B O O K W O R M
The 3 mistakes of my lifeBy Chetan Bhagat
Price: Rs95; Pages: 258
Rupa Books
What strikes you first about Chetan Bhagat’s novels is the fact that this author writes about Indians and for Indians. His characters are young, ambitious and passionate and have the same moral, social and religious dilemmas as many of the young Indians today. At the same time their context and sensibility too is unabashedly Indian. The new and the third Bhagat book, “The3 mistakes of my life”, has all these qualities.
The setting is the city of Ahmedabad that though being urban is yet not as metropolitan as many of its metro counterparts. It retains its small town flavour in pols (colonies), traditional Indian households and small vegetarian joints. It has the protagonist Govind with his passion and acumen for accounts and business, it has Ishan for whom cricket is the element around which his life revolves and it has Omi, a priest’s son and a loyal friend who is game for anything that his friends are game for.
The book is based on real life events. It begins in a dramatic enough fashion with Bhagat receiving an e-mail from Govind who had taken many sleeping pills and was writing to him while waiting for the deadly sleep’s embrace. Chetan’s was shook enough by the incident to track the boy down to Ahmedabad hospital. Fortunately he was still alive to tell the tale. The book is loosely based on the three mistakes Govind made in his life.
What follows is a mix of cricket, religion, business, love and friendship. Govind sets up a sport shop along with his friends in the temple compound with Omi’s family’s help. The shop prospers as Ishan coaches young boys in cricket and Govind teaches maths to Ishan’s sister Vidya who also captures his heart. Ishan then meets Ali, a child master with hyper reflex condition that makes him hit each ball for a six. Ali becomes the talent Ishan never had and Ali’s destiny becomes his own.
Enter Omi’s Bitoo mama, a communal party man bent on converting the young into fighters in the name of Hinduism. Situations come to a head and Ahmedabad burns in riot fires. Omi dies saving Ali and Ishan finds out about Vidya and Govind, a betrayal he does not forgive. These events lead Govind to his death-bed and that is when he writes the email to Bhagat.
Perhaps, this is the biggest compliment an author can receive. Its not when New York Times describes as you the biggest selling English language author in the country and not when you have sold more than two million books but it is definitely when someone chooses to remember him in his last minutes. After all, the purpose of all writing is to touch someone’s heart. And Bhagat seems to have done just that.
“The 3 mistakes of my life” is written simply and has the quality that makes one want to read the book cover to cover in one sitting. The pricing of the book is just right for his target audience. At Rs95, this book is indeed value for money and time. Bhagat’s other book, One night at the rate of call centre is already being made into a Bollywood multi-starer. This book too has all the masala, emotion and pace to become a potential blockbuster.
