May 15, 2008 11:02 AM
1878 Views
*The Three Mistakes of My
Life*
Author: Chetan Bhagat
Release Date: 08th May
2008
Finally, the much awaited and anticipated
novel from the author of bestsellers like Five Point Someone and One Night @ the
call center released with much Fanfare on the 08th of May 2008. This
is the same day when the trailer of the movie ‘Hello’ too was released. No
prizes for guessing what book it is based on. Coming back to the book. I read in
the newspapers just a day before that the book was releasing on Thursday i.e.
tomorrow. Having already read the prior two books over and over, it was just
very obvious that I was waiting for this one too. Come Saturday and I arrived in
Mumbai for the weekend. The first thing I did in the morning was to call up the
crossword store at Inorbit mall and confirm whether the book was available or
not. I got an affirmative reply, a reason enough for me to rush with my
haversack to the store. I invited my friend too to accompany me to the store. We
reached the store at around 12pm and saw the title piled up at the entrance
itself. Almost everyone in the store had a copy of the book in their hand. I
grabbed mine and paid 95 bucks to the cashier. By the time I reached home, I had
already finished with the ten page prologue that set the tone of what the book
was about.
So what’s the book actually about? If we
want to summarize the whole content of the book in a handful of words then
business, money, calamities, riots, religious politics, protocol breaking love,
sex, obsession and to top it all cricket and friendship. The story revolves
around three friends Govind, Ish and Omi from different walks and ranks of life
with Ish and Omi having no particular aspirations. Govind is the one who wants
to make it the top in Business and for a support system includes his two friends
as partners to deal in something they have interest in, cricket stuff. What
follows in the lives of these three teenage guns is an epic journey where they
tackle situations like earthquakes, forbidden love, broken dreams, riots and
above all the togetherness in their friendship and how they sail through all
this. It also talks about Ish’s obsession of making a local cricket playing lad
a big cricketer and nurturing his god given gift and going all the way to make
this boy reach where he should and where he himself could possibly not. I don’t
think it’s a good idea to talk much about the book’s contents. Like Chetan’s
previous two, this too comes as a dark and witty novel that is in many ways
different in what you have read before. For firsts, it is not based in a
metropolitan city like Mumbai, Delhi etc but a comparatively small one like
Ahmedabad. Next it talks about something which runs in the blood of people of
Gujarat i.e. Business. It very cleverly
instills many of the real events like the Gujarat Earthquake, Godhra Riot and
others that this state has witnessed in the last 8 years. This book has the
potential of being a commercial potboiler because of the presence of all the
elements required to make one are available. It has the usual dose of whacky one
liners(less than the previous versions) and the inculcation of the main
protagonist involved in intimate moments and love making situations but as
against the other books this part has got more real estate here. Personally, I
feel the book is not as good as the previous ones from the same author but this
is only my perception. But the nevertheless it surely will keep you engrossed
and entertained during the whole tenure of your reading session. So get your
copy and enjoy the rollercoaster ride.
