageable size”.

The story is targeted at young adults, as well as older readers. Anyone who has been in a boarding school will easily relate to the book, he says.

Rao is now working on a sequel.