Who Let The Dork Out – Sidin Vadukut

The third book in Sidin Vadukut’s hilarious Dork series ‘Who let the dork out?’ does not disappoint. In Robin Einstein Varghese, Sidin has created a parallel to Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole who is one of the funniest characters I’d ever met in books. So is the full-of-enthu Robin, always out to do good but falling prey to his own enthuness and his slight weaknesses, phobias and fears in his own search for excellence in a highly competitive corporate world. But Einstein conquers in the end and there is much Indiannesss o the way he goes about doing things and certainly a lot of malluness as he brings in his various Malayali exclamations like Daivame or adipoli and stuff. One cannot but shake one's head and smile when one thinks of Einstein.

Penguin Books, 253 p, Rs.199

So Einstein is now in Delhi as interim CEO of Lederman Associates, hoping to be CEO if he performs well. and gets stuck in the Allied Victory Games in New Delhi. Inspired by the Olympic Committee no doubt, Sidin lets Einstein loose in the Ministry for Urban Regeneration and Public Sculpture, and we soon find ourselves meeting Minister Kedarji, his secretary Joyonttoh, Tihar Balakrishnan who sole aim is to get into Tihar jail and others. Meanwhile Einstein is negotiating his way through the corporate jungle against Rahul Gupta who is now a high profile consultant with Braithwaite, his suspicious peers Raghu and Rajeev, his not-too-happy boss John from Tokyo, Joel from UK and not forgetting to mention his close associate and confidante from Andhra, Sugandh who helps him out with all things related to information technology. And then we have Gouri and her uncle Colonel Kalbag who is also not too happy with the Einstein, Jesal, Gouri’s gorgeous cousin, and Anushka Sharma, Shruti Hasan and Raveena Tandon too. (I am really keen to know if that tunnel to Tihar exists and if those parties really go on – could be true for all we know.) But despite all the hurdles Einsten gets a good rapport going with the Prime Minister and gets a mandate for Lederman worth millions of dollars. All's well and that ends well - or so we think until Einstein gets going again.

I liked the idea of taking off on the goings on in Delhi and I am sure most of it is pretty accurate including the Tihar jail business. It's a good way to get it out of the system by laughing about it. I loved the scenes where Einstein gets ecstatic at finding the perfect loo, the part when he vents his frustrations at Gouri's behavior, his interactions with Joyonttoh, the parts where he discovers how the government works (three quotations)etc. Someone should make a movie out of it so we can all laugh a bit more. But one can see that Einstein has now matured a bit and I can see he is now CEO material. For the third time in a row Sidin Vadukut delivers a book that provides many hearty laughs (he is one of the few Indian writers who must come with a warning sign - his books can make you burst out laughing uncontrollably as a Dave Barry, a P.G. Wodehouse would) not to mention such wonderful insights into the Indian mind and how it works. Well done once again Sidin and thank you for adding this much needed humour in our lives.