Five Point Someone - Chetan Bhagat

“Five point someone”, this is the first novel in my life that I have read completely without any interruptions. FPS is penned down by Chetan Bhagath, a former IITan (IIT-Delhi), and incidentally FPS was his first attempt at writing. FPS is the story of three IIT students who found difficult to cope up with the hectic schedule of IIT and ended up falling into the zone of five point range GPA.

FPS starts with day one of IIT life of three friends, Alok, Hari and Ryan. They start their IIT career with a disaster and continue to build their heap of increasing declinations. Amazing thing is that they always back themselves up even though they are stuck deep in the mud of failures. It is not that they are dumb or dull in grasping the knowledge; they get carried away with unwarranted habits of teenage. They soak fullest in the stinky fountain of youth. IIT, the impression that we have on this institution would not reflect even a bit in the lives of these three young ruffians. It starts with the first day of their college life and ends on the day they all graduate from IIT. It talks about different kinds of transformation underwent by these three students, the classes, assignment, mugging, exams, cigarettes, boozing, movies and of course, girls.

The novel was an easy to read kind one, especially for people like me (I am not really into this novel reading). It was written in simple English and each chapter is short and sweet. Even though, it sounds interesting till the end, I am not really inclined with the way novel ended. The climax seems too cinematic. Looks like author wanted to end the novel on a happy note and he tried not to ruin the impression of IIT by showing the protagonists as failures. But the way the whole novel runs makes us to forget this as a small pebble in the grassy path of garden.

The only reason I have read this novel is the strong recommendation by a friend. The person strongly insisted that characters in the novel would remind me of my college days and I readily agree that now. It surely reminded me of my college days, not just in one instance or in one chapter, most of the time, through out the novel. That could be one of the reasons which made me to read the book in one try.

Alwidaa, Inzy...

12th Oct 2007, yet another memorable moment in the cricket world. Inzamam-Ul-Haq One of the greatest batsmen of my generation has bid adieu to cricket. Sixteen years of illustrious career came to an end in the midst of emotional breakdown from everybody all over the cricket world.

Inzamam a.k.a Inzy stormed into the cricketing world with a blistering, aggressive innings against New Zealand in the semi final of 1992 world cup. The young Inzy thumped bowlers all around the park bringing the team home out of dire situations and eventually added the jewel in the crown of glory in the form of world cup. Since then he stamped an unforgettable mark on the history of Pakistan cricket. He gave a new definition to middle order batting skills. His role was often rescuing the team from a disastrous crumble. Consolidation and construction were his pets. He pulled through the Pakistan from umpteen numbers of embarrassing predicaments. His innings to pull off the thrilling victory against Bangladesh with the aid of tail enders was an inspirational fight. Even though it sounds silly to praise his skills against Bangladesh, but given the conditions and his temperament and the dreadful patch he was going through at that time that could very be one of the brightest innings of his career. Other than that there are many more innings to talk about, his triple century against Kiwis, consecutive centuries against England, fighting half century against Ozs to bring team home, and more than couple of brilliant knocks against India, its just a mammoth list of sheer brilliance and vividness.

Like in any other field, his career also has ups and downs. But in all those circumstances, he was always nonchalant, obliged and of course witty. One of the real lows his career when he was dropped from the team after a terrible display in 2003 world cup but he bounced back strongly and proved his irremovable presence on the Pakistan cricket. The other low might be the early exit from 2007 world cup of pak. He couldn’t repair it though, but it remained as a small blemish amid the long, radiant, dazzling career.

On the whole, I was most fortunate to witness some immaculate batting displays by Inzy. He was with one of the best safe pair of hands in the slip cordon. Without him, it would be a Herculean task for Pakistan cricket board to fill those long, hard shoes. I hope he will have a peaceful and successful retirement life.

Alwidaa, Inzy…

Tracks to Perdition

My recent visit to India was exhilarating and entertaining and had flown by very fast. It was full of fun and frolics. As they say no fun is full without a tragedy. The tragedy was the demise of one of my cousins. She was too young to die. This one was a big hiccup to live with all through the wedding ceremony.

Ammulu, she was just 18 years old and had been married for four months (lets talk about early marriages in another writing). One fine morning she met with an unceremonious accident, a bright sun shine brought darkness in her life and eventually our lives. She had been living with her husband in Pune for two months, where she used to assist him in his business. On that day, they were waiting at the railway station to catch a train to get to work. They started to walk to aerobridge to get to the other side of the platform as they realized change in platform numbers. While in a hurry to catch the train she didn’t realize the speed of oncoming superfast train which passed by her creating a force which pushed her into the air making her to fly and a take a leap of 10-15Ft, before hitting the a pile of unused gravel. The moment she hit the rocks her head got split open and blood rushed out and she died on her way to hospital.

This is not new to railway department in India. On average, every year 4000 people die on the tracks of Mumbai railway only. These deaths comprise of suicides, homicides, accidents like electrocuted by overhead power lines or killed as they lean on one foot in a jam-packed carriage. Every day six million people commute on Mumbai railway and amazingly at peak hours they carry 550 people in each carriage of capacity 200. Getting back home in one piece is always a luck factor. People hang from the coaches or sit on the top of the roofs just to get to home. In the process, some people fall to death and some people dragged under the wheels from the platform in the tussle to get in. It’s like a struggle for existence everyday.

As I dug deep into details, I realized that railway department allocates a small percentage of its annual budget for these deaths on the tracks by spending money on the white blankets. Every station has a stock of white blankets to cover the corpse, but not to control the deaths. Instead what I suggest is, to form a small group of professionals to come up with a method with which can lower the number of deaths. Every problem has a solution, it just needs to be addressed and investigated thoroughly.

4000 people on average every year and on the top it just the number of deaths in Mumbai, imagine the number all over India. The number is almost equal to the deaths in WTC tragedy. And amazingly this is not the result of any terrorist attack.

Anyway, my cousin, who was innocent and young and who crossed the village border for first time had never come back in one piece. Like her, hundreds of the innocent/ignorant people travel across the city just to end up falling prey to these unremarkable lapses. The only remedy to these mishaps is when government comes up with a method with which a naïve can gain knowledge of these common, typical catastrophes. Of course this is all possible if we are ready to lend a helping hand.