Book Review- Five Point Someone.

That period of Chicken pox in my life did work to my advantage in a way- it reconnected me with the world of fiction which I had left behind long back! More so, coz there was hardly anything I could do other than reading, with those boils all over my body! The first book that I selected for reading was- Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat (Rupa and Co. Rs. 95/-). Now for all those who do not know who Chetan Bhagat is, well, he is an IIT, IIM working in an investment company in Hong Kong and is also the author of the best selling "One night @ the call centre" (Extremely interesting book, that one!). Lets get back to Five point...which is the story of 3 youngsters- Hari (the narrator), Ryan and Alok who get together at the IIT and through these 3 characters, the author proceeds to tell his readers what not to do at IIT through the (mis)adventures of the threesome. The threesome become friends consequent to a ragging experience; one of them falls for a professor's daughter, the other has original ideas and hates the whole system of teaching at the IIT and the third has personal commitments (an ailing father, a sister of marriageable age and a helpless mother) due to which he wants to get out of IIT scoring good marks and a high paying job. How a series of circumstances within the IIT affects and changes the lives of these characters is what Five Point Someone is all about. To start with, for a story like this, at no point does the author become preachy, even though he himself is an ex- IIT. The narration flows effortlessly and the escapades that the three characters get into have the reader always hooked to the narrative. The three lead characters have been very neatly sketched out with their backgrounds, personalities etc neatly and convincingly explained. The characters of Hari's girl friend, Neha; her father, Prof: Cherian and also of the helpful Prof: Veera have come out very well. The best thing about the book is that it is not pretentious at any level and one can zoom off with the book with the speed at which one watches the recent Bollywood flicks. No wonder, the book is soon to be made into a feature film...