Not My Mistake

I am not a very passionate reader. You may not consider reading as an activity involving a lot of passion but the book that I finished today said that everything is born out of passion. "The 3 mistakes of my life" by Chetan Bhagat. Oh don't get surprised, I know I am a bit late or should I say, too late, and probably the last one to review this book, but, hey, I already told you...reading has never been my piece of cake.

The Software Testing lecture in the class really tests your patience especially when you have nothing beneath your desk. Moreover it feels like a moron to gaze at the slides with your sleep deprived eyes when rest of the people are pursuing their much loved activity, reading novels or some other pursuing their dreams, I mean literally. Normally I carry my copy of Pune Times to the class hidden under my notebook pages to kill my boredom and sharpen my Sudoku skills. But these mind games consume a huge fraction of your brain which you intended to save by not paying attention to the professor. Thus the whole purpose gets defeated. The guilt of sitting idle during the class pushed me to find my solace in some other activity. My benchmate, Shweta, had just finished this book and the feedback was not discouraging. "Worth one time read". This comment was enough for me, as I cannot think of re-reading any book however promising it may be.

Although I have not read Mr. Bhagat's previous two works, I am pretty familiar with their plots. Thanks to the movie "Hello - a night @ the call center", I would never dare to open his second book even if given the original copy free of cost. Five point someone, the first one; the credit for my familiarity with this book goes to one of my then roommates. I remember how she loved to read it and narrate a few catching paragraphs to us. Fascinated by her enthusiasm, sometimes in her absence, I used to flip across a few pages and read them in a single breath. I lacked enough of those to complete the entire book though.

According to me a good book is one which keeps you hooked until you finish it and this book certainly passes this definition, at least in my own case. I finished it, in 9 hrs flat. It was entertaining enough to keep me away from my laptop for a while, which I should tell you, is a rare scene. A big accomplishment for the book, I must say! Though there is nothing much remarkable about the writing style, simple text that does not require you to struggle with words, written with a hint of humor makes it a perfect read. The love story running parallel gives it a romantic flavor. Indian context makes it for us simple to relate to the story. Some portions may appear to run slow but the book soon catches up its speed. No major halts. Some parts appear too good to be true, for e.g. The easy trip to Australia. In all, the book is an overcooked khichadi of ambition, celebration, passion, friendship, love, loss, hatred, regret. The ending is a li'l weak and looses its appeal as the climax goes unrealistic and borrows from typical Bollywood flicks. The story brings smile anyways when it ends on a cheerful note. In all, I can promise that reading this book will not come out to you as your mistake.

The story revolves around three friends, Govind, Ish and Omi. Govind is an ambitious boy who dreams to make it big in the business world. He has one more passion, maths. He is too good in this subject and is well known in his locality for hitting a 100 in XII boards. For Ish, cricket is his one and only love. He loves watching matches as much as playing them himself and he has the prestigious tag of district level player attached to his identity. Omi is the son of a temple priest and he is willing to do anything but take up his dad's profession. Basically three youths whose dreams are caged by lack of resources and money in the small town called Ahmadabad. Govind, our protagonist, one day decides to step into the most coveted profession of Gujarati's, Business. He realizes that he cannot afford everything by himself, so convinces his too best friends to be partners in this venture. Sports equipment sellers in the temple premises - thus it combined the interests of all three of them. They put their sweat as well as their brains in their business. Their hard work had just started to pay off, when calamity hit upon them. Their newly leased shop turned into pile of rubbles in front of their eyes when the 26th Jan earthquake rocked the state. They incurred huge losses. But Govind's newly formed faith in God helped him overcome the greatest misery of his life…and soon they saw a sunny day. Apart from running the shop, they had taken up other jobs to add to their earnings. For example Ish used to provide cricket coaching to budding cricketers of the neighborhood. Omi used to help his uncle, a politics enthusiast in organizing rallies and publicity for elections. Govind had a part time job of a maths tutor. The story proceeds as Ish spots a future Team India player in a 10 year old called Ali. He wants him to get him the best coaching as Ali is born with a natural gift- the gift of hyper reflexes, which makes him hit a six every time he picks a bat. Ish could do anything to get the wonder boy noticed. He even digs his pocket deep to take him along with his two business partners to Australia to test the boy's luck. Everything was going fine when love for motherland comes into picture and Ali refuses to play for the Australian team in lieu of the cricket scholarship. Ish too was proud of his boy's decision. Back home, Omi's mama, whose shop Govind and Co. were using for their business, starts preparing for the forthcoming elections, their main issue being the Ramjanmabhoomi strife in Ayodhya. Mama never liked the idea of Ish tutoring Ali, reason one, he being a Muslim boy and two, he being the son of the leader of their rival party. Trouble starts brewing with Mama's 14 year old son gets killed along with fifty others when the S6 bogie of Sabarmati Express is set ablaze in Godhra. Bittoo Mama, blinded by the thirst to take revenge, sets on to slaughter every single Muslim he encounters in the neighborhood. His thirst did not quench even after his own nephew Omi, gets killed by his own hands in an attempt to save Ali, from his wrath. Ish and Govind emerge as heroes in the whole fiasco. They endangered their lives to save life of the kid and they put an end to Mama's cruelties. The climax has one more angle, the friendship of Ish and Govind gets bitter when Ish discovers that Govind in the name of providing tutions to his sister Vidya, has broken the most important protocol of friendship- Never date your best friend's sister.

Happy Ending...

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