The 3 mistakes of my life

No, this is not a book review of Chetan Bhagat's latest. It is also not about the three mistakes of my life. But, it is certainly about the book.

As a common rule, a book is always better than its screen adaptations. Let me assure you that in this case, it will not be true. Chetan Bhagat has specialised the art of writing movies. When I read The 3 mistakes - I had Akshay Kumar, Tushar Kapoor and Vivek Oberoi playing the main characters and Vidya Balan playing the love interest. I even had all the supporting characters figured out. Some scenes were right out of a Karan Johar or Yash Chopra movie.

Mr.Bhagat is a pretty intelligent guy - being all IIM, IIT and all that. He has caught the pulse of the youth of urban India. Two days after his book was released, it was sold out. He claimes that he wants not to be the most admired writer in India but the most loved writer in India. He will certainly have that love for some time. The longevity of that love is what I seriously doubt. The youth today needs to be challenged. If we wanted a 3-hour entertainment with a box of popcorn, we would prefer to watch a Bollywood flick, not read a book. In a era where the urban youth is exposed to Jean Sasson, Kaled Hosseini, Paulo Coelho, John Grisham, Dan Brown and are being inspired by an earlier generation to read the Archer, Frosyth, Sheldon, Hailey, Cook etc. it is really doubtful how long would Mr. Bhagat be able to hold on to the imagination and interest of the youth.

The story of his book was interesting and it was well told, but it absolutely lacks any kind of depth. It can be compared to something like a Mills and Boons novel, a light flick and nothing more than that. Or maybe that is what Mr. Bhagat was aiming for and I just expected too much from him.

I had read "To kill a Mockingbird" and "Mayada" before reading The 3 mistakes. Needless to say I was extremely disappointed. Here were two books written almost 50 years apart and still had the same capacity to pull at one's heart and then there was the Indian book which also broached good thought provoking subjects like communal violence, lack of entreprenural support in India and the like, but in such a unthought provoking manner.

It is true that traditionally Indian fiction writers have been utterly unreadable. Its just been
Shobha De and Khushwant Singh and between the two of them, they could operate a xxx site. Other writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and Divakaruni are Indians who have been living for long years outside India. I haven't read either of them and hence can't comment on the style and quality of their writing. But, other than these far and between writers, India has a dearth of good fiction writers - writers who can depict our politics, our every day lives, our romances, our hamlets. Writers who can bring suspense and excitement into our lives.

Come on people, we are a country which produced the most truthful, powerful, psychologically valid and enduring book in the history of mankind - we produced "Mahabharatha". Now, as a country we are hell bent on calling a beautiful work of art, albeing fiction (purely my views) a religious text. The characters, their dreams, their hopes, their passions, their ideas, their actions, their quarrels, their enimities, their jealousies - all of them transcend generations and still remain the same. Except for scifi, it had everything. It was the 1st and last great Indian novel. Its been over 5000 years and we still haven't been able to match it.

Shame on us............