And another fake (blog): Rakesh Jhunjhunwala!

It’s often that one sees copying of ideas from the West in India. And so, it would seem, is The Secret Journal of Rakesh Jhunjunwala. Who with? Fake Steve, of course! Fake Steve has been in the headlines all this year, it would seem and why not? The blog, as is now known, is written by a senior editor at Forbes.com. Nonetheless, as a concept, he took it a long way and the execution, bringing out various quirks of SJ’s personality was very well done. Sometimes over the top, but never seemingly offensive. More in good humor. Almost always!

So it hasn’t taken too long for the Indian avataar to make an appearance. And who better than Rakesh Jhunjunwala? Who he? One of the richest people in India and a close confidante of one of the Ambanis. According to the Business Standard:

Consider too Rakesh Jhunjunwala, the Mumbai-based stock market investor. The 43-year- old Jhunjhunwala has holdings in at least 11 companies – and that’s all the companies we have information on. The value of his holdings in the 11 firms (among them: Lupin Laboratories, Geometric Software, Titan Industries, Tata Infomedia and Vyasa Bank) is worth Rs 140 crore, including a 10 per cent stake in Crisil worth Rs 20 crore.

This, in an article talking about the richest people in India. The Billionaires. Here is a good look into who the man is and what he does. A long list of articles featuring him. A search for him throws up some of the biggest financial insights… But this post is about the FRJ (Fake Rajesh Jhunjhunwala) blog and how it compares to the FSJ blog.

• FSJ had humour, FRJ has humour
• FSJ was edgy; FRJ seems edgy
• FSJ author knew FSJ’s idiosyncracies well; FRJ’s author may be found wanting
• FSJ was on top of what real SJ did; FRJ seems to be on his way too

What India Street has to do with this is unclear… by the looks of it, they write it. And so far, it’s not too bad. I’m adding to my RSS reader. Let’s see how long it can stay there. Oh, a word of advise: do put a different design so too many others can’t blame you of blatantly picking up the idea and then following in its footsteps too closely…

You decide: FSJ vs FRJ