The School of Core Incompetence

It begins with the rats... The government regulator finds rats - two 'numbers', no less - living comfortably off the canteen at the privately owned Sundarambal Institute of Management, Coimbatore, forcing its crossword-obsessed director to create a committee led by the rather undistinguished Professor Sambandham to 'address the lacuna'. Against an imminent visit by the authorities, a cat-and-rat game snowballs into a power tussle involving the faculty, bureaucrats, the Prime Minister's personal yoga guru and the great Dr Rakshasan, an MP with a radar-roofed and gold-plated Maybach, who also owns the institute. In this hilarious satire on the state of affairs in Indian management schools, R. Chandrasekar - bestselling author of The Goat, the Sofa and Mr Swami - takes a tongue-in-cheek look at business schools, where students are lured with the promise of six-figure salaries and free laptops, while poking fun at government interference and the political mismanagement of the education system. Dodgy degrees, honorary doctorates to boost egos and lazy professors with dubious qualifications - The School of Core Incompetence has them all.