My Three Mistakes by Chetan Bhagat

The most popular english novelist of India (according to New Yorker, i guess) is back with his third novel, my three mistakes. No, this is not a review -bcoz I didn't exactly like his second book abt the call centre. So I am in no mood to go for the third, even though it is priced at a 95 bucks (equivalent to peanuts for the mall visiting junta who are his fan base). Here I just intend to make a comment on the reviews that this book has got.

Not surprisingly, the critics have been pretty critical of this book. Just like his previous book, I guess this is also full of masala stuff. In deed, critics have called this book his 'third mistake'. Yet, these very critics don't realize that they made the mistake third time over to read Chatan Bhagat! Being a smarter one, I decided not to dish out my 95 bucks on the book.

The point that I want to highlight is that every individual is different. So also is individual taste. This difference gives rise to the concept of genre, and styles. For instance, Aamir Khan fans may accuse Shahrukh of over-acting but Shahrukh has his own fan base, even bigger than Aamir.

Bhagat has a huge fan base (some even fanatic) in India simply because of the way he writes, bringing about a synergy between youth life, aspirations and simple english. Now, who should decide whether Bhagat's books are good or bad? Who are these critics? Who reviews the books in newspapers? What are their choices? Whose tastes do they represent?

Bhagat has a mass base. Yet there are many others who don't. Fate of their books depends solely on the reviews they get. Same for low budget movies. The reviews of some newspapers with ideological bent (like The Hindu) are utterly biased. And there is no forum to be critical of these critics. It is the duty of newspaper editors to see to it that various tastes are represented in their panel of reviewers.