Book Review: Chetan Bhagat’s Novel - Three Mistakes of My life

Chetan Bhagat is one among the top-notch authors of modern India. He is viewed as Youth Icon and writes about especially youngsters – their worries, anxieties, hardships and aspirations. His novels are extensively read by youth as he conveys some sort of solutions to their problems in his writings.”3 mistakes of my life” is his third novel published in May 2008 and was sold more than two lakhs copies in number. The novel is woven around three friends namely – Ishaan, Omi and Govind Patel. The different themes that are handled in the novel are – religion, cricket, romance, business, nationalism and aspiration. The story is presented through one of the Protagonists Govind’s eye who had sent a suicidal email to the author Chetan Bhagat. Puzzled and disturbed by this email, the author resolves to rush to see Govind in his home tow
Ahmedabad in a hospital. It is in the hospital, Bhagat listens to Govind and what made him to commit suicide. The latter refuses to share his story initially and later convinces to express as the author insists him and starts listening to Govind attentively. The central character Govind’s dream is he wishes to open a sports shop in the Swamibhakti temple. He even offers Maths tuitions as he is a Mathematical genius. He aspires to become a successful businessman and tries his level best to support his mother in financial matters as his had left them long ago. Ishaan is portrayed a failure in his studies but obviously, an exceptional cricketer who loves the game extremely. For him Cricket is passion and he can do anything for the sake of that game. It’s Ishaan who notices an astonishing ability in a lad named Ali, who can smash almost every ball for a six. Ishaan decides to offer Cricket coaching to Ali as he possess amazing talent that can bring laurels to the whole nation. The other important character in the trio is Omi who is the son of a Hindu Priest. He doesn’t have any inclination of becoming a priest and loves the company of his friends. He even sacrifices his life to save the life of Ali in the climax when some agitators want to kill him because of communal riots in the town. Chetan arouses curiosity throughout the novel about the three mistakes of Govind. Invested a sum of one lakh rupees further to enlarge their business in a new mall but lamentably is ruined by an expected earthquake and second mistake is falling in love with Ishaan’s sister Vidya while offering Maths tuitions to her. The last one is a split-second delay in saving the life of the lad Ali from the hit. Candidly speaking these are not really considered big mistakes at all by most of us. The content of humour is less in the novel. But it has got all the qualities in it and the reader may not be disappointed if he reads it. The book is surely worth of reading.