I just finished reading this novel and that I was terribly disappointed would be an understatement.A lot of it might have been due to hype created around this book and CB claiming that 84 out of 110(not sure how) people rated it with 5 stars.This was afterall publicised as the novel with which CB made foray into stories of smaller towns.Added to that, this came close on the heels of the Anti-corruption crusade of Anna.
The plot is too contrived, predictable, cinematic and seems to be a concotion of many movies(Now all those CB fans out there .Please dont counter this saying’Are not movies too predictable, blah blah blah).Seems after the novel on North-South, this novel is going southwards in quality. Let us see why.
Two friends - a brilliat guy Raghav, who makes it to IT BHU, but turns a journalist to fight corruption, leaving a lucrative offer from Infosys(may be he was offended by NR Narayana Murthy’s comments like the writer did.Or may be he did not want to work for a bodyshop because CB told him) and another, a mediocre guy Gopal, who fails to get into engineering, but decides to start an Engineering college(Great Idea) and be the frontman of and MLA who actually pumps money into it(Absolutely master piece).
Now the mediocre guy is madly in love with childhood friend of both, Aarti, who is in love(or thinks so) with Raghav.So our mediocre guy nurses jealousy against Raghav.
Now our protogonist(or antogonist which ever way u understand.Even that is a suspense) goes to Kota as he is forced to do so by his Baba( I believe an A K Hangal type character).And from here on, pages and pages are dedicated to phone-chat-feel low one day, phone-chat-feel good another day Phone-chat-feel heartbroken phone-chat-feel jealous of Raghav.And on one occasion he says to her that she is behaving like a slut(I believe no self-respecting girl would ever again talk to a this person.But then, she is a CB Heroine). Then again they talk, they wish each other, and he feels why girls behave like this, and you see a lot of CB’s aphorisms on girls here(don’t argue.he is an expert on girl’s behavior) .
Then in a twist of events Raghav becomes a jouro vowing to purify the society like the river of his city and confronts Gopal who is now running an Engg college with corrupt money, moving in Mercedes, wears suits flauting his new status.
Aarti, who wanted to be an airhostess, becomes a Hotel Manager in Ramada, Varanasi.She starts feeling that Raghav doesn’t take care of her.Then one night, in a twist of events, in a typical CB style(we kissed and kissed again.) she and Gopal make it after having some alcohol( After Friend’s sister in 3 mistakes, now it is childhood friend-turned-foe’s girl friend this time.Need to see who will CB’s next protogonist have it with)
Now that they made love to each other, Aarti now thinks Gopal is her man and not Raghav.In the meanwhile, Raghav looses job in the magazine he was working for due to the MLA cum Godfather of Gopal.He starts his own garage magazine( Yes.not just tech companies.Even magazines can be started from garage) that continues his mission and ensures that the MLA is jailed. The MLA vows to finish off Raghav.
So what happens in the end?
Nothing but you throw away the book in disgust.
Now let us see the ingredients of the so called concotion
Gopal sacrificing his love by pretending to be a playboy before Aarti- I belive we have seen this in umpteen movies across Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. The most famous of this, as I remember(strictly my knowledge) is a Telugu film called Premabhishekam, a 1980 film.So CB sir, the idea is as outdated as the audio cassette.
Two guys(could be friends, brothers) one choosing a wrong path, becomes rich, but feels empty and another stands on the side of justice and earns nothing, but feeling proud of what he does.The rich guy feeling/asking what do you have while I have buildings, car etc etc.
Yes, you are bang on the Deewar.but there is no maa here.
- Scenes where Gopal bribing officers and feeling surprised at how many people he needs to bribe and that too for an eductional institute seems to have been directly lifted from Rajinikanth’s Sivaj-The boss.May be CB might have seen this during a visit to his in-laws and felt that this movie was not as famous in North.
And to some extent, with a corrput MLA(Believe Sadasiv Amrapurkar would be better), Varanasi, dialogues on Washing away sins etc, I felt it has traces of Gangajal
- And ofcourse, the more prominent of all, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. However I can’t comment more on this as I have not seen the movie.
As mentioned earlier, there are a few CBish themes repeated.Mostly about his forte(seems girsl call CB and ask him to advise their boyfriends on how girls behave)-Girls behavoir. "When girls say X, they mean YZ ", "Why do girls dont understand this" type of statements are becoming stale, boring, cliched and irritating at times. Its time CB gives break to them.Then there are also the oft repeated things like being’Just a friend’ killing the protagonist.
Also, the hype of it being a small town story not withstanding, this could have happened in Delhi, Ahmedabad or Mumbai also. There is nothing specific to a small town.
And now, I believe CB also should be commended for introducing Yahoo Chat transcripts and smileys into novels.This I believe no author across the world has done it
Somebody said that he did great research on Varanasi Ghats, but I did not find any worthwile research. Writing about a few ghats could be done by googling also.
Now about characters-the less written the better it would be.
But did not I see anything positive about this book?
Yes ofcourse, it will defintely add more to the bandwagon of new age writers who are already swarming the marker like bees.I wont be surprised if it inspires more people to start writing.Given the quality of this novel, they can excused if they think that weaving together a a few bollywood stories, putting a few one liners and ending it in a typical bollywoodish style would make a novel