Book Review – Yours Financially by Kalpesh Ashar

We all remember the periodicals like Champak or Nandan. These periodicals published stories that provided strong lessons in morality. We may also remember our classes on moral science during our schooldays. These classes were strong on storytelling and finding the moral lessons conveyed in the stories. Strangely for unknown reasons, such classes are not conducted nowadays in schools, and the periodicals are rarely read.

Anyways, today we are discussing the book ‘Yours financially’ authored by Kalpesh Ashar, SEBI Registered Investment Advisor and Certified Financial Planner. When I read it for the first time, I was reminiscent of the same genre – strong storytelling with stronger lessons on personal finance.

Kalpesh has woven a storyline depicting the journey of a happy-go-lucky couple. Millennial couples will resonate and empathize with this couple and see a mirror image of themselves when they read and analyze this couple. While one of them (in the book) is extremely ambitious and growing faster than the pace of a formula one car, the other provides the right support system as if waiting at the pit stop and ensuring the car is race-ready within split seconds for the next lap. However, things rarely go as planned, and the moment we think we are in complete control, a black swan event is bound to turn turtle. Contrasting to this couple, we have another couple who gets introduced later in the book. While one reacted to the situations faced, the other responded in their moments of grief. You may read the book to find out what was in store for this couple.

This is a fast-paced and gripping story, spread across a decade starting somewhere in early 2000 and moving from Mumbai to Dubai to Leh and then to New York with all the twists and turns necessary to lure the reader to complete the book in one attempt. From the 2000 IT meltdown to the 2008 sub-prime crisis, the author has covered every possible event of this decade that impacted the personal lives of the public at large.

What I liked best about the book is the subtle way in which the personal finance lessons have been interwoven in the whole storyline. Never ever we felt that these lessons were thrust upon us. Asides, the authors’ interest in Bollywood and cricket comes to the fore by the frequent use of Bollywood films’ names and dialogues and a chapter towards the end analyzing the simile between our lives and a cricket match.

Overall a compelling read for anyone looking forward to understanding the lessons in personal finance via a gripping story within a couple of hours.