Sunday, December 21, 2008

Bhagat-ism et al

A few minutes past 1 PM by my laptop clock… Has been a couple of hours since I left home… bus to Delhi from where I shall board for the city of joy… Kaivu, amongst others in my mind, who wept while bidding me adieu… Donno when I will meet him next, maybe at my wedding along with his mami… the kid screaming at the seat behind me reminds me of his laughter… thought of sleeping but his laughter comfortably made his way into my day-dreams too… so finished my last chapters of "The three mistakes of my life" to divert my thoughts… bus stops at a Dhaba… everybody stoops for a tea and smoke… I go for a beer… back in the bus to Delhi… To keep all emotions out of my mind, I write on Chetan Bhagat…

Love him or hate him, you can never ignore him. I have never been a big fan of Chetan. His style of writing is one of the worst ones for a freak like me who prefers Shakespeare to Sheldon on any given day. But I am surprised with myself on how I find something good in everything that I come across and tend to ignore those I do not like.

Yes! What might be surprising to most of my friends and critics, I really liked the book. The book, as expected, aimed to be a "commercial" success and facts say, that it has really achieved what it was meant for. Bhagat's books really touch you where you want to be touched. Bhagat selects his niche, and writes for them. I have been an IIT-ian, been the best of friends with people working in a call center, been an appreciator of Gujarat as a state as well as cricket as a sport, and I am really appalled at how an i-Banker not staying in India has been really close to the situation to write on the topic. Bhagat definitely chooses a theme that has an appeal – T3MOML is no different.

I hate reading books and watching movies that contain slangs (especially the 4-lettered words). They are not "Literature" and books that are not a part of "Literature" come in the domain of "Trash". Five point someone, One Night @ The Call Center and The 3 Mistakes of my Life; all come in the latter one. But the way that Bhagat presents his themes is really appreciable. Bhagat exactly reciprocates the mind of the characters that should have been there, doing that. The state of mind of an amateur businessman, an NDA dropout and a priest's son has been perfectly described in the text.

Being a quizzard by passion and a testing resource by profession, I always tend to find out mistakes in texts that I read and statements that I (over)hear. Thankfully, I have enjoyed my failure in this book. I wiki-ed on the chronology of events – The Bhuj earthquake, the India-England Test Series, The India-Australia Test Series and everything fitted well. The incidents of Babari Masjid, rule of the "Suck-ular" party (in Omi's words), facts about cricket have perfectly suited the timeframe that has been mentioned. In all my senses (One beer does not change your thought process), I will definitely rate it as a "must-read" for anybody who has a lot of time over the weekend or travels a lot. People who have other things to keep them busy can happily ignore this book.

2 comments:

Jaydeep R Panse said...

I like your way of expressing your opinion on your kind of books .. more so authors. However don't you think using colloquial style of writing (using the four lettered word for example), is more hard hitting and appealing to the common man, and is probably one of the reasons why Bhagat was such a success in a short span of time!

Sojo Varughese said...

I do not agree with that way you wrote off Bhagat. I have explained my disagreement on my blog, as the comment space was not sufficient to express what I had to. http://pagedin.blogspot.com/2009/11/shakespeare-and-bhagat-what-is-real.html