BOOK REVIEW : The three mistakes of my life

This is the third book by Chetan Bhagat.

I have never read fiction ever since the reading habit caught into me. Chetan's Five point someone (FPS) changed my habit by taking me back to my good old college days. With similar expectations I bought this book and I would say I am fairly happy with the book. The most interesting point about Chetan is the canvas he uses to paint the whole story. He used business, cricket and religion as a background in this book (similar to IIT in FPS).

The story starts with three friends Omi, Ishan and Govind belonging to lower middle class family in Ahmadabad. These folks are perceived as not-so-smart kind among the neighbourhood. With his passion towards building business Govind pulls in his buddies to start a shop, selling cricket accesories inside the temple's shopping complex owned by Omi's uncle. Ishaan (the local cricket buff) offers free coaching tips to customers, thereby creating a good reason for people to visit their shop. As the business grows they face multiple problems in form of Gujarat earth quake, Godra riots and local politics. Added to that author adds more spice by introducing the love story between Govind and Vidya (Ishaan's sister). As I am passionate about business, I just can't stop appreciating the Govind character. As every step he thinks like a typical businessman with a dream of building a big business. To start with, he "leverages" Ishaan's cricket expertise and Omi's contacts to setup the shop. Followed by that he creates a growth plan for the company by booking posh shop in forthcoming mall. In order to bring in more revenue he thinks of multiple product offerings thereby bringing in maths coaching and stationary selling into his shop.

The story then takes multiple turns with many events and characters. These folks find a 13 year old boy named Ali who is a naturally gifted cricket player. Ishan gives coaching for Ali to make him a national player. Luckily they get an opportunity to visit Australia and take part in cricket coaching camps for a week. Somehow the chapter about Australian visit doesn't fit well with the overall story and I found it boring to read thro' those chapters. Finally the story reaches the climax with post Godra riots, which affects these folks pretty badly. I don't want to write much details about it as it is not fair on my part.

Overall it is a pretty decent book for timepass.

Related post: Book review : Five point someone

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BOOK REVIEW : Games Indians Play (Guest post by Sai Madhav)

Image
This is a guest post by my friend Sai Madhav. I have been trying to pull him into blogging :) Title: Games Indians Play review Author: Raghunathan Vocabulary of the book: Very good I initially thought the book is about consumers–traders who try to maximize their rewards/returns in this pragmatic world. However, I realized soon, that the book is about social life in conjunction with psychology and philosophy. Raghunathan believes that we, the Indians, need self-regulation in the fist-place rather than regulation by external factors (i.e. law/government). He proved that behavioral economics, Game theory etc are nothing but the phenomenon we encounter in our daily lives, from which we fail to grab positive results.One interesting aspect which the author highlights is, Intelligence is not about quick returns but maximizing rewards by sustaining relationships. His analogy between Gita and Game theory is commendable. With the examples he quoted (about Indian politicians / executives / adm
Read more

My first post

For quiet some time I have been thinking of starting a blog. At last I am doing it today. I have named it "Kirukkal" which means "Scribble" in my mother toungue Tamil (A South Indian language).
Read more

Mohammed Yusuf - Noble price speech

Some time back I wrote a blog about ‘Muhammed Yuguf and Microcredit’ where I gave my perspective on the excellent work he has done. This December 10 th he received the Noble peace price for his revolutionary micro-credit implementation in Bangladesh . I got a chance to read his inspirational noble price speech, which is really wonderful. The total speech was very good and I personally liked the following points: On poverty: “World's income distribution gives a very telling story. Ninety four percent of the world income goes to 40 percent of the population while sixty percent of people live on only 6 per cent of world income. Half of the world population lives on two dollars a day. Over one billion people live on less than a dollar a day. This is no formula for peace. Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society. For building stable peace we must find ways to provide opportunitie
Read more