Cricket fever, small-town politics, religious riots and first love are all intermingled in the lives of three teenagers in Ahmedabad in early 2000. A few years out of school and with nothing better to do, they start their own business. The 3 Mistakes of My Life (Rupa, 2008) portrays the friendship of three childhood friends and follows their ups and downs against the backdrop of current events.
The Main Players
- Govind (Gopi) Patel is the businessman among the friends. With his affinity for mathematics and logic, he’s also the story’s unsentimental narrator. Since his father left them when he was ten, Gopi and his mother have eked out a meager living for themselves; Gopi by giving math tuitions and his mother by running a small Gujarati snacks business.
- Ishaan (Ish) is the sports man and most fanatic cricket lover of the trio. His father works at the telephone exchange, earning a modest but stable income, and is forever on Ishaan’s case to do something with his life since he got thrown out of the army.
- Omi is the follower and calming force between Govind and Ishaan. He has known both friends since first grade at Belrampur Municipal School. He is the son of the Swamibhakti temple priest but has no desire to follow in his father’s footsteps.
The Substitutes
- Ali Nasser is a 12-year-old cricket wunderkind at the friends’ old school whose specialty is hitting sixes. His fame soon attracts Ishaan and Gopi’s attention, who end up coaching him in cricket and math. But being Muslim and son of a politician almost cost him his young life.
- Vidya is Ishaan’s sister and a maths hater. She needs to pass the college entrance exam to study in Mumbai, her ticket out of Ahmedabad. So she takes tuitions from Govind and quite predictably, they soon find themselves studying more than maths. Which is a problem for Gopi because of the unspoken rule to never, ever hit on your best friend’s sister.
- Bittoo Mama is Omi’s uncle (Mama being the correct address in Hindi for a maternal uncle) and symbolizes the forceful older generation that constantly criticizes the youngsters for not being more religious or politically involved.
Real Events in The 3 Mistakes of My Life
The three friends open their Team India Cricket Shop in April 2000. This ordinary 20 x10 feet space soon becomes their refuge and the success of the shop their benchmark against turbulent events. First is the Bhuj earthquake that strikes Gujarat in January 2001, killing thousands. Though the shop remains intact, a just rented new one is reduced to rubble, throwing the friends into debt.
Miracle soon follows disaster when India wins against Australia in March 2001, letting the cricket supply business soar. Six months later, the terrorist attacks of September 11 take place and fuel religious tensions even in far-away India. The situation explodes in February 2002 when miscreants set fire to a train carrying Ayodhua pilgrims near Godhra station in Gujarat. Bloody sectarian riots follow that end with a tragedy for Gopi, Ish and Omi.
The Pitch
In true Bhagat style, the book still concludes with a happy ending, told in a background story involving Bhagat himself; readers will recognize this technique from One Night @ the Call Centre.
While the characters previously only touched on the mistakes they made in their lives, the protagonists of The 3 Mistakes involve the reader in their decision making. The book beautifully weaves fact and fiction together and portrays the characters’ struggle between self-realization and the roadblocks their environment poses.
The Coach
Chetan Bhagat’s previous books, Five Point Someone and One Night @ the Call Center (Rupa, 2004; 2005) have sold combined more than one million copies, prompting the New York Times to call Bhagat “the biggest selling English-language novelist in India’s history.”
In the October 13th, 2008 OneIndia interview with Nikhil Ramsubramaniam “Hello Is as Important to Me as My Wedding Day,” Bhagat revealed his desire to “touch as many Indians as possible in my lifetime” with his stories. True to this statement, the book’s release in May took place at a Mumbai grocery store instead of a five star hotel, allowing more readers to participate.
Chetan Bhagat’s Writing Philosophy
In the February 8, 2006 Rediff interview “I Could Be Working in a Call Centre” with Lindsay Pereira, Bhagat defines a good novel: “I think that if a novel can transport its readers into a new setting, make the characters seem so real that you think you know them, and the story grips you such that you can't keep the book down, it is working well.”
With his latest book, Bhagat has managed all three things – even non-Indian readers will understand the context, identify with Gopi, Ish and Omi and especially during the second half, will have a hard time keeping the book down. Follow Chetan Bhagat on Twitter for more information.
Simone Preuss - Simone is a freelance writer, editor and translator who decided to go solo after a successful career in publishing. That was more than ...
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