Yes, being an MBA(Finance), I don’t quite like reading financial books. But this book has changed my mind, my thought, my perception about money, finance and investments. To be frank, I visited Crossword bookstore, picked the book because the name ‘Mad Money Journey’ looked unique and its cover was beautiful and inviting. But after taking the book, I just kept it back down as I was worried if I can actually be a part of this Mad Money Journey or not? But once I started reading the book, I am glad that I did not actually keep it, and instead started my way towards a real journey that connects with everyone’s lives.

‘Mad Money Journey – A Financial Adventure’, will definitely take you to an adventurous journey where you will learn a lot about money management through real life experiences. It is the skill of the author to describe a complex subject such as finance in a suspenseful thrilling interesting manner.

This is Mehrab Irani’s 2nd book after his previous successful work “10 Commandments for Financial Freedom” which is a bestseller as well.

A Journey of our own lives:

Mad Money Journey tells us the story of a respected orthopedic surgeon – Dr. John Pinto, who in spite of being very successful in his medical career and having a lovely loving family, is on the verge of giving up his life due to some financial setbacks as a result of his wrong decisions and outlook towards money and life. Eventually, he is mysteriously saved by his childhood friend, Vijay Desai, who then changes his perspective about life and money completely.

During their school days, John was a bright student who always topped his class while Vijay followed his own set of rules. Unlike John, Vijay was a visionary who believed that education is a platform to gain knowledge and it can’t just be learned in school but outside in the open world.

Vijay quit his school studies following a rift with his father on not getting good marks in exams in order to pursue his visionary goals to gain knowledge from life experiences while John being a bright student completed his education and becamea renowned doctor.

But things have changed drastically for both the central characters of the story when destiny brings them together after several years. Today, Vijay is a successful entrepreneur while John being a successful surgeon, has failed tragically in life, a life he was on the verge of ending but gets saved by Vijay.
The story then takes a twist where Vijay invites John to meet him in his office where he offers him to go on a vacation or rather a journey that will help John learn about a complete new perspective of finance and money management from interesting people whom he will meet during this month long journey. The journey takes the main protagonist, Dr John, to different corners of the world wherein he meets with various exotic, sometimes dangerous, may be mysterious characters with whom he stays in their place, eating their food, living their culture and learning something important about life and money from each one of them. At the end of it all, Dr Pinto is back to India and then the main suspense of the book unfolds. The author describes this journey as Mad Money Journey.

My experience with the Journey:

The book justifies its title ‘Mad Money Journey – A Financial Adventure’ completely. The author has finely described the story on how the main protagonist goes on a month long journey around the world and what he learns from each destination through a small letter at the end of each destination.

Even the life experiences shared by the people mentioned at each destination seem real and you can connect with each story instantly. Within a matter of few pages the author has put life into each character. The book explains money management using our own day-to-day life problems and provides easy solutions without any complex ideas or explanation.

Not only the money part but I enjoyed the journey to many different countries, knowing their culture, food habits and more. I have been to some of the places that were covered in this book and it was really good to recollect those memories.

I am a vegetarian person and I was not very positive about animals being killed to be served on our plates. I am still vegetarian but the book has changed my mind by showing the real fact of food cycle. It conveys that anything which has life, only that can pass life to other person. It’s not just financial but has thrown open many other aspects of our beautiful journey of life.It is a dazzling novel written with wit, compassion, intelligence and deep humanity. The book is highly recommended to everybody as it will show how small a life each one of us is living due to financial slavery, how to move towards financial freedom, it will give the courage to everybody to dream, have courage to fulfill their dreams, relive their lives, understand their true calling and achieve self-actualization. The book is as much entertaining and suspenseful as it is educating and informative.

I would highly recommend this book to all who find the subject of finance boring and difficult to understand. The book teaches a lot of lessons about money and enlightens with the fact that there is so much about money, which many of us either ignore or don’t know. The book is a blend of finance and fiction – I would call it a finance thriller. This is not just a book which you will read and forget but learn and apply and pass it on to your next generations.

Verdict:

Overall, Mad Money Journey is an interesting thrilling read that virtually takes you on a journey of learning about money and finance from the experiences of interesting people you meet while roaming, living and eating around the different corners of the world.