R2020

It is the first ever book that I gave up on the 58th page, not because I was bored but I thought I could not take the suffering of Gopal anymore...

It is a flesh and blood story of 3 lives. It is not an "out-of-the-world" experience, but a very "present-right-inside-your-body" feeling that you will get as you read on. I bet everybody has seen glimpses of these characters in themselves and in some people around them. So have I. THAT is the very uniqueness of the book: we know it all, we have heard it all but we love to commemorate our very own simple lives through the pain-ride of these 3 people.

As I read on, there were multitudes of feelings and judgments racing through my mind. There was "guilt" as I recognized myself with Aarti in few places and few people with Gopal and Raghav("girls feel guilty about everything"!), "reparations" for damages already caused, lots of "nostalgia" on wasted days and feelings, "pain" from the memories of the lost innocence and childhood, "disturbance" from the amount of similarity with my own life. I was in an indecisive state throughout the period of my read as I was at one moment getting angry over one character and realising that it is not really her/his fault in the next. It is amazing how often we ourselves do such things without giving a second thought about how others might be affected by it. And now that we read it from a "4th person's" view, it becomes clear how naively CRUEL we are to some people, and how we don't even know it! "THAT" is the beauty of Chetan Bhagat's writing: you will see yourself in the book, you will grieve over your similar mistakes, you will feel you could not go on and live another moment if you were there, you will share the pain of Gopal at every step to the point of desperately wanting to reach out and rescue him if possible(at first) and despise him(later) for what he makes out of himself, you will have an uncontrolled urge of beating the shit out of Aarti for so sweetly and innocently killing a life, then realise that "there is no hero or villain in his book" just like your own life, and at last all your judgements will tumble down as each of the characters will finally reveal themselves. And you will be left awake at nights thinking over how are those characters feeling right now and what would you have done if in their shoes... ???

In support of Chetan Bhagat's own words and marvellous writing skills, and observing many people's opinions on the story, I would like to clarify an idea to most of his readers who even after finishing the book could not reach the right conclusion.

A special feature of the book is that Chetan Bhagat has clearly qualified the character of Gopal and Raghav by the end of the story but cleverly left out the part of Aarti for the reader to decide:

What was she thinking for so many years as she willingly befriended Gopal, knowing well that he was helplessly and emotionally dependent on her, and how could she suddenly hook up with Raghav knowing how it would crush Gopal's heart especiall when he was struggling alone for survival at such a far off place??? Then again when she noticed that Gopal was clearly avoiding her, trying to gather up his lonely life and forget her, she again pushed Gopal to be friends and meet up and seeped back into his life, knowing that Gopal would always love her and never be able to accept her as "just friends"??? So why did she act so kind when she knew she would finally hurt him??? Although at last CB showed how cutely she made up the birthday gift for Gopal, blinded by our judgements about her from the earlier part of the story we might be inclined to consider even that as tactics to make Gopal surrender himself to her- hook, line and sinker.

Though Gopal is the narrator, the key character is Aarti. But I find most people have labelled Aarti as "manipulative and selfish" even after finishing the book. Firstly I would give this disclaimer that do not be prejudiced against my opinion because I too am a girl. In fact wherever Aarti's behaviour has been mentioned as "confusing", in "Girlese", "irrelevant", "girls are the biggest topic changers in the world", "missed calls should have an user manual of its own", "boys have been born on earth only to listen to girls" and " why does she always say thighs like that ?", I simply found it so CUTE !!! :) I was not at all offended or disagreeing with the generalisation done on women because they are all so TRUE!! And if men on reading this despise Aarti because they have always known girls to be like this, women can start hating Gopal(for wasting what he got) or Raghav(for being cruel, selfish and immature) too. In fact I was really repulsed by Gopal due to his nagging and clingy nature which was very unmanly. All 3 characters threw away what they had at one point of their lives ; luckiest was Raghav who never regretted it, Aarti wanted to get it back but had to let it go as Gopal made his choice.

What I felt about Aarti is that she did what all people, irrespective of sex, would do! There are ample evidence in the story where you would realise that she didn't jump ships because of money or sex. She morally supported Rahgav even during his harder times knowing that he was giving up his lucrative job offer as an engineer and was excited for his victories even when he became destitute. Also she honestly loved Raghav as he asked Gopal to be kind to him even as she was breaking up with Raghav. I understand that these are the parts where boys find girls manipulative for keeping both options open (and also when Aarti forced Gopla to sit down at the Assi ghat and when she tried to brush up her old friendship at Rahgav's graduation party -- i found her manipulative and acting idiot too). But there are 2 things :

1. men in general have portrayed themselves so cheap in the context of love and sex that girls often don't expect men to hang on to them much after a rejection. The similar generalisation that "men are shallow" lead them to think that that is the very reason why a boy can propose to his female best friend and that men can easily fall in and out of love and not think over it twice.

2. when the person you love the most and want to marry puts his work on higher priority than you, to the extent of not calling and understanding his lover's problems as a girl and not even discussing marriage after about 5 years of affair, any girl's faith on her love is bound to quiver. And then any human would automatically look for someone else to harbour himself/herself after a setback, esp. when someone who loves you deeply is waiting right in front of you.

....And the victim remains a minute handful of boys who do not resemble the rest of their league from inside but have to carry the others' consequences throughout their lives, like Gopal.

My adjectives for the book:

Chetan Bhagat's power to narrate a full story with every minute detail included, creating a vivid picture story in the readers mind, the ability to engross the reader so much that he/she will forget food and sleep till it is finished( I stayed awake till 5 am to read it in 23 hrs span), maintain the same pace through every chapter not letting the story sag in between to keep you glued to every word of every page is just PRODIGIOUS, MARVELOUS, PHENOMENAL. His clever quips with words are so hilarious and touchy that the word that comes to my mind is EXCEEDING !!! And finally the way a story can touch your life is simply - "Chetan Bhagat Style".

It is by far the best book by CB. You will find blood, tears, agony, crushed feelings and mangled hearts strewn throughout the pages of the book. But you will not find anybody to blame, after all. The experience is just another step towards "Acceptance". It is the only book in my 22 years of live which made me cry at the end...