Book Review: Revolution 2020

Did you read the book? I finished reading it on 8th October, 2011 as I had pre-ordered it on Flipkart.com and got it delivered on 7th. A bit bulky from his other books and longer than usual, Chetan packs this one with a girl stuck between two boys who happen to be best friends and this is right from cover to cover. Written in a true bollywood style, I felt the story looks like a screenplay, fit more to the screen and a bit less oriented to a reader who is holding the book. Call it arrogance or the price of setting of high expectations after his Two States, I believe any book should be more oriented in engaging the reader rather than what happens next. I wouldn't give out much here as I think you should enjoy the book when you read it.

Now let's talk about the story.
Two friends from a small town engage in childhood as miscreants and end up becoming a good friend, obviously, a girl from a rich well to do family and as they grow fall for her and she falls for the boys too. Yes, for both of them. One of the boys, Raghav has a zeal to change the world and Gopal is pushed to the gutter due to his lesser IQ and poor financial condition which he simply blames on his parents genes. Fastforward a few years and Raghav is good at academics and Gopal is still in  gutter, only deeper. By a stroke of luck, Gopal gets a first hand taste at corruption and moves quickly high to set out something he never would have chosen otherwise and becomes successful while Gopal and the girl choose to stick to their dreams. How it all changes is when Gopal and Raghav have a face off with each other due to their ideals, principles and choices and how society responds to each of them. Yes, there are a couple of times where the 15-line-Chetan-Bhagat-style-love-scene come and go.

Themes: I liked this book for the treatment of its themes.

• Chetan looks at Love in a tangled way between emotions and corruption and how it cannot be bought or rather how it evolves over a period of time and how it can mean a lot even to people in their best or worst phases of life. R2020 seems to believe that how one manages a relationship is more inclined to what he believes in and how important his ideals are and I agree partially to that. Unfortunately many people do not believe in emotions when they have a choice and chose to misuse the word love and unfortunately 'moving on' seems to be the trend today. Chetan scores in this aspect.
• Corruption is something Chetan pitches in as casually as possible. There are hard core corrupt politicians, normal people who do everything or either pushed to, from breaking bones to kidnapping, land extortion, threatening to doing good. There is a government official who uses his official car for all personal reasons and still thinks he is honest. I think this is the pulse of the resent state! As long as I don't take a bribe and I don't bother about others taking I am not to be touched and as the book puts it, it is smart.
• Chetan has also done quite an amount of research on what happens in education system, politics, corruptions, cheating, misleading of both students and children and their hard earned money and how one can earn a lot by looking at a stake in education. Once considered sacred, education is the cash cow now, repeatedly milked and ill-treated and R2020 does justice when looking at this. The state of education, right from coaching centres to get into colleges, coaching to get in to coaching centres, exams, fees, choices, unfair, unrealistic expectations of the parents, confused students... Chetan gets brilliant here.

Would I recommend the book? Of course, yes! Why would you want to miss a good story written in simple English and is fun to read? Why would you not want to read the best selling author of Indian English literature till now? Get a nice mug of hot chocolate, cozy up in your favorite place, tune in to your i-pod and let Chetan take you away in his own style for a boat ride down the misty waves of Ganga. If you feel the stench which comes from the burnt bodies, it is only for a small stretch, you might get lost in the smokey dope or hear a lovely voice carried by the waves too.

Though I think the book could have been cut by 20-25 pages and it doesn't match the brilliance of Two States, R2020 would be a quantity seller than a quality seller.

Rating: 2.5/5.