Oops I did it again!

For the googol-th time! No, I mean, the gazillion-th time. Um, gazillion’s supposed to be greater than googol, right? OK, just what does that matter when I did it, AGAIN! Yeah, the gazillionth mistake of my life – purchasing the much talked about book, “The 3 mistakes of my life”. So this time Chetan is back with a “story about business, cricket and religion”. Though the title did not instill much interest in me, I thought I’d buy it all the same, as I was a big time fan of Chetan Bhagat’s. And frankly, he has disappointed me.

Though this book possesses every ingredient required to strike a chord with the youth of India– friendship, politics, cricket, romance etc – everything gives you nothing but a sense of déjà vu. If you have read Five Point Someone you’d probably know what I mean. The basic story line’s the same – three friends who dream big end up screwing up their careers. Only that in this book, the whole set up is not all that hi-fi when compared to the former.

Actually, more than reading a book I felt like I was flipping through a daily newspaper. It was more like a series of newspaper events arranged one after the other. Believe me, there wasn’t a single event that Chetan had missed out on, it had everything, right from the Gujarat Earthquake in Jan 2001 to the 9/11 disaster to the India vs Australia test matches to the Godhra Riots. You name it, the book has it.

Chetan Bhagat tells the story of three friends – Govind, Ish and Omi- who dream of owning a business. Set against the backdrop of Ahmedabad in the year 2000, Govind is a born businessman who thinks that people would give you more respect if you have a business rather than if you are at service. Ish is a military drop out who has an immense passion for cricket. Omi is a confused soul, unaware of what he wants from life. Together they take their baby steps into the world of business by opening a cricket shop in Ahmedabad. As an aside, we have Govind falling in love with Vidya for whom he takes maths tuitions. Apparently, she is Ish’s seventeen year old sister, as well.

Two thirds of this book is on cricket. Again, newspapers and cricket data books (I didn’t know they even existed until I read this book) would have come in really handy to the author. And, why cricket? I’ll tell you. When Tushar Raheja’s first book released in 2006, he announced right then that his second book would be a novel based on cricket. And as of yet, the book has not been released. Hmm, now doesn’t that tell us something? Now if the guy releases the book everyone would accuse him of stealing Chetan’s idea, which would be really bad, because what has happened is exactly the opposite, and people are hardly aware of that. Cricket is Tushar’s first love and he has always aspired to play for the Indian team someday. I wonder if that book would ever come out now. I hope it does. Tushar had promised me, once, that he would name one of his characters after me, after I told him that Mahima means the same as Tejas and Shreya. *blushes*. And no, I’m not kidding!

Oh and there’s another thing about Chetan which really made me go up in fumes. I think that guy’s seen only one particular type of girls. I mean, what the hell does he think about women? Why is it that the girls in all his stories have to be so perverted? Why is his view so distorted when it comes to girls? Why should girls always take the first step? And why should boys have all the fun and no blame? This book sort of reminded me of the movie Dil, Dosti etc. Remember how that sick looking curly haired guy used to hang out with that Kintu female in the name of chemistry tuitions? Only that it’s Maths here and not Chem. And then the same old story repeats.

One thing I noticed about “The 3 mistakes…” is that half the book is crammed with facts and that too boring ones, which don’t really help in making it anything even less than a page-turner. There wasn’t really any room for creativity and unfortunately Chetan hasn’t improved much post his debut. On the contrary, going by the FPS terms this book is light years behind. With all those melodramatic elements and “kahani-mein-twists” , this story has everything potentially needed to be adapted into a typical Bollywood flick. But as far as the book is concerned, I don’t have anything much to say. If this wasn’t a Chetan Bhagat book may be I would have labeled it a “not bad”. I had certain expectations from this writer and sadly, this book isn’t up to the mark. Read it if you have too much time or money to waste. But come to think of it, the best thing about this book is the price tag labeled against the cover. Ninety five bucks is pretty reasonable, I guess.

PS. Ok, this has nothing to do with this review, but I really gotta say this. I was just over the moon at reading this. A whole post dedicated to me! Thank you Aditi!:)