BRAToSPHERE

Author: Bharat Jhurani

  • Revolution 2020 – Book Review

    Chetan Bhagat is still the rockstar of Indian writing, and his fifth book just reaffirms the same. A modest story set in a small town, with typical elements of love, Ambition, Corruption, system and YOUTH, laden with a liberal dose of sex. A total potboiler.

    The setting is again in a college, though in a different way this time. With a slogan like “Love. Corruption. Ambition.” , and a title like “Revolution 2020”, there was a fear that Chetan would tread the preachy path and come up with a boring book. But no, this book is a very much chetan bhagat book, full of masala.

    Of course, this time over, there is a subtle message intertwined in the book. The best part of chetan’s writing is the reflection of the keen observer that he is. Like, “ A girl replies back with a 🙂 🙂 🙂 when she has nothing better to text”. There are many girlies like this in the book, making it quite insightful into the psyche.

    The story of revolution 2020 is set in the small town of Varanasi, and it does strike a chord with the semi-urban aspirations and ambitions. It could be any similar town in India, and the story would not have changed much. Of course, Chetan does manage to internalize the town as much as possible to make the character building more strong.

    The book is about a poor boy called Gopal, who struggles all his life with money, family and the brutal entrance education system that we have in india. IIT, AIEEE, KOTA Coaching factory, he goes through everything making him what he eventualy becomes.

    It is about Raghav, Gopal’s friend and classmate who is a good friend till he cracks the JEE, and the distances start appearing.

    It is about a sweet girl called Aarti, who is torn between the two. A totally confused girl, who wants to fly.

    So is this is a story about the entrance exams? No? is it a love story? To an extent yes, but not completely. It is more a story about corruption and the system which forces you to do what you do. The expose of the corrupt education system and the archaic laws that exist in the country are very well highlighted, and it completely shows Chetan’s research on the subject.

    Though chetan was recently lashing out at Narayana Murthy for saying that coaching classes have led to the deterioration of the quality of IIT- and IIM-produced students, his book suggests exactly the same thing. The whole industry in kota is mocked at and is very well described.

    In Spite of  the book was filled with clichés, the ending was a decent surprise, and completes the whole drama very well. ( As they say, “agar sab theek nahi hai.. to picture abhi baaki hai mere dost!”).

    I hope this book is read by parents as much as it is read by the youth, to show the parents that getting an engineering degree is not the final respite to everything.

    Overall, I liked reading Revolution 2020 – an interesting and an easy read, and a page turner. Once I started reading the book at about 11:30PM last night, could not sleep till I was completely done with it.

    Note: To avoid being a spoil sport, i would like to withhold the story details

  • Campaign – Against Eve Teasing

    “Humein bhi thoda usi najar se dekh liya karo “, a man drools at a girl with saliva dripping out of his mouth, and he laughing along with his friends.
    “Arrey thoda lag gaya ji.. sorry ji”, rubbing his shoulder across to the helpless woman, a man smiles.
    You must have come across these sights in your everyday life. The indian girl as it is said, has to face many a odds, just fighting her very existence.
    Eve teasing is a common phenomena across cities, and across classes, and has been there since ever (Guess it is called eve for that reason). The girl just silently suffers and accepts it as a way of life!
    No More! Say this young group of students from a local Mumbai college. “Chappal Marungi” campaign is an unique initiative to counter the same, encouraging girls to strike back at the menace mongers.
    The campaign literally encourages women to beat down harassment, with the weapon that every woman carries – Chappal. (Sorry, black pepper powder has still not caught on!).
    From an advertising point of view, their campaign has managed to create quite a buzz, and using the chappal as the symbolic weapon has gone down really well with the intended target group of women, who completely relate with it. To drive their message further, this group of students has actually placed boxes full of chappals around the college premises.

    Chappal Marungi
    All the best to their tribe, and hope it increases. Hope the campaign catches up and reaches other places too, where it is equally needed if not more. ( Delhi-ites listening?)

  • Why do you get married?

    One more of my friend announces that he is now ready to be crucified. Why? Why do people do this to themselves? Do they lose complete hope in life that they resort to such desperate measures to bring back the spark in life?

    Of late, everyday morning, the first thing I get to see on Facebook is congratulatory messages on someone’s wall.

    “Hey Congratulations!, you look so cute together”

    “Congos dude, hav a great life ahead”

    Arrey! Kahan ki great life? He just announced that he is willing to abandon the same great life, and ready to jump into the bandwagon. Did you not read that? He is fuckin’ getting married.

    Know what? I did think about the same? If so many people are getting married, probably there would be something good about it. Alas!

    I was talking to Hari, a friend of mine who had got married a couple of months back, asking him the million dollar question – Why did you get married?

    Me: “you don’t intend to have children any soon. You are both financially independent, and you have also bought your own dishes, and all the white goods, with the linen and curtains, so why did you get married?”

    Hari:  “dude, it is about love and commitment. It is about wanting to spend the rest of you life with that one person, and beginning today!”

    I was surprised at this sudden outburst of frustration wihtin myself, and not one to give up so easily, I retorted –

    “ You must be frikking joking. Who in their right mind would commit to being with someone FOREVER?”, I took a breath, gulping my whole mug of beer.

    “What if five years down the line, the girl does not appeal to you anymore? I guess you would stay with her forever because you promised to. You can’t leave her because then you would be breaking the marital vows, and that be immoral right?”, I uncork one more beer bottle.

    “Nah dude. You don’t get it. Once you know within that she is the one, then that is it, she is the one. The voice within you would speak in itself, and it needs to.”, Hari mutters in as much a calm way as possible, sipping his beer.

    I am still not convinced, I speak again –

    “Look, 90% of the couples just stay married only because of kids, finances, religion, peer and parental pressure, or something like that. If the only thing keeping a couple together is the inconvenience of divorce, then their marriage has already failed. That means romantically-speaking, the overwhelming majority of marriages fail.”, I try finishing half the mug.

    “So, where exactly is the love in it?”, I ask.

    “Well dude, I do not want to talk qbout this any further”, and this time even hari gulps down his whole mug of beer, getting into his thoughtful mode looking at the empty  ( surprisingly!) road next to my balcony with a ciggarette in his hand.

    The problem with these going to be married type is this – they do not talk. Oh! Wait, is this not the statement the wifey is supposed to be making?

    The real reason why the majority gets married is – PRESSURE. Be it parental, peer or even self.

    There are a lot of people who very strongly believe they are not yet ready to tie the nuptial knot, but then fear that they are soon approaching 30, and might have to remain single all their life. So they just jump. Are they happy? Well, you think.

    There are an equal number of guys (am no MCP!) who try running away from marriage as far as possible, but get caught in the whole family, parental pressure and give in.

    For all of you, here is a creative service –

     

    Fictional ad! ( inspired from http://matmaniac.blogspot.com/2011/09/delayshaadicom.html )

    p.s.: this is the first in the 2 post series ranting on marriage.

    Credit: Portland citizenship lawyer

  • The Secret of the Nagas – Book Review

    It has been after a long hiatus that I am back to blogging. I have now shifted to Mumbai, from Bangalore, and shifting is one pain in the ass and time consuming.

     The last week was an extended long weekend of holidays, with Wednesday, Thursday being a holiday and again Saturday and Sunday. The smarter ones planned trips for the whole week, and vanished. The dumber ones like me preferred to sit at home and read.

    I spent the entire Wednesday and part of Thursday in completing Amish Tripathi’s new book – The secret of the Nagas. (Of course, I did manage to catch up with bodyguard too on Wednesday).

    After reading The immortals of meluha, and even suggesting it one of my executives sometime last year, I was quite enthusiastically waiting for this sequel.

    If Chetan Bhagat paved the way for indian writing for the masses, Amish has taken it forward and paved the way for imaginative writing among the new crop of Indian writers. He has very cleverly combined mythology and modern day emotions to tell a story of which not much has been spoken or known.

    The legend.. picks up from where the Immortals left. While the events in book-1 took place in Meluha, detailing the war and the way of life of the suryavanshis and the chandravanshis, and ended in Swadweep, events in book-2 unfold in Swadweep, details the the different perspectives of life, and ends in Dandak Forest – the Naga territory.

    I particularly like the way Amish manages to convince that there are no good or evil ways of life – there are just different ways of life. In the first book, the chandravanshis were tarnished, and the suryavanshi way of living was convinced as THE way of living, having lord Ram’s approval.

    In the second book, Amish did manage to convince us that Chandravanshis are not evil, but have a different way of living – mixing pleasure. I would not like to give out more details fearing that I may ed up ruining the reading experience.

    The primary forte of Amish seems to be in detailing the fight sequences, and the war scenes in words, that the reader is completely shifted to a parallel world.

    The book opens quite well, and raises quite high expectations but does not manage to live up to it completely. A wonderful thought process, it somewhere fails in execution. There is so much scope for adventure and comparison of different philosophies of life but it does not deliver completely.

    The climax of the book, and the detailed description of the dandak forest (where the nagas live) does get irritating, and the end does look abrupt with one yearning for more. The way in which the book has developed I fear the third book does not fall into predictable lines and spoil the fun.

    All said and done, The secret.. is not a bad book, and the plot holds your attention completely and the urge to keep reading it is alive throughout.

    As a final verdict, no doubt book – 1 was better than book – 2, but without any qualms, I can clearly declare that Amish has shown a way for a different kind of writing, catering to a wide audience in indian writing.

  • Ola..

    Ola..Well the spanish bug has bitten me too, and am dying to go to bunol to the La Tomatina festival.

    Well, it has been real long that I have scribbled something here, and in spite of all my promises to be regular, this time it just got too delayed. Reasons?? Well, no reason can justify this, but well I would like to make an attempt and take this opportunity in updating the happenings around me.

    After that fateful morning in the last week of September last year, life has been one roller coaster ride. Little did I realize at that point of time that one phone call, communicating one decision, could be a beginning to quite a wonderful self-introspecting journey.

    The nine months have been like the most thoughtful time that I have spent, and got to learn so many new things, and so much about behaviors, triggers and the society in large. Those nine months would forever be etched in my mind, and would sure serve as a point of reference to all my doings and my behavior for a long time to come I am sure. It sure will bear an impact to the way I conduct am sure.

    Well, without getting too much into detail, the general update is, I have joined Coca Cola India as an assistant marketing manager, and have moved to the city of dreams – Mumbai. After all the initial brouhaha, have started settling down in this metropolis, and getting used to the way of living here and getting to know more about the city with every passing day.

    One thing, Mumbai never ceases to surprise me every day. Will come back soon with more details about life here, and the people around. Till then adios!