Book Review
What a mistake!
The 3 mistakes of my life
By Chetan Bhagat
Price: Rs95; Pages: 258.
After Five point someone and One night @ a call center Chetan Bhagat is back with a bang once again... his third book three mistakes of my life is out on the stands, its like a bollywood masala film which has romance, action, drama , tragedy all packed in one to make it interesting and since the author Chetan Bhagat is well hyped and the book is smartly priced, no doubt the publishers will sell a lot of copies but is it a good read? Read on ...
The book starts in dramatic way as Chetan receives an email from Govind the protagonist of the book, who feels he has reached a dead end in his life and hence has consumed many sleeping pills. Bhagat tracks him down flies down to Gujarat and then starts the story of the three mistakes in govinds life.
The story focuses on the life of three friends as they turn entrepreneurs. Govind is business-oriented, Ishan sleeps and breathes only cricket. And Omi, is is ready to join his friends for almost everything that they are game for. So after wasting enough time, in their lives they reach the stage where they have to have a lakshya. A solution that works for all three of them is to start a sports shop..In the course of running a business, their lives take dramatic turns. And of course there are plots and sub plots going side by side.. one of them is Govinds love affair with Vidya , his best friend ish's sister.
Now everything is fine till friendship, love and business but like wind in an open desert. Bhagats story goes all over the place after this. Since its Gujarat, he wants to include references to the bhuj earthquake and also the godhra riots with the three friends being a part of all the tragic events. Now is this his last book that he decided to include everything that came to his mind? Could he not keep some of it for his next book? Too many twists and turns in one book took my mind away from it!
Now with all the tragedy and unfortunate events in their lives, and with a lot of blood and death over religion and politics the story reaches its end. Ishan finds out about his sister Vidya and his best friend Govinds love affair that was on behind his back for which he will never forgive the two. And thus Govind takes sleeping pills and decides to write to Chetan Bhagat out of all the people in the world!
I am being nice and lenient and am giving The 3 mistakes of my life a two star rating out of five. My first mistake was to pick up this book, second was to read it. And third one that I'm not going to make is recommending this book to you. Im slightly smarter than govind.
Total Comments: 17
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hello..
i completely agree with the idea that chetan bhagat needs to rethink his literary career.. he is extremely low brow and this i came to know after his very first book. am surprised ppl are still making the mistake of trying to read his books.. ...Reply
I found this novel in my local library. Having read chetan's 5point ,i was familiar with the writer. So i picked up this novel along with other few novels. The novel of course was a typical masala one . Had it been written in Hindi , it would have been sold at railway platforms , with discount on half of it's price. But English language , chentan's iit&iim combo plus his 2 previous novels made people's decision to pick it up easy.
After reading you feel as if you are coming out of theatre, watching om shanti om . That is feeling stupid. You think what am i doing, why am i reading such stuff? I read chetan's interview, he very well knew what he was doing. Its not his fault. He wrote like a banker. He tried to give us lots of fancy stuffs, but he forgot to mention the hidden cost.
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Chetan bhagat is all too hyped by his first two books but then this has gone over his head and he has come out with an utter spam reading which was a serious mistake. I mean this guy just spoils his books by giving a very unconnected climax. Even in call center GOD calls that was something larger than life but on the whole the book was cherry blossom so that was fine but this one is so demotivating.I mean the book starts on good note as to how all three characters are getting serious abt thier aims and working for it.Govind inculcates the habit of thrift among us but then all sham at the end.And why for god sake is chetan so obssessed with showing similar sex plays in his book which are not romantic but only time consuming.
Chetan I give you a one on five for this one. ...Reply
I beg to differ from the author. I liked the book.
The speciality of CB's book is that you can always associate dyourself with one of the characters. ...Reply
CB's The 3 mistakes of my life, should have included his mistake of writing this one as it has thrown down the entire image of the great author of austrick "Five Point Someone".... It resembles a masala hindi movie rather than a novel from such a profound author....
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