I love Chetan Bhagat books. I was in awe of him when I read Five Point Something. I haven’t completed a novel before in a single 2 hours read. I took a break of half an hour. Then I started reading One Night at Call Center. My love growed and I finished it again in 2 hrs flat.
Quite naturally expectations are rocket high from the third CB book. What will be it all about? IIM Ahemadabad or Hongkong or what. A long wait and CB come out with 3 mistakes of my life.Quite captivating a name.
Going by the CB popularity, I was sure some of my friend will buy it. And I gotta a first hand experience from him and I’ll lend it for some hours. But stingy buggers they are; none want to invest moolah in a book which has 2 hr life though it costs mere 95 bucks. So, Shedding my inhibitions, last night I finally bought the book and started reading it.
The start was as interesting as the other CB books. The strongest point of all CB books is the trademarked brilliant CB prologue. It captures you.Come on who will not be intersted why a young boy scribbled his suicide note to CB whom he doesn’t know personally. It is a different matter altogether that till the end CB fails to justify Why did he. Sort of abstractism is always there in CB books except 5.Something.
How Chetan reaches the sender of suicide note is intersting but believe me he is no Sherlock Holmes; sort of childish I suppose. Anyways, then the suicide victim Mr. Govind narrates his story to CB as if there was no other in his 25 year old life on Planet Earth.
A series on interrelated events combining cricket, religion, unemployment, business, emotions etc etc which hardly makes sense is what the story is all about. They are highly unreal but dittoo was in FPS & ONCC, so why I am criticising this one? The thing is CB get overboard this time. One hardly connects with the characters.
A cheap parody of names is used like Fred Li for Brett Lee .Imagine the ill educated Govind, Omi and Ish interacting with Aussies in English. The foreign trip incident is foolish where Li sends tickets for them to fly over to Australia to showcase the extra ordinary talent of a 12 year old lad Ali.
The sister of Ish is hitting on Govind the first day he starts tutoring her.Ridiculous. The behavioural pattern of Vidya is of a spoilt brat who didn’t got enougfh attention from his parents from childhood as if they don’t care they had a daughter. Contrary to that, CB shows Vidya’s parents very loving and caring.
The worst part is yet to come is climax where CB beat all the film writers hands down. 3 persons taking on a mob of 40 who was on a killing spree. Great. Another Gadar in the making. And like a typical Hindi movie ending all unites for no reason at all. Why Ish forgive Govind? Just because he take sleeping pills and attempted suicide. Great lesson CB. If you want to reconcile attempt suicide.
CB the writer of your calibre couldn’t do worse. So, I sincerely hope your next book will be a FPS or ONCC not a 3MOML.
As of good things, mere mention of Resnick Halliday and ML Khanna do made me nostalgic.