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............

I had an opportunity to visit Dallas recently on business. I was there for a week, including a Sunday. I decided to check out downtown Dallas. It wasn't too great. Just a lot of buildings and not much else. Nobody on the streets to ask directions from, an isolated McD's here or there and a lot of asphalt... thats what it was. It is the 1st time I have ventured out to explore a city which has disappointed me so much. Anyway, there was one sight that i couldn't miss in Dallas. The Sixth Floor Museum. The fateful building from which Oswald alledgedly shot JFK. I had made up my mind to see it and was there promptly at 10:00 AM - when the museum opens.

Now, I was surprised to see the number of visitors there, more so because of the number of kids that were accompanying their parents. The museum is obviously on the 6th floor. It is an attempt to recreate the life and times of JFK. Lots of pictures, videos and an audio commentary of the events that marked that era. It was a nostalgic hour and a half. There were countless occassions when tears nearly welled up in my eyes. I was surprised. What prompted me to shed tears of mourning for a man who was the president of one of the most hipocritical nations on the planet and that too someone who has been dead for 45 years.

What did I know about JFK? Except for his famous saying "Ask not your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" and his hush hush affair with Marilyn Monroe, not much, I'm afraid. I remember my dad telling me that he remembered the death of Pandit Nehru. The tiny village that he belonged to came to a stand still when that happened. Even young boys who were left early from school, didn't play football - it was as if even they realised the enormity of what had happened. The world had one less ray of hope.

Seeing the videos of the day when JFK was killed, Isaw the same thing in the eyes of Americans. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Everytime a Gandhiji, a JFK, a Mother Teresa leave us, they leave a gap in the fibre of human site that we as an entire generation are incapable of bridging, yet another ray of hope extinguishing and spreading darkness over our future. These were not extraordinary people. These were ordinary human beings, with as many natural fallacies as you and me. It was just their efforts in rising above those fallacies and in doing so helping others to do the same that made them who they are. We as a generation, a species need to come together and fulfil the one dream that these few souls from different parts of the world saw for us, for our future, for our children - the dream of peace, co-existence and happiness.