Situations come to a head and Ahmedabad burns in riot fires. Ali displays the talent which Ishan never had and Ali’s destiny becomes his own.Įnter Omi’s Bitoo mama (maternal uncle), a communal party man bent on converting the young into fighters in the name of Hinduism. Ishan then meets Ali, a child master with a hyper reflex condition that makes him hit each ball for a six. The shop prospers as Ishan coaches young boys in cricket and Govind teaches maths to Ishan’s sister Vidya who also captures his heart. Govind sets up a sports shop along with his friends in the temple compound with Omi’s family’s help. What follows is a mix of cricket, religion, business, love and friendship. The book is loosely based on the three mistakes Govind made in his Fortunately he was still alive to tell the tale. Chetan was shaken enough by the incident to track the boy down to an Ahmedabad hospital. It begins in a dramatic enough fashion with Bhagat receiving an e-mail from Govind who had taken many sleeping pills and was writing to him while waiting for the deadly sleep’s embrace. It has the protagonist Govind with his passion and acumen for accounts and business, it has Ishan for whom cricket is the element around which his life revolves and it has Omi, a priest’s son and loyal friend who is ready for anything that his friends are game for. It retains its small town flavour in pols (colonies), traditional Indian households and small vegetarian eateries. The setting is the city of Ahmedabad that though being urban is yet not as metropolitan as many of its metro counterparts. The new and the third Bhagat book, “The 3 mistakes of my life', has all these qualities. At the same time their context and sensibility too is unabashedly Indian. His characters are young, ambitious and passionate and have the same moral, social and religious dilemmas as many of the young Indians today. What strikes you first about Chetan Bhagat’s novels is the fact that this author writes about Indians and for Indians.