Book Review : 2 States (The story of my marriage)

Love marriages around the world are simple:

Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy.
They get married.  

In India, there are a few more steps:  

Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy. 
Girl’s family has to love boy. Boy’s family has to love girl. 
Girl’s Family has to love Boy’s Family. Boy’s family has to love girl’s family.
Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married.

Each of the steps above is more difficult than the previous one. And that is what this book is all about. Many would say step 1 in itself is too difficult, let alone the other steps. The story is that of Krish and Ananaya who meet up at IIMA, fall in love and want to get married. Step 1 is complete. Now all the challenges in their life start. Krish is a Punjabi whereas Ananya is a Tamilian. So there is a hug task in front of them – to gel into the families of their to be in-laws and to unite two culturally different families. The story nicely explains the North Indian – South Indian cultural divide.

 Well the price of the book is Rs.95. The same as that of ‘Five Point Someone’. In the last book ‘The Three mistakes of my life’ Chetan had talked how difficult was it to maintain the same price. Surprisingly the price has remained same even for this book. I really appreciate him for that. It ensures it doesn’t burn a hole in the pockets of a middle class Indian.

 And BTW this book is dedicated to his in-laws, which according to him may be the first time in the history of the books. The statement comes with an asterisk saying ‘which does not mean I am henpecked, under her thumb or not man enough’. Now what is that suppose to mean ?J. Also in initial acknowledgements page Chetan says ‘I would also like to tell all South Indians I love them’ which can be read as ‘be ready, you are the butt of all jokes in this book’

I liked the narration. Its soft and decent. Again like other Chetan Bhagat books, this one will get you glued till the end. I would say this book is better than his previous two. Its enjoyable and practical. If you are working in a MNC, then you would be able to connect well with the Krish’s office life – the way he clears his interview faking himself… hyping team names eg. CSC-Consert Steering Committee… meetings ending with no conclusions… and when the stocks crash and clients lose money instead of admitting the mistake, claiming that the stocks  are in ’self correction mode’. That was too good. There are a few funny lines in the beginnig but as the story moves it gets serious. I am not going to reveal any story. Its worth reading once.

Book Review : The 3 mistakes of my life

    Oops! I did a mistake by reading this book. That was my nth mistake in life (Of course n being a positive integer and much greater than 0). Okay! Jokes apart, this is the third book by Chetan Bhagat, who is back to India now and has dedicated the book ‘to the country, which called him back’.

 

    The 3 mistakes of my life is a story of three best friends (sounds familier isn’t it?) based in Ahmedabad. Govind is the narrator of the story. He is a born businessman and dreams of owning a big business someday. He is in love with Vidhya, who happens to be the sister of one of his best friend Ishaan. Ishaan is very passionate guy who loves cricket. He was the best cricket player in his school and aspired to be in Indian Cricket team. But he performs badly in the selections and thus ends up getting rejected. His parents want him to join Army, which he hates. Govind’s other friend is Omi, who is the son of a priest of a local temple. Omi doesn’t know what to do in his life, but he doesn’t want to continue his father’s profession. So he sticks around with his friends. Then there is Ali, a young boy who is a gifted cricketer, but is more interested in playing marbles. Ishaan spots him and starts coaching him with a hope to see him in Indian Cricket team one day.

 

     The book starts very well giving a detailed description of each character. Chetan’s style of narration has definitely improved since his first book FPS . Half way through the book, it gets dull, and at the end the climax part sucks. Lot of communal violence is brought in, and it was really a pain reading the final few chapters. I hope Chetan comes up with science fiction novels in future.

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’.