Love, Life & A Beer Can!

A simple title which won’t give much of a clue to guess what the story is about. But I would say it’s a book which you would never regret later for spending time to read.

It’s the story of Raj, an ordinary guy, an orphan who was raised by his uncle and aunt. The uniqueness of this novel according to me is that the protagonist is an ordinary boy, unlike the main characters in most of the stories which we read nowadays, who are exceptionally bright to crack exams, and get into top institutes. But Raj neither is gifted with any outstanding talents nor is he bothered to improve such in him. He represents the millions of young boys scattered everywhere around India, fond of cricket and dreams to be a cricketer and a diehard fan of bollywood which makes him wants to become a movie star.

As usual, since childhood he was being compared with the boy of his age next door and the boy being gifted with extraordinary skills makes Raj’s life more miserable. Just like everyone else’s his parents also have high expectations on him to crack the competitive exams and come up with flying colours. But Raj is neither exceptionally bright nor in thirst to improve such outstanding skills in him. In fact, he is least bothered about studies and exams as his heart and soul is committed to the dream of becoming a movie star. And the story starts with the boy landing in Mumbai, to live the dream most of sought after and how he deals with the outcome.  

Even though this is a story of an ordinary guy the book has its own charm to entice the readers. The writing style is very simple, casual and funny. The presentation is very amusing and hilarious that even in the shocking situations you may laugh out loud. More than reading a novel you would feel as if a close friend is updating you about some incidents of his past, the manner of writing is that friendly and natural.

The author excels in describing every incident in a very interesting way and adding up his own opinion at the end. Whole through the story that easy going and the care free style of a teenager’s life was expressed. Often I felt that the story is not just about Raj but represents all the guys, as the story was vibrant in a guy’s point of view about education, girls, love, marriage and their ambitions and dreams. The incidents are quite familiar to all. Raj’s college life is as exciting as it was for us, filled with joy, fun and shocks. The improper English of Shakeel bhai was hilarious and many other characters along with his were added yet with brief introductions which are only important to make the story more lively and intense. The stages of school life and charts of negative and positive points to analyze which girl to propose, the flow charts and different dialogues to explain the situations were quite interesting. 

Most of the times the numerical descriptions were enhancing the effect over the incident and the same time making it even funnier.

“Waking up around 200 people, listening to not so pleasant words from 199 of them….”

“They continued laughing for exactly 3 minutes”

“There was no water in the loo and I had waited for 1 hour and 45 minutes”

The captions on top of the chapters were gripping and the famous Hindi tag lines were going along with them superbly. I find the introduction in FB style prior to every main episode very creative. The characters are introduced along with a hint what to expect in the coming pages stimulating the urge to go further in reading yet confusing us what actually will be the next incident. The mixed agenda of the chapters were successfully woven together so that the reader will have the curiosity to keep on reading and never let you feel as if you are just reading a diary of someone.

The surroundings were not described in detail, but I’m reluctant to point it out as a draw back because the writing style was much into making the story funny and simple than adopting a rich and poetic language. Hindi tag lines were making the story interesting and familiar to all Indian hearts, but if concerned about the world market it obviously would be a draw back as those tag lines won’t make any sense to the international readers and the same feelings won’t be generated.

Overall it’s a wonderful book, a book you can read in one breathe. If you are feeling low and sad I would suggest you to read this book, it will be a very good tonic to ease yourself. Even for the people who dislike reading and find books very boring, this one would be a good entertainment. The novel is a delight to the senses and I guarantee that you will enjoy reading every paragraph of it! 

Ending the note with few lines of the book… it was hard for me to choose what to put as the book was full of funny lines like this.

“We now had to decide on a name. People poured in with their suggestions. The names suggested were sober, like Yuvraj, weird like Rhythm to gross like Yummy. As the name Yummy was suggested by Rondu, we kept it as his nickname. Rondu’s daughter was named ‘Chocolate’ by the way hence the name ‘Yummy’. He had decided that the two would get married and make a wonderful couple – ‘Yummy-Chocolate’.”