heman
14-04-2005, 09:52 AM
"Five Point Someone" is the latest buzz in IIT campuses. Authored by Chetan Bhagat, alumnus IIT Delhi, the book is about three friends living in IIT Delhi who are up against all odds only because they manage to screw up themselves in academics. Since the whole story is based on IIT life, the book naturally became very popular in the IITs as well as among other readers.
The thrust of the book is the strenuous IIT life - how the three students have to face the tough competition. It covers most of the aspects of IIT life - ragging, copying assignments, torture by sadist professors, wooing girls and so on. The first half is concentrated around IIT campus life. The guys enter the institute, then they have to face ragging sessions, endless assignments, quizzes, semester exams, and then the most dreaded thing - the GPA (Grade Point Average) - and all the three characters end up with measely five points. Next comes the love affair, and after that the drama starts. The 'uncertainity' factor in this drama is the most important aspect. And this is what makes the readers hook on to the book.
However, the plot of the story is evidently artificial. The author himself mentions in the preface that this work is a piece of fiction. And therefore the events in the story appear quite chimerical. Three students breaking into a professor's house, a student making love with the professor's daughter in his very house, their attempt to leak an examination paper, and completing their degree in time even after a semester drop - all this might appear like a fairy tale but certainly, in no way, probable. The story is more like a typical bollywood script with all masalas of a third grade movie.
If the climax in the story is the strength of the book, the anti-climax part is what disappoints the most. The ending is quite pathetic. Atleast after all those 'fairytale' dramas the author could have given a poetic ending, but even that is lacking. The last chapter titled, "Five point someone" , is quite lacklusture after the breathtaking sequence of events in the previous chapters. Perhaps, in an attempt to give a more realsitic appearance to the whole plot, the author thought of such an ending. In reality, he only ends up in messing up with the whole script.
Moreover, the book presents a bleak picture of IITs - that it is a place where only nerds can survive, there is no scope for fun loving guys there, the GPA is the ultimate thing, no productive things can be done and so on and so forth.
So if you want to have another rendezevous with those bollywood type scripts, you can afford to waste your valuable 4 hrs of time and 85 bucks. After all the story is not so bad - certainly for neutral readers it will be an interesting one. But if you are looking for something of the 'IIT spirit' hidden somewhere in the midst of the script, forget it - this one is certainly not for you.
The thrust of the book is the strenuous IIT life - how the three students have to face the tough competition. It covers most of the aspects of IIT life - ragging, copying assignments, torture by sadist professors, wooing girls and so on. The first half is concentrated around IIT campus life. The guys enter the institute, then they have to face ragging sessions, endless assignments, quizzes, semester exams, and then the most dreaded thing - the GPA (Grade Point Average) - and all the three characters end up with measely five points. Next comes the love affair, and after that the drama starts. The 'uncertainity' factor in this drama is the most important aspect. And this is what makes the readers hook on to the book.
However, the plot of the story is evidently artificial. The author himself mentions in the preface that this work is a piece of fiction. And therefore the events in the story appear quite chimerical. Three students breaking into a professor's house, a student making love with the professor's daughter in his very house, their attempt to leak an examination paper, and completing their degree in time even after a semester drop - all this might appear like a fairy tale but certainly, in no way, probable. The story is more like a typical bollywood script with all masalas of a third grade movie.
If the climax in the story is the strength of the book, the anti-climax part is what disappoints the most. The ending is quite pathetic. Atleast after all those 'fairytale' dramas the author could have given a poetic ending, but even that is lacking. The last chapter titled, "Five point someone" , is quite lacklusture after the breathtaking sequence of events in the previous chapters. Perhaps, in an attempt to give a more realsitic appearance to the whole plot, the author thought of such an ending. In reality, he only ends up in messing up with the whole script.
Moreover, the book presents a bleak picture of IITs - that it is a place where only nerds can survive, there is no scope for fun loving guys there, the GPA is the ultimate thing, no productive things can be done and so on and so forth.
So if you want to have another rendezevous with those bollywood type scripts, you can afford to waste your valuable 4 hrs of time and 85 bucks. After all the story is not so bad - certainly for neutral readers it will be an interesting one. But if you are looking for something of the 'IIT spirit' hidden somewhere in the midst of the script, forget it - this one is certainly not for you.