When it comes to the great Anglo-Indian novel, I have to put my hand up and say that I am a fan. I love A Passage to India and all four books of the Raj Quartet. In fact, I even own the complete DVD box set of the 1980s classic TV serial The Jewel in the Crown. But then I am British, so maybe it is only natural that I should buy into a romantic idea of India – a literary notion of a country that is hopelessly outdated and was never quite true in the first place.India’s representative in the Business School Wives Book Club must have faced quite a dilemma. Does she choose a book that conforms to the pattern set by the sweeping, cinematic novels of the past? Does she choose something that represents India today? And if she chooses the latter – which India should be represented for there are many Indias and not all of them can be distilled within the covers of a single book. Quite rightly she chose to introduce a book which is extremely popular in the India of today and which represents accurately an iconic corner of modern Indian life. So it was that we came to be reading Five Point Somebody by Chetan Bhagat.
Five Point Somebody is a short and easy read which accompanies three hapless mechanical engineering students at the Institute of Information Technology in Delhi – an institution so famous in India that in the book it is invariably referred to simply as IIT. IIT is shorthand for the iconic universities in India which are effectively regarded as gateways for their students into the economy. A good degree from IIT basically assures the holder of a job in a fiercely competitive market. The heroes of Five Point Somebody however, are not ideal st
udents. Our narrator Hari and his two friends Ryan and Alok are pretty near the bottom of the class. Their natural lack of genius is compounded by lack of application, personal distractions and downright stupidity. This book tells the tale of their IIT years – and the myriad scrapes that they get themselves into before finally getting out. If you want to know whether they get out with degrees, you will have to have a read yourself.This is not a brilliant book in a literary sense. It is written in an extremely straightforward way but it is not spare or particularly moving. In many respects its resolution is a little trite and unbelievable. However, it is short, fast moving and it can be funny. What is more, despite its shortcomings – it was a perfect choice for the Business School Wives Book Club for two main reasons.
Firstly it is an authentic view of modern middle class India. You know how people say of Jane Austen that her novels are like “six inches of ivory” – that is they show a tiny section of a society at a certain point in time, but show it in its true colour as it was? Well, I think that Chetan Bhagat does something similar here. In his jokey way he criticises an education system that crushes creativity, he shows the colossal pressure that economic desperation can bring to young an
d old shoulders. The society that he represents is deeply stratified, desperate for success and in many respects lacking in compassion.Secondly, given that all of our husbands are at Business School, Five Point Somebody has been a much welcome window onto the world of “GPAs” (Grade Point Averages – the marking system) and the relentless competition that accompanies international business of any flavour. This is a world where a few marks here and there could change a person’s income for the rest of their life. It is a little scary, but on the other hand, it is also a realistic representation of a lot of lives, so thank you Business School Wives Book Club for yet another eye opener.
