This article got published on Tata World Book Review Section in August 2008. Chetan Bhagat is one author, who I love for his writings which has made book reading popular among masses.
The three mistakes of my life
August 04, 2008
Aditya Singh of Tata Power admires Chetan Bhagat’s unique style of storytelling, showcasing the everyday life in India and says that his new book makes for an excellent read
Chetan Bhagat has once again come out with a not-put-downable-before finishing book – third in his series and as before he has picked up a topic, which itself sets path for success of the book and makes him India’s most read English language author. Over the three books, he has written, he is slowly expanding his target audience as well. While the first book, “Five Point Someone” talked about IITs and their world, the second book expanded (and moved down the societal pyramid) to a call centre executive’s life in “One Night at the Call Centre”. In his present offering, “The three mistakes of my life”, he goes one step further down the pyramid, to the XII pass, lower middle class category, and in the process combines the three biggest passion of India – politics, religion and cricket, intricately woven in a story, wherein real life incidents like the Gujarat earthquake, the Godhra incident etc, are mentioned and thereby help the readers connect with the book. The hardliners would always keep saying that his writings are not literature. Agreed, his is not a classic English writing, yet he knows how to connect with his readers.
The book begins as a flashback story of a man on hospital bed after trying to commit suicide, from the time that this man and his two friends passed out from XII and tried to explore their career and life path, amongst the myriad lanes and maidans of Old Ahmedabad. The book nicely captures the entrepreneurial spirit of the Gujarati community, reflected through the struggle of the trio in setting up a business of their own, while not missing out on their passion that unites them – cricket. The book also brings forth other interesting aspects of Indian middle class – maths tuitions, love angles, bickerings between father and son related to career, etc. The book also gives a detailed account of the famous India Australia test match at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, and refresh the memories of all cricket loving readers. The patriotism factor has also been added very subtly, through a young character in the story, called Ali. His refusal of a better lifestyle in favour of “being Indian” always brings the factor out.
The book captures the mentality and reasoning of rioting mobs, in Post-Godhra scenario in Gujarat. However, rather than focusing more on exploring this option, the author suddenly turns to and spends more pages writing about kiddish ways of our three heroes fighting an angry mob of 40 people, to protect a small boy of a different faith, believing that the kid is a national treasure. The contradictions of right wing politics and secularism is just touched upon and left. It could have been brought out in slightly more detail. Another low point of the book is that although in last one-two pages, the author has tried to convert it into a happy ending, still the sad feeling, that the readers gather from the last quarter of the book, does not waver off and the reader ends the book with a heavy heart.
About the author, Shashi Tharoor has correctly observed, “his observer’s eyes keenly focus on nuances”. It is this ability of the author, that has ensured success of his earlier novels and I believe this book will also see similar, if not better success.
Title: The Three Mistakes of my lifeAuthor: Chetan BhagatPublisher: Rupa & Co.Pages: 257Price: Rs95
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