How to become a billionaire by selling nothing , livre ebook

Published by Random House India in 2014
Copyright Aditya Magal 2014
Random House Publishers India Private Limited Windsor IT Park, 7th Floor, Tower-B A-1, Sector-125, Noida-201301, UP
Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road London SW1V 2SA United Kingdom
This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Resemblance to actual events and/or locales and/or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Some names, places, and situations may have been parodied for humour, satire, and entertainment purposes only and such instances are not to believed or understood as fact.
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author s and publisher s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 9788184006186
The Family-many times shy and good for it The Reader-thank you
Contents
THE MAN WHO SOLD NOTHING
AWESOMENESS IS HAZARDOUS TO HEALTH
BACK TO BUSINESS
TAKING STOCK
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN BOOTS
MARKETING MEETING 1
GEOFFREY S
THE FIRST LAWSUIT
FUNNELHEAD
NEEDS AND WANTS
A BAD ENVIRONMENT
FROM THE STUDIO FRYER TO THE RESTAURANT FIRE
RIKHITPUR FACTORY
DAVOS
RIDING WITH THE KING
MARKETING MEETING 2
A DAY IN COURT
THE MAN WHO BECAME GOD
THE RETURN OF THE BAND
THE RETURN OF THE BAND 2
THE PLAN
THE SULTAN OF OMAN
THE EXECUTION
EXPLODE THINGS BEHIND ME, BITCHES!
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
THE MAN WHO SOLD NOTHING
I am the greatest person in the world. This isn t random boasting; it s an honest, down-to-earth, and humble self-review. It is a conclusion that I have arrived at after years of jaw-dropping, outrageously awe-inspiring fantasticness. If I were a film critic and my awesome life were turned into a movie, I would rate it a 100 million stars out of 10. I m a whole freakin universe with more stars than 10 million Milky Way, Andromeda, and M61 galaxies combined.
Greatness radiates off me like light radiates off the sun. I am bathed in it. Clothed in it. Made from it. I am the superintendent of awesomeness. The badshah of badass, the shahenshah of the masses, the pharoah of the stock markets, the ultimate chick magnet, physical specimen par excellence (I have muscles on muscles on muscles. I have muscles in places most people don t even have places), beer drinker among beer drinkers, and the championest player of Super Mario, among other things.
Matter is made of teeny-tiny atoms and electrons. I am made of GREATOMS and GREATONS. They bear the seeds of my greatness. Heck, God particles blast out of my fingers like lightning bolts. If you are a friend, you are welcome to bask in them. If you are a foe, you shall burn in my light.
All the letters in all the words in all the sentences of all the paragraphs in all the pages of all the books ever written and then adapted into all the screenplays turned into Hollywood films subsequently ripped off into Bollywood films simply fail to address the exorbitant greatness I exude.
Yet, despite my overwhelming talent and humongous greatness, I am best known for being humble. I invented humility.
I realize that I am merely the humble vessel through which awesomeness flows.
As with all great men, my greatness too is tested from time to time. This is the story of the time it was tested the most.
Within these pages lie the sordid, epic adventure of a hero battling evil of an unimaginable scale. If you still haven t figured it out, the hero is me. This is a bloodstained saga of discombobulated bodies, eviscerated abdomens, broken bones, shattered hearts, infected minds, and burnt souls-all bound by the unforgiving hand of fate. There will be dragons, orcs, and goblins the kind of which will make Hannibal Lecter, Mogambo, and Gabbar Singh piss in their pants. Little babies will be sacrificed, women will be made slaves, and leaders will be made bonded labourers doing menial chores.
Welcome, o noble reader, to How to Become a Billionaire by Selling Nothing.
Let us begin.

I was sitting in my 15th floor office one fine evening watching the world s largest television (so big it makes a blue whale look like a Bluetooth earpiece) custom-made for me by Samsung Electronics. Did I mention that along with being the greatest, I am also the richest man in the world? I can well afford to have flatscreen TVs the size of freakin billboards hung up on my office walls like swimsuit calendars.
I operate out of more offices and work stations than the President of the United States. Also, my plane is bigger than his.
The head office of the Jhunjhunwala empire is a posh piece of real estate in the heart of India s financial capital-Mumbai. Behind Dalal Street stands a tall, white skyscraper with giant bull horns drilled into its apex. This, my friends, is my temple. On its 15th floor is my sanctum. The building is called Jhunjhunwala Chambers. It is located on Nariman Point-it used to be called Nariman till I pointed towards it one day, and since then it s been called Nariman Point-adjacent to the Arabian sea, a few metres from the state legislature building and more importantly, a stone s throw away from the financial cauldron of India s money market-the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Dalal Street and I are father and son. I was raised by Dalal Street. This is where I started my career as a stock picker 25 years ago. Today, I watch over it like a dutiful son does his ageing dad.
These days, everyone from the Queen of England to the King of Qatar wait in line to kiss my billionaire bottom. My left butt cheek alone is worth ten times more than Australia s Gross Domestic Product.
As I watched TV, marvelling at the interplay of pixels on the HD 4D LED platinum encased screen, I heard a quick knock on my door. I swivelled the chair to find the 23-year-old office-boy Nitin gently peeking his head like a tortoise through the crevice of the door.
Kya hai bhai? I asked.
Sir, koi aapse milne aaya hai. Ramakant Shastri.
Theek hai. Bhej do andar, I ordered as Nitin withdrew his tortoise head. Soon he popped inside head and all, holding the door ajar.
A scrawny man, with grey hair at the temples, a moustache drawn across his upper lip, and a slim laptop bag slung across his shoulder, hobbled in nervously trying to crack a smile.
I told the fellow to sit down and instructed Nitin to fetch the guest a glass of ice-cold water.
What can I do for you? I asked as the man seated himself on the bright red couch adjacent to the TV. Quickly I kicked the floor and flashed across towards him. He seemed startled at the speed of my chair. Having turned the TV off, I gazed intently at him with the breathtaking stare of a zen-master.
My name is Ramakant Shastri. I am an entrepreneur.
I m Jhunjhunwala. I have no surname-just like GOD. I Rock \m/.
Of course I know, Sir. Everyone knows who you are! Aap toh aadmi nahin bhagwan hain! Aapki charcha prithvi se lekar devlok tak ki jaati hai! Kuber bhagwan bhi aapse hi home loan lete hain!!
Impressed with this very sincere and accurate appraisal of my great self, peppered with words most commonly used in an episode of Mahabharat (and an HDFC bank ad), I smiled. Very nice. So why are you here?
I am the founder of a company called Notco and I am here to seek investment for my company.
What does Notco make? I asked with interest.
Ramakant Shastri sipped the glass of cold water Nitin had silently brought in while we were conversing. Slowly setting it down and looking as refreshed as a heroine in a bathing scene, he smiled widely and spoke fervently, We ve introduced a revolutionary new product called WAIT FOR..IT WAIT FOR IT Hold your breath are you holding your breath, Sir?
Yes. I have paused the process of respiration. Now please tell me about the product before I blow up like a cycle tube. My face is turning beet red and holding my breath makes my voice squeaky! With this voice I am sure I will be cast as Theodore, the voice of the second Chipmunk, in Alvin and the Chipmunks dubbed in Hindi as Alvin aur Rang Birangi Nachne Wale Gilheriyan . On a side note, I am amazed at the amount of words I am able to manufacture while holding my breath! I must add this to my repertoire of skills, I screamed squeakily.
Oh! I m sorry Sir. Without further ado, let me introduce you to THE FUTURE.
Notco s
Revolutionary,
New,
Fantastic,
Imaginative,
Jaw-dropping,
Mind-blowing,
Attention-grabbing,
Diaphragm-shattering,
Electrifying,
World-beating,
Time and space warping,
Supercalifragilisticexpialidociousing Product:
NOTHING.
Excuse me?! I exclaimed, flabbergasted. My gast had never been this badly flabbered till today.
Steely and calm, the fellow answered, It s called NOTHING, Sir. It s Notco s new invention. We would like you to invest in my company so that I can make NOTHING.
Confused and wondering if this was a joke, I asked squeamishly, trying to recover my breath from the Chipmunk squeaking and the subsequent gast flabbering, Err is Nothing the name of the product?
Yes Sir, Nothing is the name of the product.
Okay, but what is the product?
It s Nothing, Sir.
It s nothing Meaning?
It s Nothing.
Even more confused and beginning to get unsettled, wondering if I was indeed hearing right or if the sound waves had changed somewhere in my ear canal into an audio signal my brain had misinterpreted to be heard as nothing , I prodded vehemently, No, No hold on, what exactly is the product?
It s Nothing, Sir. I am committed to making the finest Nothing in the world. I have a dream and that dream is to make Nothing affordable for eve