Five Point Someone : Book Review

     What actually got me to this book was the hype around it. The book was released in 2004 and remained as the bestseller till 2007. That was enough for me to grab a copy and start reading. May be I m very late in reading the book. I should admit that, to quite an extent, the book lived up to my expectation. Chetan Bhagat (IIT+IIM), the author, has the ability to narrate the story in a very lucid manner. The book has around 270 pages and can be completed within half a day. And once you start reading this book, I m sure you will not stop until you finish – all at one go J

 

     The story is that of three friends who join for Mechanical Engineering at IIT, Delhi. Hari is the narrator of the story. He often finds Viva terrible and lands up in soup as he is not able to answer the questions in spite of knowing the correct answers. He falls in love with Neha, the daughter of HOD of Mechanical Dept. Ryan is a tall, handsome and smart guy who hates mugging. He is innovative in nature. He often comes up with new designs in class but is pushed to follow the conventional designs by the professors. He gradually starts hating professors and stops attending classes. Then there is Alok, who comes from a very poor financial background. He aspires to become an artist, but then decides to study hard and join IIT so that he can get a good job in future and support his family. His father is not well and is undergoing treatment for paralysis and his mother is the only earning member.

 

     Ryan, who finds IIT curriculum uninteresting, decides to break the whole system. He finds it useless to mug up five to six courses a semester. He comes up with new strategy – Co-operate to Dominate. Hari and Alok become followers of Ryan and soon they start spending most of their time boozing, fagging and watching movies. When things go out of control, they decide to steal the question paper from HOD’s room and end up getting caught. Their life is in a total mess now. How do they come out of that situation? That’s the climax of the story.

 

     The title ‘Five Point Someone’ indicates the relative grading system in IITs. Five pointers are the worst performers in the class and are generally ignored by all the professors. The incidents, the characters, the plot everything is described very well. The book explains ‘What not to do at IIT’. Ironically you will find those ‘not to do’ things interesting. Overall it was a nice read. I am looking forward to read ‘The 3 mistakes of my life’.

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