A Fly on the RBI Wall: An Insider’s View of the Central Bank by Alpana Killawala (Book Review: 4.5*/5) !!!

2108th BLOG POST

13^th Book of 2024

Whenever it’s about Indian institutions which are regularly in news and closely linked with people’s life and country’s progress, we, the public want to know about it’s internal process- such as DRDO, ISRO, BCCI etc. Hence, it has always been an amazing experience reading APJ Abdul Kalam’s autobiography as we get an insight upon how the intelligent brains work towards creating a missile and achieving their goal through its launch. One such institution is RBI. All of us wish to know how it functions and what actually happens behind the door. Alpana Killawala’s book “A Fly on the RBI Wall” is a wonderful book in that context as authoress has worked as an RBI official on the designation of DGM and gives us her honest observations of her experience with the country’s central bank.

 

I have myself been involved with RBI and its officials while working on their software products hence while reading, I was able to relate and empathize with many scenarios that Alpana has mentioned in the book. This 223-pages memoir is a perfect page-turner as authoress has been able to narrate her work experience in a manner where you get to learn about her milestone but most importantly, you get to know about RBI’s gradual change in its mindset as well. She worked with Communications department and therefore, she mostly tells the story from that lens. Still, the fact about how RBI functions and the challenges she faced remains the same with every individual involved with the institution working in any department.

 

I am glad the way she has bifurcated her book in order to make it an exciting read for us by timelining chapters not based on her timelines but as per the Governor’s tenure. This gave her a wonderful platform for expressing how each Governor helped RBI in their own manner and how they were different from each other. Her book mentions the tenure of the following Governors- S. Venkitaramanan, C. Rangarajan, Bimal Jalan, Y. V. Reddy, Duvvuri Subbarao and Raghuram Rajan. Alpana has this wonderful way of expressing her views where she speaks about each of these Governors in a manner where she is able to tell their good and bad points without making it feel biased or demeaning. She has done it with such elegance that no one can ever raise finger on this book with respect to insulting the Central Bank or their highly respected Governors or any officials.

 

As the title of the book goes, authoress concentrates upon how she has been just a small fly in this big world of RBI where one can’t think of doing anything enough prominent to change the way RBI functions – but yet, she was able to change multiple things on her individual level by insisting upon the change. When she joined RBI, she tells how difficult times it was because of Harshad Mehta scam and the market fall that happened just after. Her frustration with the rigid style of working made her resign but she understood soon that she can’t expect things to change instantly but if persisted, can happen in few years down the line. This is what her objective as a Central Bank employee became and she conquered many of her wills by opining her thoughts in front of Governor.

 

Her sense of humor is incredible which is evident in the way she has explained many scenarios where just a sentence makes us giggle. Few silly comments or functions at RBI also makes us think how such traditional institution takes it own time in matching up with the modern way of working. A person working in a department could change so much to bring contrast in how RBI drafted circulars, amendments, press releases to how RBI governors wrote and spoke speeches to how they interacted with media and what they did beyond their working hours is enough inspiring for all the working professionals who believe that they can’t do much in the job world.

 

In the end, author also throws light upon how Rajan’s comments would irritate government and their sour relationship impacted RBI. She also brings up the topic of demonetization and explains how RBI did its job effectively despite it not being the decision-maker. Alpana also speaks up on the current Governor- Shaktikanta Das regarding how he has balanced things well in terms of communicating as a Governor and has been non-controversial till now unlike previous Governors.

 

Definitely, while reading you can sense Alpana’s inclination towards few governors but that’s understandable because you always like the Boss who gives you wings. You tend to ignore their mistakes because of professional benefits that you get. Lastly, author speaks about both- good things about RBI and what it needs to improve as an organization which stings every employee and citizens. Overall, reading this book has been an amazing experience. It teaches a lot. I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5.

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WRITING BUDDHA