Review: The 3 mistakes of my life

Chetan Bhagat, who the New York Times believes is India's best selling English novelist today, has released his third book, "The 3 Mistakes of My Life".

If Chetan Bhagat is India's best selling English novelist, I really wonder what other books Indians are reading, and for some reason it doesn't give me much to cheer about.

Now let's leave that aside and come to the book itself. First off, calling anything a spoiler in a CB book is an insult to the word spoiler because frankly, there is very little unpredictable in his books. But for the convenience of those who would not like me to "spoil the story", I'm putting the customary disclaimer.

** Mild spoilers begin **

The subtitle would have you believe that it is "A story about business, cricket and religion". Interesting combination, I thought as I picked up the book. Three hours and 258 pages later, I'm a bit wiser.

This story, to put it in a nutshell (and the space of a nutshell is all that is required to hold this story) is about three good friends and the girlfriend of the protagonist. Now, where have we heard that before? Did I just hear a voice saying "Five Point Someone"?

Now for the friends themselves. Loser-boy Alok from FPS turns into loser-boy Omi. The "hero" of the story, Govind is Hari Ver 2.0. And coincidence of coincidences, cool passionate nuts-and-bolts dude Ryan, the guy who doesn't get along with his parents, becomes cool passionate nuts-and-bolts dude Ish, the guy who doesn't get along with his parents. The last one had me flummoxed, because last time I heard, "Ish" was that annoying word Ash liked to use in that movie lemon, Devdas.

Just in case people started wondering if Bhagat had done a direct Ctrl-C Ctrl-V from FPS, the author pulls out the biggest innovative surprise of his career - namely, the girlfriend Neha, daughter of Cherian becomes the girlfriend Vidya, sister of Ish. Another innovation, loser-boy Alok, who had the slightly redeeming quality of being good with bookish knowledge, now loses that too in the transfomation to Omi, transferring it to Govind.

** Mild spoilers end **

Omi, Govind (the protagonist) and Ish are three 20-somethings in Ahmedabad, trying to start a business of their own. Govind, the guy who loves business and anything to do with numbers, is the mastermind behind the operation to start a cricket shop. Ish happens to be an ex-district level cricket player, which lends him an "expert advisor" status to the kids visiting the shop. Omi, an idiot (Govind's words) chips in with his only contribution - his family owns the temple in whose premises the shop opens. You can read the official synopsis here

So in case you were wondering where the tagline of "business, cricket and religion" came in, its because they run a cricket shop cum coaching business in temple premises.

When the tagline says "religion" and is set in Gujarat, you know its going to mention the riots. Indeed, the riots play in important part in the novel. But they are presented with such naivete that you begin to wonder whether CB has even done a cursory scanning of the newspapers.

Tackling a subject like the communal divide in India is not easy. All the more reason to take it seriously and not trivialise it like CB seems to have done. The characters involved in the religious turmoil are as unidimensional as it is possible to be.

The most ridiculous part is when he refers to a "secular party" and "communal party." OK, I know there can be legal issues when referring to actual parties in fiction, but calling them like this is so simplistic it makes me cringe. You can always give parties names or symbols. Of course, CB is nothing if not mind-numbingly simplistic. So we get a dose of the same old BJP-is-evil-Congress-is-angelic story that is repeated ad nauseam in the media.

Somewhere, CB does realise he is getting too one-sided and gives what he thinks is a more centrist view, but its obvious that he is out of his depth when discussing religion and politics, the same way he was out of his depth when dishing out his homemade (and undercooked) philosophy in his last outing, ON@TCC.

When FPS came out, people were quite impressed with the story and with a certain freshness that CB brought to the table. After his second novel, that gigantic lemon called One Night @ the Call Centre, perhaps CB thought that he better move to safer territory and try to redo the FPS formula.

The trouble is, the FPS formula worked because FPS was a college story. It would have worked for any college story or for a story of 20-somethings with rich dads. But not for middle-class 20-somethings who work two jobs to make ends meet. Just because a bikini-clad "size-zero" (I suppose it goes well with her IQ) Kareena Kapoor became the talk of the town, doesn't mean clothing Nirupa Roy in those clothes would have worked. Same problem here.

Maybe that's why the bindaas humor, which was the greatest strength of FPS, is missing here. It just doesn't go very well with the context. When he does indulge in it though, the jokes seem like they're getting tired of being told over and over again.

There is a serious problem of writers block when 4 years after his debut, an author publishes a book that seems entirely like a plagiarised version of his first novel. Indeed, if it didn't have CB's name on it, I would have thought it was a cheap imitation, much like Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag was to Sholay.

Chetan Bhagat, with this novel has made the second biggest mistake of his life (ON@TCC being the first). Perhaps he should leave aside the serious stuff like philosophy and really go back to the basics of the FPS formula.

Back to the drawing board, boy.