CHETAN BHAGAT
I
started reading books of Chetan Bhagat when I was studying for a Bachelor’s
Degree. The first book that I read of him was "One Night @the Call Center
(2005)" was the first book. Even I watched the movie. To say the truth, I
didn't like both the novel and the movie. The story didn’t catch me that much
and I wasn’t able to connect with the book but the book which made me a fan of
Chetan Bhagat was "The Three Mistakes of My Life."
‘The Three Mistakes of My Life,” is the story about three
friends Omi, Govind and Ish. The story is presented through Govind’s eyes and
it is his three mistakes of a life that are presented along. Govind is a true Gujarati,
interested in coming up on his own in life, through business. Ish is an avid
cricket player whose passion lies in playing, teaching and watching cricket.
Omi is a priest ‘s son who doesn’t have any ambition of his own and just moves
along with his two friends. The journey of these simple people in life, how
their lives get affected by the worst disasters in Gujarat's history is
portrayed in a simple yet efficient way by Chetan. This book also teaches you
how your dreams crash into pieces by unexpected events but how with support
from people around you, you get back on track, focus and rebuild your dreams.
This novel especially comes at a time when people only want
to come up with excuses to show or feel how different they are rather than see
the common aspects and bring oneness which can keep us together and achieve our
common goal of growth, peace, and prosperity. The language is simple, it
connects well with the youth of India, the narration has improved, all in all,
Chetan has improved in all the departments of writing a book. He has proved
that to be the best novelist you don’t need fabulous vocabulary or you don’t
need awesome critics review, all you need is a thread to connect to the plain
minds of people. Truly his best book ever.
Another
book that I love of his is ‘Five Point Someone’. The
book is narrated by Hari, with some small passages by his friends Ryan and
Alok, as well as a letter by Hari's girlfriend Neha Cherian. It deals with the
lives of the 3 friends, whose elation on making it to one of the best
engineering colleges in India is quickly deflated by the rigor and monotony of the
academic work. Most of the book deals with the numerous attempts by the trio to
cope with and/or beat the system as well as Hari's fling with Neha who just
happens to be the daughter of Prof. Cherian, the domineering head of the Mechanical Engineering Department of their college. It takes some dark turns
every now and then, especially when it comes to the families of the
protagonists. Most of the action, however, takes place inside the campus as the
boys, led by the ever-creative Ryan, frequently lamenting how the
internationally lauded IIT system has stifled their creativity by forcing them
to value grades more than anything else. Uninspiring teaching and numerous
assignments add to their woes, though the boys do find a sympathizer in Prof.
Veera, the new fluid mechanics professor.
This book connected with me because of language and it was
with college life which made one of my favorite books. Moreover, it talks about
the education system which I could connect with our education system and
college life.
Another
book that I loved of his is ‘2 States’. 2 States: The Story of My Marriage is
autobiographical with only names changed. The story is about a couple Krish and
Ananya, who hail from two different states of India, Punjab and Tamil Nadu respectively,
who are deeply in love and want to get married. It is narrated from the first-person
point of view in a humorous tone, often taking digs at both Tamil and Punjabi
cultures.
The story begins in the IIM Ahmedabad mess
hall where Krish, a Punjabi boy from Delhi sights a beautiful girl Ananya, a
Tamilian from Chennai quarreling with the mess staff about the food. Ananya was
tagged as the "Best girl of the fresher batch". They become friends
within a few days. Both graduate and get jobs with serious plans for their
wedding. At first, Krish tries to convince his girlfriend Ananya's parents by
helping Ananya's father Swaminathan create his first PowerPoint presentation and by giving her
brother Manju IIT tuition. He later
convinces her mom by helping her fulfill her biggest dream of singing at a
concert by arranging for her to perform at the concert organized by Krish's
employer CitiBank.
With Ananya's parents convinced, the
couple then has to convince Krish's mom. But they run into problems as Krish's
mother's relatives don't quite like the relationship and do not want Krish to
get married to a Tamilian. They are won over after Ananya successfully
intervenes to help one of Krish's cousins get married. Now as they have
convinced both their parents, they decide to make a trip to Goa to give their
parents an opportunity to get to know each other. But this too ends badly as
Ananya's parents have a fallout with Krish's mother after which they leave,
deciding that the families can never get along with each other. Krish returns
home and becomes a depressed workaholic.
It is shown throughout the story that
Krish was not on good terms with his father and doesn't share a close bond with
him. But finally, it is revealed that Krish's father travels to Chennai to meet
Ananya's parents and successfully convinces them, by spending a whole day.
Thus, father and son are reconciled and the novel ends with Ananya giving birth
to twin boys. Krish says that the babies belong to a state called 'India', with
a thought to end inequality.
‘Revolution 2020’ book follows the
story of two friends separated by their ambitions and passions yet connected by
their love for the same girl. While Gopal, who has experienced the harsh
realities of life due to poverty aspires to become rich, his friend Raghav is a
boy from a well-off family who desires to create a revolution in
India by fighting corruption.
Aarti and Gopal have been childhood but
platonic relationship. As teenagers, Gopal pushes Aarti for more, but she later
reveals that she was not ready for anything. Gopal gets a low ranking in
the AIEEE exams while Raghav is
among the toppers. Gopal moves to Kota to
join reputed coaching classes to help with his ranking. Raghav becomes a
celebrity in the town after he passes the IIT entrance exam. Aarti falls
for Raghav during Gopal's absence. Aarti and Gopal chat online, and Aarti
reveals her relationship to Gopal, who is heartbroken. He studies hard but gets
a low ranking in the AIEEE exam for the second
time. His father dies shortly after. Raghav decides to become a journalist and
pursue a career in a newspaper publishing house.
Meanwhile, Gopal is contacted by a
politician who wishes to build an engineering college on the highly valuable
land that Gopal's family owns. Gopal agrees to the deal and joins the system of
corruption in India in order to build the college with the politician's black
money. He is tired of giving white envelopes to officials but has no other
choice. Raghav, now a journalist, exposes the corruption-funded college and is
eventually fired from the news house. Raghav starts his own newspaper, Revolution
2020, to change the world and expose the corrupt system in India. After
another expose, Raghav's newspaper is shut down by politicians and thugs, and
he loses almost everything.
Raghav is still passionate about
his activism and
forgets about Aarti. They are still unmarried. Aarti and Gopal reconnect and
often meet after work in coffee shops and other places, unbeknownst to Raghav.
Gopal books a hotel room in the same hotel that Aarti works. Gopal seduces
Aarti who returns his love, giving in to years of suppressed feelings. Aarti
falls in love with Gopal and begins to cheat on Raghav. Gopal then decides to
disclose to Raghav that he and Aarti are a couple. Gopal goes to Raghav's
office but a chance encounter with a poor farmer and his kid who had come to
Raghav for help shakes him up and he realizes the folly of money, power and
wealth. He decides to let go of Aarti perhaps realizing they were never meant
to be together and Raghav would always remain Aarti's love. He with the help of
a politician invites two prostitutes as a part of his birthday surprise and
ensures Aarti witnesses it, making her hate him forever. He anonymously helps
Raghav get a job, and suggests he become a politician (MLA) to bring
about the revolution he desired. Aarti and Raghav thereafter
got married.
Gopal becomes a rich and successful
businessman but is still heartbroken over Aarti. Despite sacrificing his
lifelong love to bring about the revolution, Gopal still doubts
whether he is a good man or not. After listening to Gopal's story, the author confirms
that he is indeed a good man.
But
after reading his two books ‘Half Girlfriend’ and ‘One Indian Girl,’ I was
disappointed. I felt that he became commercial. Most of the books are made into
movies that have been successful. The movies like ‘3 Idiots,’ ‘Kai Po Che,’ ‘2 States,’
and ‘Half Girlfriend.’ I was not satisfied with the way he has written
with those two books. After reading ‘Half Girlfriend’, what I felt is that the
story is no new for me. this book is lazily
written with a single objective that it is picked by some movie producer. It
feels like a screenplay, nothing else. As a book, it is so poor and devoid of
content, filled with the most generic of description. The detailing that the
book uses is so stupid like when Madhav is on the station, he tells us he ate
puri-aloo. Yeah, so what? Is it an essential thing to say? There are no
book-like things, we are just given briefs, about the location, I’m on a
railway station, okay, the characters, he’s a snob, okay. There’s nothing about
how the station looks, what is going on there, what is the narrator thinking
while he’s on the station, or why a character is a snob, what’s his motivation
in life. There’s no depth to the proceedings, no dialogues make you pause and
wonder, nothing in the characters to make you cheer for them, just plain boring
stuff, a simple plot to sit a movie on.
I was interested to read 'One Indian Girl,' because of the tag
'feminism' was attached to it. But it didn't meet my expectations. The writing
wasn't good. The story was okay. The characters weren't likable except
Brijesh(too good to be true in fact) maybe.
Radhika, the biggest hypocrite in the book irritated me throughout. For example, complains all along about how people never considered her pretty and how her prettier sister was preferred by the guys. But at the same time also rejects prospective grooms just because they are 'ugly' saying things like 'I can't wake up next to a man like that'. And then rejects few more for the same reason - looks. Just for the heck of it. To 'get back' at her mother.
The funniest moment came when she rejected a guy because he earned lesser than her. So much for feminism.
Overall, I couldn't relate to any of the characters, all being assholes in their own way. The message at the end was good but the ending was too vague. The ending made me disappointed. Radhika was shown strong since the beginning but in the end, it was different.
Another book named 'Girl in The Room 105,' is the
story is about Keshav and his love story. The story opens with Chetan Bhagat
travelling on a plane from Hyderabad to Delhi. Next to him seated is the guy
named Keshav Rajpurihot. They get introduced. In the beginning, Chetan Bhagat
gets weird about Keshav. Keshav, on the other hand, insists to tell the story
to the writer. But after an initial boring conversation, Chetan agrees to
listen to the story of Keshav.
Keshav
meets Zara when Keshav was about to leave IIT. Zara is a beautiful girl from
Kashmir. She's an engineering student at Delhi University and after that takes
admission to IIT Delhi for Ph.D. Keshav falls in love with her. He falls in
love when she was debating in college on the topic of religion. After the debate
competition, he contacts Zara and after that, they fell in love. Unfortunately,
their love story doesn’t last for long. It’s because Zara’s parents wanted
Keshav to accept their religion; i.e. Islam but he doesn’t agree and they have
to separate.
After
the breakup, he still loves her. He wasn’t able to forget her and wants her
back. But on 9th February, his life changes, Keshav receives WhatsApp message
from her and Keshav goes to the hostel to wish her in room number 105. He goes
with his best friend Saurabh. When he reaches into the room, he calls her many
times but she doesn’t respond but after he checks her pulse, he finds out her
death. He calls the police. What happens next? Who killed Zara?
I
loved the novel. It’s interesting to read the novel. Every character is best in
his/her own way. I loved the character of Keshav. I found his character cool,
crazy and fun. On the other hand, I loved the character of Saurabh. He was
wherever Keshav needs. When Keshav gave up on the investigations on Zara,
Saurabh insisted Keshav not to give up. Remaining characters like Raghu
and Faiz are good and are up to their level.
After
reading ‘Half Girlfriend’ and ‘One Indian Girl,’ I didn’t prefer reading his
novels but after watching the trailer of the novel, I couldn’t hold to read the
book so I brought the book. Chetan Bhagat had tried his best to come out from
his box. After a long period of time, he gave his best.
I
used to love his writing before but I don’t know he had to stop writing good
ones like before. ‘Five Point Someone,’ ‘2 States,’ and ‘3 Mistakes of My Life’
are his best books. After the success of those books or something else, he had
been repeating similar kinds of stories in his books. ‘Half Girlfriend’ and
‘One Indian Girl,’ story is not to the point and characters are baseless. How
can this be will be in the mind? For example, In the ‘Half Girlfriend,’ girl
gets lost and comebacks to Madhav’s life, Bill Gates meeting the main
characters are out of the sense. There is no logic on it. So, he needs to come
out from the commercial and light stories and should write serious novels now
rather than college life and love stories.
REFERENCES
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