There is a sense of simpleness one can relate to in Chetan Bhagat’s books one you read it. This book entitled “The Three Mistakes if my Life” is the third one to come out of his shelf. The previous two books “Five Point Someone” and “One night at the call centre” were both rack busters. His books mainly deal with the problems and the frustration of the youth. All his characters be it Ryan from Five point someone or Shyam from One night at the call centre bears an outlaw look. In his third book he brings us the story of friendship of three friends with the backdrop of cricket, religion, disaster and business.
The book begins with a prologue where the author gets a suicide note through an email from an account titled Ahmadabad business man. The story moves on when the author gets concerned over the note and decides to check out the person himself. With the help of his old professor at IIM-A he tracks down the protagonist Govind Patel at a government hospital in Ahmadabad and listen to the story he has to tell.


For fifteen long years Govind’s life revolved around his two friends Ishaan and Omi. Govind was an ambitious young man in the city who dreamt about reaching many heights in the world of business one day. He was also too good in mathematics and was the best mathematician in Belrampur. He had lost his father at very young age and his mother brought him up by supplying Guajarati food to the neighborhood. He too now had begun to earn by taking tuition classes in maths for small kids. Ishaan was a frustrated guy who dropped out from a military academy one year ago. He was crazy about cricket and would go to any extent for the love of the game. Ishaan was the best cricketer in belrampur by quite a distance but failed to get into higher levels. He also has a beautiful teenage sister named Vidya who was preparing for her medical entrance exams. Omi was the son of a temple priest. He lived inside the premises of the temple and though he was a Brahmin never followed any of their rules. The author portrays him as a person who had Hinduism in his blood thanks to his uncle who was the member of a religious political party.



The story really takes centre stage when the trio decides to open up a cricket shop in Belrampur. There were hardly any shops in Belrampur and the three friends decide to set up the shop outside the temple premises. Quickly the business picked up and the shop begins to yield profit. In the meanwhile Ishaan persuaded Govind to teach maths for his sister Vidya to get through her medical entrance. The author portrays Vidya as a girl with lots of ambitions but no guts to tell her parents what she actually wants. She does not want to study maths at all and instead wants to go to Mumbai for PR studies. Govind found initially very tough with her but soon she begin to invade his heart. The friends also decide to open up a stationary store, a cricket clinic and a maths tuition centre along with the shop. Govind decides to shift the branch to an upcoming mall and invested in it heavily. But all their ambitions came crashing down when the mall was destroyed in an earthquake. The friends were shattered and decide to slowly build up their venture once again. The famous 2001 Australian series happened at that time and the cricket business soared up once again. It was then they heard about a 12 year boy named Ali who was exceptionally gifted in playing cricket. Ishaan takes Ali to a doctor and realize that Ali’s brain was truly special. Ishaan takes up the responsibility of coaching Ali whose stamina was a big zero then. He was interested in playing Marbles instead. But after months of practice Ishaan succeeds in making Ali a fine cricketer. The trio then sneaks into the Australian dressing room during a one day match and succeeds to meet up Fred Lee (a fictional character loosely based on Australian pacer Brett Lee) and convince him to bowl to Ali. Lee was impressed by Ali’s bating and invited him to come to Australia for training. The trio then takes Ali to Sydney, Australia but the Australians wanted to play Ali for their country. They even offered him a permanent residentship but Ali refused it out rightly sighting he was Indian and wanted only to play for India. Govind bonds closely with vidya and finally go all the way on her 18th birthday. Govind had a sense that he betrayed one of the primary laws in friendship: to make love to a friend’s sister. It was shortly afterwards when the Gujarat Riots broke and incidentally Omi’s Cousin gets killed. His uncle Brij Mama led the mob which had only one motto, to kill as many muslims as they can. They kill Ali’s parents and come after Ali who was along with the three friends in an abandoned bank. Many dramatic scenes later Omi gets killed and Ali who gets seriously injured during the incident kills Mama with a cricket ball. During all these fiasco Ishaan come to know about Govind and Vidya’s relationship. After the riot get settled Vidya is house arrested and Ishaan turn against Govind. His business also takes a plunge and the cricket shop gets split. Finally from all the frustration Govind decides to commit suicide. It is in the epilogue that the author decides to end the story citing a happy ending. All is well at the end when Govind reunites with Ishaan and Vidya. Ishaan gets the operation done on Ali with the help of Govind and in the last line of the book we get that Ali has got back his skills.

Chetan’ s last two books were made into films and rumors are abuzz that the “Rock On” director Abhishek Kapoor is planning to make a film based on this book. Let us hope it will be as successful as the five point someone remake 3 Idiots.

"The Three Mistakes Of My Life" is the third novel written by Chetan Bhagat. The book is based on real life events. It begins in a dramatic enough fashion with Bhagat receiving an e-mail from Govind who had taken many sleeping pills and was writing to him while waiting for the deadly sleep’s embrace.

rack-One is how Govind aspires big, manages to grow his business and goes through its ups and downs. Gujarath earthquake ruining his over 1 lakh investment for a shop in a newly built mall is termed mistake number 1.Just finished reading “The three mistakes of my life“. The only regret I have is why didn’t I read it earlierThe new and the third Bhagat book, “The 3 mistakes of my life”, has all these qualities.