Arunabha Sengupta’s novel Labyrinth is set during the years of the computer boom, when hundreds of young Indians found work on the Y2K problem. It gives a vivid picture of their life in a huge software company, interwoven with a tale of young love. In some respects, it parallels Chetan Bhagat’s bestselling novel, Five Point Someone: What not to do at IIT (published last year). Bhagat presented the life of three young men who join the Indian Institute of Technology, after tough competition. Labyrinth shows these brilliant engineering graduates caught in the labyrinth of a huge software company. The two principal characters, Kiran Arothe and Vikram Gupta, resemble the young author. Vikram Gupta, like Arunabha Sengupta (b.1973) has a Masters degree in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, and joins “Adieu Consultancy Solutions” straight from the campus. The author worked in T.C.S. (Tata Consultancy Services) initially.
July 2006, volume 30, No 7