Mistakes, What mistakes?. Review on The Three Mistakes of My Life - Chetan Bhagat

So the hugely hyped third book of Chetan Bhagat is out. Here

is my take.

Plot: The story revolves around three friends Ish, Govind

and Omi. Ish is a cricket lover to the core, Omi the son of a priest who

doesn’t want to be one. And Govind is a math loving guy who wants to start his

own business. The three friends start a shop to sell sports goods, and it

works. Things seem to fine, Ish finds a young cricketer with a lot of talent

and some physical problems an decides to coach him, and Govind falls for Ish’s

sister(Typical Chetan again) until Govind, the lead protagonist starts

committing his famous “Three Mistakes”. And from there the story mainly deals

with Govind’s mistakes and how he recovers from them.

Writing style: Typical Chetan as expected, going from humour

to witty, funny to serious and dark. Well paced and very lucidly written, this

one is an easy read. The humour is much less than the earlier two novels, and

the reader only laughs a few times.

Language: Modern and colloquial, nothing new to mention.

Peppered with the slangs we can’t avoid hearing.

My view: Expected a lot from Chetan, but now I’m not quite

sure. Two of the three mistakes aren’t even proper mistakes. The first one was

unavoidable and the second one was sheer instinct. But its the second one that

brings the quality of the novel down to a critical point. I almost considered

putting the book down at that point. Chetan seems to be writing strictly for

Bollywood these days.

But the events mentioned here, like the Cricket matches, the

Ajodhya temple

issue and the subsequent riots as well

as the Gujrat earthquake have been depicted quite nicely. Chetan’s eye for

detail is as sharp as ever, and his descriptions realistic and understandable.

But character behavior does raise an issue, Govind specially seemed forced to

make all of his mistakes. And some of the parts are just plain unrealistic.

The final mention, this book makes you think about your life and the problems you'll face. Life will throw problems at you, and they'll often come in the guise of these "mistakes". You have noone to blame at those times but yourself. The only thing you can do is get up and try again. Don't forget that silver lining, that small spark of light, even when everything seems dark. Mistakes will happen, we just need to learn from them. No mistakes and we don't learn anything.

Final Cut: Not what the hype said, but an enjoyable read all

the same. The flaws

and good points balance each other. Definitely worth a read. Recommended.