Book review: "The 3 mistakes of my life"

After watching " 3 idiots" i was looking forward to read Chetan Bhagat's books. The movie is based on Chetan's "Five point someone". So i picked up his third book " The 3 mistakes of my life" with great expectations. It's got all the ingredients to resonate with indian readers: cricket, religion, racial violence, pinch of patriotism, young romance. Chetan plays himself in the book, a writer cum investment banker based in Singapore.

The story starts well... Chetan gets an anonymous email from one of his readers saying he's going to commit suicide: "I am an ordinary boy in Ahmedabad who read your books. I can't really tell anyone what i am doing to myself - which is taking a sleeping pill every time i end a sentence - so i thought i would tell you...." Chetan manages to track down Govind Patel, who wrote the email, at an hospital in Ahmedabad and flies down to India to meet him. The rest of the book is in Govind's narration about his two friends Ishan and Omi, their sports shop " Team India", Ishan's sister Vidya, a young muslim cricket protege Ali and of course, the 3 mistakes of Govind's life.

I am not a book critic and my views are merely of an ordinary reader. I did not find the book gripping except for few brilliant passages here and there. It seemed to be a concoction of too many things, trying to connect all possible aspects of modern India in one story. The writing style isn't free flowing and seamless, rather like a montage of incidents.

Like "Five point someone" this book too is soon going to be a movie and i think, with the right actors, it'll make a better movie than a book. Chetan's writing seemed more apt for a screen play, than a book.So i am probably not picking up another Chetan Bhagat book, rather i will stick to watching the movie adaptation of his stories.