One Deranged Review!

 I finally did it! I have no guilt admitting it! I had avoided it all my life, knowing it would be evil to do it! I  feared the consequences! What about the health hazards? What if I end up experiencing a mutation from Homo sapiens into Homo Neanderthal??? What if my brain stopped working? What if my friends and family stopped speaking to me! And yet, I did the unthinkable! I read a Chetan Bhagat book! 

Before you judge me (You will judge me anyway), let me explain why! I have always had a weakness for whodunnit stories, no matter who writes them! I started reading books when I was in 9th grade. A good friend introduced me to the world of books and there was no looking back. In fact, I started reading with an Illustrated Children's adaptation of the book "The hound of the Baskerville's". And as they say, rest is history! I consumed copious amounts of Hardy Boys (Not the wrestlers!) and Nancy Drew. Then I read Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (All 56 short stories and 4 long stories). I simply fell in love with them! My room in Basavanagudi was transformed into the boarding house in 221 B Baker Street! After that, any detective fiction I read greatly disappointed me! Then came Agatha Christie! I simply loved some of her stories. She created a Sherlock Holmes like character in Hercule Poirot. Then a character Miss Marple (Probably fashioned in her own image). Most recently I read Satyajit Ray's Feluda and Sharadindu's Byomkesh! I enjoyed reading Ray and Sharadindu's stories and they seemed to give me greater joy than Conan Doyle or Christie. I guess the reason was the local touch!

So there! I confess I cannot resist a Detective story! And thus, as I was one day sitting on my couch going through Kindle recommendations, I saw a book titled "One Arranged Murder!". And I thought to myself "Hmm, this looks interesting, lemme check who the author is...", and I was aghast! It was Chetan Bhagat! Now all you Chetan Bhagat fans out there, don't be upset if you see me speak about Bhagat in a condescending tone! I am trying to be as polite as possible here!

You see, someone had recommended his books a long time ago! But somehow I never felt like reading them. Then I saw that most of his books were getting made into Bollywood movies! If you even have an iota of patriotism in you, like me, you are probably someone who hates Bollywood. And so I felt, I would never touch a Chetan Bhagat book ever! 

Thus during many social gatherings, Bhagat would be the reason to end a budding conversation abruptly. "Yes, I loved reading a book called the Tao of Physics! Interesting parallels are drawn between what is said in Eastern Mysticism and Modern Physics" I would start off at some point in the conversation trying to show off! "Oh really! I read this interesting book too. It is called "5 point someone!" by Chetan Bhagat! Collage life is portrayed brilliantly! Drugs, sex, more drugs..." "WHAT? Where did you study again?" I would ask and pat came the reply "JNU!".."I just remembered, I've got to call someone. Nice talking to you. See you (I hope not)!" .."Sure, let's talk about books sometimes!".."Oh, hell yeah! We will talk about books!"

So given this history, I felt I shouldn't read it! Plus I did not want to shell out my hard earned money on something considered heretic. 

Enter Kindle Unlimited!

Then one fine day, I got yet another recommendation from Amazon saying "One Arranged Murder" is available on Kindle Unlimited for free. Sometimes the urge to do evil is too strong and I clicked on read for free!

If a Bollywood movie can be represented in a book, look no further! This is it! It is exactly that! A juicy, masala Bollywood movie! I had heard that Bhagat knows his audience well! He knows that the youth want sex, drugs and more sex! This is what is glorified in Bollywood. However, I am happy to say that he has resisted the urge to glorify all that in this book! Once I started reading it, the book I felt isn't so bad! It was good time pass! Easy read! Nothing to think about! In terms of a detective story, I will not call it abysmal! Since I had very low expectations, I can say the book kind of exceeded them! But that doesn't mean it is a great book. 

Bhagat knows that his books are made into Bollywood movies. He's intelligent enough to cash in on that! He has written it to please any Bollywood producer. I can picture a Bollywood producer and his chela discussing thus

Chela  : "The kids love his stories sir!" . 

Producer : "Hmmm! Can we insert 1 or 2 item songs in this story?"

Chela : "Why certainly sir! It might appeal to Chinese audiences also! There is a dance called "cockroach dance" mentioned here!"

Producer : "Really now! What about drugs?"

Chela : "Our guy is getting it shortly sir!"

Producer : "No! What about in the story? Do they have people doing drugs!"

Chela : "Not as much as we would have liked, but it is there sir!"

Producer : "Hmm...never mind! We can highlight that in the movie...What about sex?"

Chela : "2-3 scenes sir! There is that app Tinder also in the story sir!"

Producer : "Excellent! We can add more! All right! Let us buy the rights! We will pair stepson of X with illegitimate daughter of Y"

So yeah, it is certainly going to appeal to Bollywood producers! It will appeal to son of a B..ollywood director or hero! 

But jokes apart, it is not a bad book! If you wanna stress buster and if you get the book free through Kindle unlimited or Prime reading, by all means read it! But don't expect it to excite you! I would also like to say that Chetan Bhagat is not as bad an author as he's projected to be! His language is good. He keeps you hooked. And I felt in this story, he has tried his best to write a good story! If his other books had lot of masala and were horrendous, this one is bad but not abysmal!  It had a promising start and in the end it was ok. Somewhere halfway through the story, I kinda figured out who the culprit might be, and I turned out to be right! But that is ok! You can never judge the quality of a detective story by being able to predict who did it! 

Also to his credit, Chetan Bhagat does add in some elements in the story in a very subtle way. Elements or views, which are not welcome or considered politically correct. And you know, I liked that! 

Well there you go kids! Should you read this book? Well if you are tired reading preachy self help books that tell you to wake up at 3 AM and work till 12 AM, this is a welcome change! If you want to read a good detective story, well my opinion is if you haven't read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, you should start from there. Or even Agatha Christie should be ok. If you want to read something Indian, Sharadindu or Ray would give you immense pleasure! If you just wanna read a simple book to kill time, this is it! It is an easy read! Don't have to think too much! It is entertaining. It has some funny bits in it!

But honestly my opinion on Bhagat changed! I still do not view him as a Bollywood script writer! He is better than some of the authors out there who write bilge! If his earlier books were bad, he certainly seems to have improved in my opinion! Well folks, until my next review "Happy Reading!" 

My rating : 3.0 *s .