Cover Story: Judging A Book By Its Buyer

The abrupt termination of Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian’s services as Executive Director (India) at the International Monetary Fund, with the ever-dramatic “with immediate effect,” has raised more eyebrows than a magician at a logic convention.

While the real reasons remain as mysterious as a Swiss bank account, what the print media does serve us is a spicy tale involving a mega pre-publication book order worth ₹72.5 million, allegedly placed by a public sector bank to “distribute among customers, local schools, colleges, and libraries.” That is a lot of bedtime reading.

Subramanian, no stranger to policymaking circles, served as India’s Chief Economic Advisor before his IMF posting. In short, such roles are not just in the room where it happens, they help write the PowerPoint for it.

Now, picture this: an author, still tightening the final screws on his manuscript, secures a bulk order so large it could qualify as a minor publishing miracle. It is like proclaiming a dish as the finest cuisine ever served before the ingredients even come out of the pan transformed.

What exactly prompted this literary leap of faith? Nobody knows. But the whispers are louder than a mic left on during a Zoom call. Some speculate that the author’s glittering résumé and a rumoured regulatory post on the horizon may have unintentionally, or not, nudged the scale with their influence. After all, a sale and purchase make the market, and what decides the deal could be subtle.

To the bank’s credit, not everyone was on board with the buy-now-read-later strategy. Reports suggest that a senior executive and board member refused to ratify the advance payment at a board meeting. It is comforting to know that someone in the room asked, “Wait, we are spending how much on a book that has not even been printed?”

In today’s world, memoirs drop faster than EDM tracks on SoundCloud. We seem to be in the grip of an epidemic: “authoritis,” a sudden and irresistible urge to write a bestseller, particularly common among those with government titles, corporate titles, or simply a designation complex. Left untreated, this can escalate into a full-blown “pen-demic,” where everyone from bureaucrats to building contractors feels compelled to document their lives in hardcover.

Then there is the lesser-known but equally debilitating affliction of “bookstipation,” the inability to process or dispose of the countless books gifted by well-meaning colleagues, clients, and distant relatives. Especially in corporate India, where gifting a book has become a safe, neutral option—right between a dry fruit box and a desk calendar. Unfortunately, this often results in libraries of unread books stacked under desks and forgotten in drawers, slowly fossilising next to expired business cards.

As the German satirist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg once said, possibly about bad books or thick skulls, “When a book and a head collide and it sounds hollow, it is not always the book’s fault.” You could say corporate gifting has its own mysterious logic, often running parallel to actual reading habits.

To be clear, writing is a noble act. Using language to inspire, educate, or entertain. We are all for it. And it is not unusual for corporates to buy books en masse—sometimes as part of corporate social responsibility, sometimes just to avoid another box of laddoos. But when public funds and public sector institutions are involved, the lines between noble intent and self-serving initiative can blur faster than a budget announcement during election season.

Hypothetically speaking, let us say a CEO has a side hustle in painting. All is well until said CEO’s cousin hosts an exhibition, and “coincidentally,” it is suddenly considered tasteful for employees and clients to buy art for their office walls. You get the drift.

By the way, CSR funding too can be a swamp of good intentions and murky execution, but we will save that rabbit hole for another day.

At the heart of the matter is this: ambition and self-promotion are not crimes. In fact, they are practically job requirements in today’s professional world. But when one’s ambition leans too heavily on public resources or institutional influence, what was once inspiring starts to feel a bit self-indulgent. Public trust, like a paperback spine, is easy to crack but hard to repair. The choice of “hard cover” might be an irony.

In the end, while influence might open doors, it is integrity that keeps them from slamming shut behind you.