Five Point Someone - Chetan Bhagat

Soon the times ‘now’,

And still feels so much like ‘now’

Walking alone one evening, I came across a bookstore. Having nothing better to do, I thought of just checking in. Browsed through some books and promised myself of buying some on my next visit.

I passed by the Best-Sellers section when my eyes caught sight of this book with a white cover page with words going ’’Five Point Someone’’ and the subscript running ’’What not to do at IIT’’. That was my first encounter with this casually charismatic thing. I could recollect one of my pals going blah blah blah over this one. So I picked it up and just went through some lines.

This is not a book to teach you how to get into IIT or even how to live in college. In fact, it describes how screwed up things can get if you don’t think straight.’’

’’Quite interesting’’, I thought.

My eyes wandered to the back cover to catch the price.

’’Rs. 95’’, It smiled.

“Even more interesting”, I grinned back.

I really don’t know why I bought this book. Maybe it was the couple of lines, I read or was it the price? But now I regret making this buy. For now, I am hooked. I have read this bloody book twice and am already trying to race through my current reading so that I can return to Five Point Someone ASAP. It’s not that my current book is bad or anything but Five Point Someone simply haunts.

There are things we do and then there are things we don’t know we are going to do but anyways we find ourselves doing it; and what the hell? We enjoy doing it.

Now whatever I mean by that...

Five Point Someone is about three IITians. Hari, Ryan and Alok - three hostelmates, who come to IIT - Delhi, with high dreams and high goals like every other IITian, but soon find themselves messing up the whole thing.

Five point Someone follows these three characters from their first day in college to their graduating day. Each character comes from totally diverse backgrounds.

Ryan: Ryan is the stud among the three with model like looks and well maintained body. He is a guy with interests leaning more towards practical rather than theories. He is brilliant and I think the most intelligent amongst the other bookworm IITians. However in someway to me, Ryan resembles a tragic hero, who has everything going for himself but things take a wrong turn and some of his own follies plus the educational system which presses the students more towards pointless theoretical studies make a rebel out of him.

Hari: Hari is the narrator of the story. Most of the time, his position is more or near to neutral between the other two extreme characters. However he is very impressed with Ryan and finds difficulty to not be in favor of Ryan’s decisions, however crazy they may be. I find Hari a lill’ bit insensitive to not being able to understand Alok’s problems. At some points, he even laughs at Alok’s crying mother. I couldn’t figure out how can someone make fun of a woman who is crying and moreover when she is your friend’s mother?

Alok: Alok is the fat fat guy from a not so well to do family. He has his own problems and has his goals set to see better days for his family. But soon he finds that his low grades will lead him nowhere. Alok and Ryan are always on fighting grounds. They never find themselves agreeing on any point and moreover never on Ryan’s adventurous plans. But then he has to give in as Hari fails to stand any firm ground against Ryan.

In their very first quiz, our three musketeers screw up things and in their first semester, they end up getting five point something grades which are below average as per IIT standards. However their first semester grades mark them as below average students. Soon they get used to it and let the others think whatever they think and are very much happy leading lives of below average performers. So here we have our three friends boozing, using grass cheeruts while listening to Pink Floyd. Hari goes a step ahead of his single friends and starts romancing a girl named Neha, who happens to be the HOD’s daughter.

What’s more? Find out for yourself.

Chetan Bhagat lends an autobiographical air to Five Point Someone. He writes the book or should I say, he lives the book back through his college days. The incidents that happen in the book, can’t be tagged fictional. These are simply out of life.

And the way he writes. This man has got the style - Very casual and fluid. His write-up has this very spicy n’ tangy flavor to it. The words are not high on literary accounts, but then who cares as long as you enjoy it. The narrative never leaves it’s main characters at bay. Moreover what’s more interesting is, while the whole book sees the incidents through Hari’s point of view, two of the chapters in the book come forward with Alok and Ryan’s point of view towards the incidents and the characters. Though short, these two chapters bring in light the various aspects, the author tries to hide from the reader. And one of the chapters goes in form of a small letter, which Neha writes to her dead brother, “Samir”. Very heartening…

Though I hate Chetan Bhagat for giving Neha’s brother’s name – ‘Samir’. Come on Mr. Chetan Bhagat, why Samir of all names for a sweet girl’s brother???

Though written in a casual way and loaded with witty humor, somehow in the background, Five Point Someone harshly criticizes the educational system and grade ridden mindsets of Professors for lack of practical exploitation of intelligent brains. Passing out with higher grades becomes so important, that the motive of studies which is acquiring knowledge and bringing it in creative use is long forgotten. Thus making the educational system a mere mechanism for printing numbers on grade sheets according to the ability of mugging word to word.

The fact that the book tells the tale of three average students makes it more than easy for every reader to relate to the characters. IITian or not an IITian, there are instances in the book which every reader would relate to. With Five Point Someone in hand and reading glasses on eyes, it’s far from impossible that one is not left on the nostalgic road of those crazy, crazy college days.