Saturday, November 26, 2011

Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat -- Book Review

I wonder if all the book reviews i write are more like book summaries. Anyways, let me attempt again! I love to sleep. I surprised myself when i was awake till 1am in the morning with Chetan's R2020. Yes, the story was very interesting and i could not put the book down without knowing the flow and end!

The story of Revolution 2020 revolves around three main characters Raghav, Gopal, and Aarti. Raghav is a studious guy who pursues journalism inspite of getting a BTech from IIT. Why did he waste an engineering seat that many people slog to get and sometimes even miss the bus? Gopal is from a poor family who never gets an engineering seat. Gopal's father asks his son to attempt the entrance exam again. Inspite of slogging at the coaching centres, Gopal does not make it in the second attempt and is slapped by his father.  Maybe, people like Raghav and Gopal's father would have fared well if they had 'Life Skills' training from a very very young age.

Aarti is a rich girl who travels in her father's official car and goes to foreign vacations. Aarti and Raghav are in love. Gopal loves Aarti. Aarti does not encourage Gopal to have 'feelings' for her. But she goes to boating with him, rubs his arms after rowing, goes to movies with him alone, does not tell Raghav about her outings with Gopal, and flops in a hotel bed when Gopal is around. And so confuses Gopal. When Raghav does not give her enough time and attention, she sleeps twice with Gopal. And decides to marry Gopal too. Arrgh it is! Chetan seems to tell us that platonic friendships can exist only if enough distance is maintained!  Otherwise, Harry meets Sally!

Apart from the love triangle that is brought out very well, Chetan dwells on the rampant corruption that exists in education system in India. Especially, private engineering and management institutes. The colleges bribe school headmasters to recommend them, bribe HR managers to visit them for campus interviews, and use politicians and muscle power to get what they want.

Raghav starts a pink-colored, one page, A3-sized newspaper named 'Revolution 2020' that highlights corruption. When his printing machine and computers are broken by politicians, he writes his articles with a pen, takes photocopies and circulates R2020. He envisions a revolution in India in 2020, with many revolution command centres operating in different parts of India. Maybe, we can think of game zones and wonderlands in India that mimic R2020 command centres :)


And who would look nice playing the lead roles in R2020 movie? For me it is Abishek (Gopal), Farhan Akhtar (Raghav), and Trisha(Aarti). 


Who did Aarti marry? Did Raghav continue with R2020? Did Gopal come out of his evil ways? Read R2020 to know more. The book costs Rs.140 and has 296 pages. Great book and a must read for all Indians. Well done Chetan Bhagat!


Book Launch of R2020 in Chennai

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Though i didn't like this book much but yes i completed the book in one go. Chetan's book have the capability to hold you till the end
anyway you can read my review here
goo.gl/8JuJJ

Rahul said...

The story flow was very neat and tidy.The character Raghav was very impressive, his care towards society was awesome. Even it makes us guilty for not being like him. The sacrificing tendency of our hero Gopal is a thing to be appreciated. Not all the human beings do that. Totally, a well worthy book to be read. Chetan rocks again!!