Book Review: Of Course I Love You..!

Durjoy Dutta and Maanvi Ahuja have nicely presented the tale of the college life of a guy Deb who is an average performer in every field except getting girls to bed. The novel is all about the college life of a loser who doesn’t get to see good grades in his college life but still believes he was an IIT stuff, just dropped in DCE. The story has some characters like Vernita, Tanmay, Deb, Shrey and Avantika who made me feel a left-out from the world and doubt my physical (read sexual) prowess given the fact that I’m 25 year old virgin. Vernita is the only girl in Mechanical Engineering department and hence, pretty obviously scores good marks every time. Tanmay is Vernita’s boyfriend who’s hated by Deb and Shrey because he’s rich, handsome and intelligent. Deb is an average performing guy in studies but scores high on girlfriends and night outs. Shrey is this dream-guy who doesn’t give a shit to the studies and exams and still makes it to a start-up company in Germany. Avantika is the goddess, the most beautiful girl on the earth, the most gorgeous and the sexiest one too. She knows what to do, when to do and how to do, I hope you got it. After struggling hard in the college, when Deb doesn’t get placed in any company, he hooks up in BHEL and finds Amit, his to-be-best friend. He enjoys his life by shaping up a love life for Ami and Astha and hence getting all the office work done by Amit, the studious small-town boy.
The story ends in such a passionate love-making by Deb that I envied him for the same. It’s a nice book, Five Point Someone class. It’s a story about the youth, but it can be frustrating at times, especially when you do not have a girlfriend of your own.


Arun Sharma

Joker in the Pack

By Ritesh Sharma & Neeraj Pahlajani

This is the book, I saw in my friends hand few months back, during the placement season of my college.

I came to know that it’s the story about IIM life, and wanted to read immediately. But, as time was scarce couldn’t pick it.

Few weeks ago, I was out shopping, and saw it in one of the windows of the book shop, and immediately bought it.

The story is indeed about the life in B-Schools in general and IIM’s in specific. While reading it was remniscent of my life in general and my B-School life in specific. The dilemma, whether to do MBA or not? Which B School to choose? How to convert the interview call?

Then it further walked me down the lane of ragging, summers, Business Plan Competitions, Co-curricular activities, Placement fight, and of course academics.

To make the story spicy, it had a estranged love story, lot of funny incidents. And the best part was the insertion of ‘hindi’ dialogues.

I would recommend it to any B-School aspirant, student and alumunus.

One Night at Call Center

by Chetan Bhagat

One Night @ Call Center, another delicious story by Chetan Bhagat who is the writer of a famous story called “Five Point Someone”. The story starts in a railway compartment, where in the writer meets a sexy blonde all alone in complete compartment on a very short journey of only one night.

The lady keeps the night alive by telling him a story about 6 people working in a call center. This story spans over a period of only one night on which they receive a phone call from god. The calls results in a big transformation, changing the life of all 6 and an interesting scene of slaps on a buggy boss’ face, who tried to use his team as a stepping stone to move to Boston, head office of call center company.

The writer uses one of those 6 people, Shyam as the narrator of the story, who fell in love with a charming girl, Priyanka, another member of call center team. How they fell in love with each other, how they perform a dexterous task in the back seat of cab on a cool night, how they broke off and then re-bond keeps a person abducted throughout the story. If someone is unable to complete the story in one go, its hard for him to stop thinking about it all the time.

Other 4 characters include Esha, Radhika, Vroom and Military Uncle. Esha, a beautiful babe who wants enter into modeling; Vroom, who wants to be the best rider has a strong love for bikes and feelings for Esha; Radhika, a married young girl and her married life; Military Uncle, who wants to be with his grandson.

Each and every single member of the story has his own key role without which the story would not have been complete. The story moves around falling call rates (Number of calls per shift) at the call center. How the characters realize the people’s behavior and then turn the situation reverse, making the call rates rise high within just one night. How they recognize their Boss’ plot of using his team as a stepping stone to move to Boston and then hit hard in his face.

Though the author is not so strong at English, but his story telling style is such that one feels as if a friend is telling his own story in a free style talk. A delighting story for those, who are frustrated because of their boss’ style of working.

Vivek Nagpal

Five Point Someone

by Chetan Bhagat

This is the second book I have read written by Chetan Bhagat ( www.chetanbhagat.com). The first one was One Night@Call Center. The style of writing of both the books was same. The author starts with the vivid description of climax scene and leaves the audience in suspense, enticing them to read the entire writing.

The book is about three IITian’s from IIT Delhi, who worked very hard like everybody else to get into this top notch Technical Institute of India. But once they are there, there perception about life and themselves changes. The story revolves about the three central characters Hari, Alok and Ryan. Hari is the narrator of the story.

The story spans from the first day of their college to the last day. It covers hostel ragging, assignments, exams, marks, families and adventures. Hari and Alok are simple family boys whose sole aim was to get good placements from IIT. But Ryan was different. He was smart, talented and dare devil. He was the person brainwashed Alok & Hari regarding their attitudes towards life and studies. He gave them first taste of vodka and grass. He was the person who devised the methodology of C2D (Cooperate to Dominate). But he was the role model of Hari. Apart from their friendship one common bond they shared with each other was Five Point Something G PA (Grade Point Average). And this is where the novel gets the name from.

Ultimately Hari got in love with the daughter of his HOD. And result was that all three had to pay dearly in terms of marks. Then there was interesting event of stealing papers from HOD’s office. When caught, Alok tried to commit suicide and changed the rules of life for all of them. But apart from their casual and mischievous conduct they were fascinated by lubrication technology and worked day and night to provide new face to it. This with initial hurdles lead to the improvement of their impressions in their Mechanical Engineering Department and subsequently exemption from one more semester. Alok and Hari were eventually placed with software firms, while Ryan was still in his style was working on lubrication project.

This story though about IIT, will surely remind each of us about our college days. The story is pure fun to read.