The 3 mistakes of my life

I was lurking around this website of Chetan Bhagat and landed up reading the prologue here. Hence, I bought his latest book: The 3 mistakes of my life, cost Rs 95/-. Strand Bookstall offered 20% discount and I saved 20 bucks :) As I bought the book, few of my friends reserved the book for reading. Such is the popularity of CB.

I finished reading the third book by Chetan Bhagat. Unlike his two other juicy books: Five Point Someone and One Night at a Call Center, the book is all about three friends in the year 2000-02:

Govind: A person with a dream of becoming most successful businessman and a mathematics genius.

Ish: A cricket freak; school dropout and who could not stay longer at the military. He is disliked by his parents and considered to be fit for nothing by his father.

Omi: The son of a Hindu priest, always relies on his friends, Govind and Ish, for their opinions.

The story kicks off with Govind starting a small cricket shop inside temple premise. As the sale grows on, the trio: Govind offers maths tuition, Ish becomes a cricket coach and Omi looks after the shop. Ish has a younger sister who wants to take up entrance exams and Govind is forced to teach her maths for free. Ish finds a Muslim boy, Ali, who always scores a six in cricket and he wants to make the boy-a celebrity. Omi's maama(uncle) belongs to a Hindu political party and he is maama's obedient nephew who never argues or disagrees to his maama.

Mistake 1: Every person born dreams of being successful professional in his life. Even as a student, we dream of aiming high in education. The hero of the story, Govind, also wants to be a successful businessman and invests Rs One lakh for a shop in a newly built mall which is ruined by the Gujarat earthquake in 2001.

Mistake 2: He tutors Ish's younger sister Vidya reluctantly and falls in love with her.

Mistake 3: Ish is fond of young to-be-cricketer, Ali, who wrist was terribly wounded during the communal riots. Though, Govind saved the boy's life, his right hand wrist was hurt.

In the act of saving Ali's life, Omi and his uncle are killed.

Ish learns the fact of the bonding between his sister and his best friend. He is also angry over the fact that Ali's wrist was terribly hurt and Govind could have saved him from being hurt. Hence, he stops talking to his best friend for the next three years. Frustrated Govind attempts suicide but saved at a right time.

Though, Chetan tries his best to make the plot interesting, I found many flaws:

Why would anyone mail Chetan that he is going to end his life? Why wouldn't Govind instead maintain a personal diary and vent out his frustrations?

As an investor, who does not lose money, be it stock market or real estate. Profit or loss is the part of business. When Govind paid one lakh advance for the shop in the mall, didn't the owner of the mall have insurance???

During the year 2000-02, cell phones were hardly in use. Even incoming calls on mobiles were charged heavily. Pagers were widely in use. The exchange of sms between Vidya and Govind seems weird.

Ali is provided "free" maths tuitions and cricket couching as well. The trio sponsor Ali's visit to Goa and Australia to exhibit his skills with their expenses. Is that so easy to spend such huge amount on someone just because he is good at scoring sixes???

If a close friend stops talking, we may feel bad. But not that low that we decide to kill ourselves for such stupid reason.

With respect to vocabulary, you hardly find any good ones.

A complete cooked up story.

Can you find a single human being who has never committed a single mistake so far? We do mistakes with/without our knowledge, but does it mean we should crib over it rather than rectifying them?

As in his earlier book, One Night at a Call Center, the girl on the train narrates the story and wants Chetan to publish it. Why do the distressed ones narrate their sad stories only to Chetan?