With The Fungus Gone.

Over the past few years I have mostly read  indian authors and rarely any fiction.The notable exceptions being The Brave New World and Les Miserables.I remember  reviewing Five Point Someone by Bhagat in my Professional Communication class in first year .The only reason I  chose that topic being, to play to the gallery.After all some fifty odd guys who either loved or loathed that book were in front of me. That speech needless to say was a  success.I liked that novel ,large parts of it was fun and you could relate to it at some level or the other.His latest one,TM om L is not much of a change from the first book.I found it a better read than the second but not as decent as the first.

His books are a bit cheesy what i would call the coffee table types.They are sort of the literary equivalent of sitcoms.Immensely popular but no value as an art form. They always follow a similar plot, the characters are essentially the same across the three books. In Vidya’s pink bedsheets you can see Neha’s pink T-Shirts, in Govind you get Hari and Shyam.Ryan becomes Vrom(?) and then a bit of him is still left in Ishaan.And thats what irritates you a lot.You expect a writer to grow and his characters to mature  at some time or the other.

Bhagat is best when he confines himself to describing life in campuses,friendships and blundering young romantics.The problem starts when he tries his hand at others such as earthquakes,communalism  or Indian youth.He tries to pack in so much in the last novel that it left me wondering how come he didnt include the floods/droughts that ravaged gujarat.

Chetan Bhagat’s greatest strength lies in his ability to write believable and casually funny campus stories and it would be great if he sticks to it. If you read his first two, read the latest it won’t disappoint much.