Book - 'The 3 Mistakes of my Life'

I recently bought Chetan Bhagat's third book 'The 3 Mistakes of my life'. The author is already a sensation in the Indian readers circle with both his earlier books being well received; they are also in the process of being adapted into Bollywood movies. The book's blurb claims that he has become the 'biggest-selling English-language novelist in India's history'!

Chetan Bhagat is no literary genius. However, he has a very interesting and humorous writing style that instantly strikes a chord with the Indian masses. The plots revolve around general topics that evince interest in the urban readers - college life, call centres, cricket and the like. Rupa & Co, the publisher has tactically priced all the 3 books at Rs.95 making them easily affordable for the middle class target audience.

And now here’s my take on the books. I would rank them in the same order as their publishing:

• The first book 'Five Point Someone' was just magical and mindblowing - recreating the typical college backbencher's story in a very humorous way.
  
• The second book 'One night at the call centre' did retain some of the freshness and creative writing style of the author, though it had an unrealistic plot towards the end – what with the ‘divine’ intervention and movie-plot like settling-the-score with the corporate bosses.
  
• This final book 'The 3 mistakes of my life' has a more serious story and touches upon some of the core issues in today's society, wherein the author presents a contemporary view of cricket, business and politics. However, the book largely misses the trademark humorous writing which we’ve come to expect from the author. This is tantamount to casting Jim Carrey in a serious plot with a tragic ending!

Missing the characteristic punch, the book was largely a lackadaisical read. The book also has a very filmi plot, probably a side-effect of the author getting into mainstream Bollywood screenplay writing! Here’s hoping that Chetan Bhagat’s future books revolve around his characteristic style of writing and recreate the freshness and magic seen in his first book.

Dawn of a new Sport!

Amongst all achievements of George W Bush during his tenure as the US President, the most ‘impactful’ & unforgettable one would definitely be his contribution towards conception of a brand new sport– yes, the fine art of ‘shoe-throwing’!! I’d say the credit entirely goes to Bush as opposed to Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi Journalist who can be conferred the distinction of being the first-ever participant!

It is hardly 2 months since its inception on 15 Dec 2008, and we’ve already had 2 more high profile games; the targets – Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the Israeli Ambassador Benny Dagan (in Sweden). Unlike other high-profile sports that have a gestation period before they reach the shores of India, this one has already arrived here; and the target - Kerala’s CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan (in Kerala)!

In an uncanny similarity, all the participant’s missiles have missed their respective targets. Apparently here are some ‘ground’ rules for this sport – a) participant must use something worn on the feet as a missile, (even a chappal would qualify), b) mouth a slogan for posterity, something that would ring-on even after the arrests are made. One must wait to see how this sport would evolve with time and how popular it would get. But the prospects sure look promising!

Slumdog Country ???

With the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' sweeping the Golden Globe awards and picking up 10 Oscar nominations, I walked in to watch this movie with high levels of curiosity (& some amount of pride) . But how disgusting an experience it turned out to be! In summary: Here's a British studio dishing out a movie for the global audience on the sorry state of affairs in a country that has nothing but poverty, filth, violence and lawlessness - what better choice than India??

Unlike popular assumption, this is not a rags-to-riches story. And it is definitely not the struggle of a great dream born in the slums. The story is of a boy perpetually in search of his girl and how his destiny ultimately 'takes' him to her. Everything else just forms part of the backdrop - slums & the accompaniment, and the millionaire TV show. It is quite obvious that global stereotyped image of India being a country of beggars and snake-charmers has been conveniently used and extended.

The director goes the whole hog to paint a grim picture of the country and in the process nothing is left out - impoverished state of the slums, riots and man-slaughter, horrendous exploitation of children, prostitution, systematic duping of foreign tourists, youth as gangsters and excesses by policemen. One cannot deny the existence of these vices, but this is just one of the faces of the society. The movie conveniently ignores or fails to focus on the other progressive areas. Perhaps, it was seen as hazardous to the storyline, background and global perception?

In this backdrop, all the recognition & awards world-over would only serve to worsen this. It would not just popularize the movie, but also strongly reinforce this negative stereotype. Its time we realized the damage being done?