Known as "The guy who made all of India read", Chetan Bhagat is a master at understanding the common Indian's needs.
Now, I'm not one of those people who find pleasure in despising the man. To be honset, I've loved being hooked on to his novels for the simple reason of how much I could connect to it. Of his writing, Five Point Someone was definitely a brilliant book. And so was 2 states. One Night and Three Mistakes were kind of shaky, but well, you've got to give a man time to secure his footing!
And this year, the much awaited 5th book - Revolution 2020 hit the shops. My pre-ordered copy from Flipkart was awaiting me at home, when I came back for the vacations and it took me no more than a night's time to read through it.
And trust me, it will surprise you.
The book is no fancy outer space material. Nor is it delusional. Its crisp, precise and it covers tells a story that really comes "from the hindi heartland".
The story is told through the eyes of Gopal - an average Indian born and brought up in Varanasi, chasing his father's dream of having an Engineer for a son. Gopal's love interest Aarti is a typical next door Indian girl. They both instantly connect after their first encounter in the 5th standard and become best of friends. Raghav is the smart friend who grows up to defy the system and take to active journalism, inspite of getting an Engineering degree from IT-BHU.
On the other hand, Gopal's life takes a downhill as he fails to crack the JEEs for two consecutive years and then loses his father.
Against a backdrop of the most commonest of practices in India - corruption, he slowly starts giving into the great Indian political system, while Raghav's aggressive journalism starts to catch the public's eye.
The story revolves around the emotions of Love, Jealousy, Pride and Aarti plays the centrifugal force which keeps the story together. You need to read the rest to understand the simplistic beauty in the story. The ending, is as good as any.
Mustread if you want to spend 3 casual hours on a Sunday afternoon. 3/5.
Now, I'm not one of those people who find pleasure in despising the man. To be honset, I've loved being hooked on to his novels for the simple reason of how much I could connect to it. Of his writing, Five Point Someone was definitely a brilliant book. And so was 2 states. One Night and Three Mistakes were kind of shaky, but well, you've got to give a man time to secure his footing!
And this year, the much awaited 5th book - Revolution 2020 hit the shops. My pre-ordered copy from Flipkart was awaiting me at home, when I came back for the vacations and it took me no more than a night's time to read through it.
And trust me, it will surprise you.
The book is no fancy outer space material. Nor is it delusional. Its crisp, precise and it covers tells a story that really comes "from the hindi heartland".
The story is told through the eyes of Gopal - an average Indian born and brought up in Varanasi, chasing his father's dream of having an Engineer for a son. Gopal's love interest Aarti is a typical next door Indian girl. They both instantly connect after their first encounter in the 5th standard and become best of friends. Raghav is the smart friend who grows up to defy the system and take to active journalism, inspite of getting an Engineering degree from IT-BHU.
On the other hand, Gopal's life takes a downhill as he fails to crack the JEEs for two consecutive years and then loses his father.
Against a backdrop of the most commonest of practices in India - corruption, he slowly starts giving into the great Indian political system, while Raghav's aggressive journalism starts to catch the public's eye.
The story revolves around the emotions of Love, Jealousy, Pride and Aarti plays the centrifugal force which keeps the story together. You need to read the rest to understand the simplistic beauty in the story. The ending, is as good as any.
Mustread if you want to spend 3 casual hours on a Sunday afternoon. 3/5.
Interesting though I dont agree with your thoughts.. but I liked reading the different perspective about it...
ReplyDeleteShashi
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Oh, I'm sure there are different perspectives to it. The way I saw it, it didn't bore me! Most of the times, books tend to drag on with sub plots - sometimes at the expense of working on the subject - but I found R2020 doing quite well to stick to its storyline. :)
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