Poor Little Rich Slum | Rashmi Bansal, Deepak Gandhi | Book Review

SUBJECT: 4/5
RESEARCH: 3/5
WRITING STYLE: 3/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3/5

To become a great non-fiction author you need a mind-boggling subject, you have to do exhaustive research and you need such jargons in your book that people seldom understand. Read Rashmi Bansal’s books and you’ll realise that all that is just a myth. Who imagined that one can become an instant bestseller by publishing a few pages of “Interviews of IIM Entrepreneurs”, well, that is what “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” was.

Poor Little Rich Slum is no different. It is a detailed account of big & small, successful & budding entrepreneurs of Dharavi. We have all heard about Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, as claimed by some. We all have our bias, our notion about Dharavi. Some of us might even take pity on it. But this book is sure to change all of it.

Poor Little Rich Slum is about the people of Dharavi, their success stories, their dreams, their ambitions and their passions. It talks about a large garment exporter, about a successful leather businessman, about a designer who makes shoes for the likes of Priyanka Chopra & Katrina Kaif, about a successful gym instructor, all based in Dharavi. Then again, it also talks about a budding tailor, a young travel agent, a small-time idli vendor and their big dreams.

Poor Little Rich Slum showcases Dharavi as a microcosm of India. It has people from all over the country – north, south, east & west; people of all religions, all colours who speak different languages. There are accounts of many NGOs and SHGs working in Dharavi.

All in all, it is a good read. It shouldn’t take more than 3-4 hours if you read it at a stretch. Read it; you’ll know India better, you’ll understand its spirit better & you’ll understand its people better.