Like myself, the majority of the readers who read your book must have been compelled to read and continue to read it until they came to the part they were looking for – call from the God- that is. I must say that that is the smartest part of your book. That piece about a call from the God would attract both the theists and atheists alike. While the curiosity of the theists was about how their God intervened in the lives of ordinary people, atheists would have been doubly curious to find out about this business of God in a contemporary book and both of them have reasons to feel quite cheated at the end of the book. For this reason let me commence with this bit first.
You have debated whether this piece would have been equally effective if it had come from the Military Uncle instead of from the God and have concluded that it could be so. No Sir, it could not have been same. What goaded these people to resolve to get out of the situation they were in and what prompted them to change themselves once the ordeal was over? Obviously it was the promise of God that he would save them in the bargain, and they had some odd reason to believe that it was indeed God and hence had every reason to trust his promise. Not only was that, their lives indeed saved almost miraculously! If only a human had promised that he would save their lives for something in return, do you think that they would have cared or trusted? No, whoever it was, he had to be someone supernatural.
Okay, what is the big deal if it was indeed God himself? - You might ask. Let us for a moment assume that God indeed is interested in helping his children in their times of distress even if it is just to give a gentle nudge, in which case, logically, He would set the priorities. If you can imagine a queue formed of people in distress according to the priorities, what would be the place of these six people in the queue? Beginning with a new born baby thrown in a refuge heap crying for milk at the head of the queue, pray tell me sir, where would you expect your characters to be in the queue? Even the theists might not agree the appropriateness of God coming to the rescue of these people who have lived not too a religious life. So, this business of God does not amuse either the theists or the atheists. If not for this bit -of call from the God- where is the story line? Just strip this episode of call from the God, and what is left of your novel? It would look like the transcript of all that was said in a call center in a night in a very delightful language full of expletives.
I must really appreciate you for having spared at least two characters from using four letter words – military uncle and the God. Thank God for that.
I was amused to read even God being biased against Americans. He agrees with the rest of the characters(or agrees with Chetan Bhagat) that Americans are stupid. Are we to believe that only Indians are His children?
Coming to the stupidity of Americans: if I am not very wrong, the MS word to which you owe your gratitude was created by Americans(at least, not by Indians). The idea of scaring the US customers, using the bug in MS word must be more stupider than Americans. Do you think that not a single person in America is aware of this bug? If only one of the customers in US had realized that this bug in MS word is being used as a ploy and that he had alerted the people concerned, leave alone the call center being saved of its existence, it would have been sued like hell. Would the bosses in Boston have taken the sudden and enormous surge in call volume to the call center without a thought? On the other hand, such an event would have made them wonder whether there was some serious problem in one of their recent batch of products which was responsible for the sudden increase in the call volume.
The funniest part of the novel was Ms. Priyanka feeling cheated by Ganesh concealing his bald status. A lady with escapades in confined places ought to feel that way!
The climax of the story is so fantastic that I am sure it will soon be plagiarised in a Bollywood film. I advise you to hold on tightly to your copyrights!
Sorry, I could just go on like this. But this is not the way I general pan a book. Only that contemporary classic part brought out the animal in me.
With best wishes,
Dr.K.Ramesh Babu,
Hubli, Karnataka, India.