Sunday, August 10, 2008

Three Mistakes

After a factual post, I thought it would be good to refresh all of us with a total time-pass post. This post would be more relevant to those people who have already read Chetan Bhagat's recent novel – Three Mistakes of My Life. For rest, it might be a spoiler (though, seriously there is nothing to spoil). Here, I'm trying to analogize three mistakes made by Govind (the protagonist of this novel) and three books by Chetan Bhagat here.

The first mistake of Govind was of taking risk in his business. Well, there was nothing like a mistake there; he was performing great and was doing that with not so risky bets. That time as well, he just bought a space in mall for his shop which was basically a risk taken on "anticipating the future trend". This was exactly the same thing done by Chetan Bhagat when he penned his first book; he just anticipated the future trend of Indian youth's growing interest in Indianized English fiction stuff. The only difference between Govind and Bhagat was that the Govind just proved to be not as lucky as his creator and faced the cruelty of an earthquake which shattered not only the mall but also his dreams. Bhagat on the other hand fortunately hit the gold with the success of his very first novel, though a rightly deserving one indeed.

The second mistake of Govind was a deliberate one though and it could have been avoided or handled in a better way. Anyone would agree on the fact that he should have dealt with Vidya thing more sophisticatedly and so is very true for Bhagat. He should have dealt with call center thing more sophisticatedly. Bhagat was right when he decided to capitalize on a contemporary idea but he should have framed the story in a much better manner by confiding with the demand of his readers and fans like me. Again in context of Govind, love is not a crime but he should have framed everything in different manner and should have tried to take Ishant and other stakeholders in confidence beforehand.

The third mistake of Govind was technically not a mistake; he was just playing safe by taking time to keep his life on the stake; actually anyone would. So was the case with Bhagat; he didn't want to write a pathetic novel but it just happened. Bhagat was basically taking a safe bet by including all the "hottest" discussion topics of Indian public like cricket, religion, politics, love, youth, and money. But he failed miserably because he missed the most important element of a fiction work – "good story" and Govind failed because he forgot the essence of life is not in living for oneself but in "living for others"

Lastly, but most importantly- Govind got a chance to make up for his mistake and he grabbed that opportunity to maximum. I hope, the same would happen with our Bhagat and he would make a strong comeback and would give Five Point Someone a worthy successor.

2 comments:

Quaintzy Patchez said...

That's right!

There's nothing better than FPS... i was disappointed by both the books, may be Chetan Bhagat spoiled us with his first blockbuster ;) heheh and seriously, the girls in his books, all of them are same. Frustrated kinds who want to get away from their life... maybe hee should now have a woman protagonist, but sure even shed be the frustoo kinds... *sigh*

Nice read, this one! and i do hope things will b better next time around!

abbwh!

Virtuso said...

I agree....
The earlier two novels by Bhagat had some content in them... Did his homework well regarding IIT and Call Center Lyfe But this time it seems he wasnt able to get in to the middle class entrepreneur boy's pants well :-(
Hope he don't repeat the same manifesto again .. If he does so he will be lyke David Dhawan of Novels wid the same Govinda as hero each tyme ...
Wat u say ??