It was towards the end of October of 1976, two months into my master’s in political science, I decided to quit my studies at the Utkal University in Bhubaneswar. There were two reasons for it. One, I was not enjoying what was being taught; it wasn’t the place I wanted to be. Two, I did not want to depend on my family for higher studies. My father had retired when I was in Class VIII, and ever since, I had been a drag on my eldest brother, Debi Prasad Bagchi, who was the only family member with a steady income at that time.

Hence, I decided that pursuing an MA at a place that did not challenge me enough was a waste. I decided to grab the only job available in a small town like Bhubaneswar of 1976 and wait until I would turn twenty-one, the minimum age at the time for writing the civil services examination to join the Indian Administrative Service.

The day after I told my professor at the university that I was leaving, I learnt that there was a recruitment test at the State Secretariat for the temporary position of lower division clerks. I showed up for it and, to everyone’s dismay, on 1 November 1976, I was appointed as a lower division clerk with the Government of Odisha’s industries department for a salary of Rs 305. By 2024 standards, after adjusting for inflation, that would be equivalent of Rs 10,000. I lasted in the job for less than a year. I wasn’t going to wait around at the State Secretariat for two long years to be able to write my civil services examination.

Everyone is a salesperson by some measure and selling is not a pushy, winner-take-all, macho act. It is an empathy-led, process-driven, knowledge-intensive discipline.’ In his book, Sell – the first book on the subject by an Indian practitioner of business – bestselling author and inspiration to generations of entrepreneurs, Subroto Bagchi presents the concepts of selling and salesmanship from his unique perspective. Elaborating on the essential skills required to be a successful seller – whether of a product, a service, an idea, an organization, or even of personal skills – Bagchi crystallizes his on-the-ground knowledge about salesmanship through stories and anecdotes from his vast repertoire of experiences and extensive reading to provide wise and profound insights and advice on making an impact on others and acquiring the power to influence their decisions. A comprehensive and contemporary treatise on the art, science and ‘witchcraft’ behind selling, Sell will redefine the meaning of salesmanship.

'Unlike an operation to catch rabbits, trapping an elephant calls for expertise over enthusiasm. Those who hunt rabbits are rarely able to rope in elephants.’

Many organizations, even those that may have a brilliant start, falter in their attempts to achieve transformational growth in their later phases. In The Elephant Catchers, Subroto Bagchi distils his years of on-the-ground learning to explore why this happens, and what such organizations and their people must do to climb to the next level and beyond. Through a combination of engaging anecdotes from his experiences as co-founder, and subsequently Chairman of Mindtree, and insightful stories from our everyday world, Bagchi demonstrates a crucial point: Organizations with real ambition to get to the top need to embrace the idea of scale and then ensure that it systematically pervades every aspect of its functioning.

You are 16, going on 17.

Steve Jobs was all of sixteen when he met Stephen Wozniak. What resulted was Apple.

When Sergey Brin and Larry Page met at Stanford, they were in their early twenties. They were soon to start Google.

Today’s teenagers are our smartest generation yet. They are tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, investors, managers, policy makers, watchdogs and of course, consumers. But do you know what the corporate and business world is all about? How do businesses touch everyone’s lives? What really makes an entrepreneur tick? How does the engine of a company run? Who is a social entrepreneur? And why do we need the world of business — is business good or bad for us? If you are curious, come join me and a group of smart teenagers on their exciting voyage of discovery, and in the process, get yourself a teen MBA!

‘In the new era, where every person’s actions have the potential to have a global impact, we must redefine what it means to be a true Professional.’By common definition, a professional is someone who possesses the skills and knowledge necessary to do a job—whether it’s a top degree from a prestigious university or simply years of on-the-job training. For centuries, we have relied on this definition to help us determine who is capable and who is not, often assuming that the person with the most professional characteristics is the best one for the job.

But every day we see examples of so-called professionals who do more harm than good. However, all of these people had the qualities necessary to do their jobs well, but instead they chose to abuse and corrupt their professions for their own personal gain.

So how can we weed out the best from the worst when the accepted standards are no longer enough, and when even the most powerful and respected among us cannot be trusted to behave responsibly or ethically? According to Subroto Bagchi, the first step is to redefine what it means to be a professional. Today, it takes more than just aptitude—it takes a commitment to doing what’s right, not only for your business, but for society as a whole. In a world where patients, clients, and customers can no longer completely trust the advice given to them, The Professional outlines the explicit and implicit code of conduct.

'Go, kiss the world’ were Subroto Bagchi’s blind mother’s last words to him. These words became the guiding principle of his life.

Subroto Bagchi grew up amidst what he calls the ‘material simplicity’ of rural and small-town Orissa, imbibing from his family a sense of contentment, constant wonder, connectedness to a larger whole and learning from unusual sources. From humble beginnings, he went on to achieve extraordinary professional success, eventually co-founding MindTree, one of India’s most admired software services companies.

Through personal anecdotes and simple words of wisdom, Subroto Bagchi brings to the young professional lessons in working and living, energizing ordinary people to lead extraordinary lives. Go Kiss the World will be an inspiration to ‘young India’, and to those who come from small-town India, urging them to recognize and develop their inner strengths, thereby helping them realize their own, unique potential.

Difficult though setting up a business is, becoming a high-performance entrepreneur is harder still. And yet, of the many thousands who try, there are those who go on to become successful; some even graduate to setting up companies that hold their own against the toughest competition, becoming icons of achievement.

In The High-performance Entrepreneur, Subroto Bagchi, co-founder and chief operating officer of MindTree Consulting, draws upon his own highly successful experience to offer guidance from the idea stage to the IPO level. This includes how to decide when one is ready to launch an enterprise, selecting a team, defining the values and objectives of the company and writing the business plan to choosing the right investors, managing adversity and building the brand. Additionally, in an especially illuminating chapter, Bagchi recounts the systems and values which have made Indian IT companies on a par with the best in the world

High-performance entrepreneurs create great wealth, for themselves as well as for others. They provide jobs, crucial for an expanding workforce such as India’s, and drive innovation. In India as elsewhere, governments have become much more entrepreneur friendly than ever before and the rewards of being a successful entrepreneur are many. More than just a guide, this is a book that will tap the entrepreneurial energy within you.