CHARACTERS: 3.5/5
WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5
CLIMAX: 3/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5
Chetan Bhagat taught India to read. Now his younger sibling Ketan Bhagat has joined the coveted “author” bandwagon by penning his debut Complete/Convenient.
I know it’s really not fair of me to introduce the debut author by relating to his brother, but then we all know our heads may not turn by the mention of a debut author, but that they are bound to, at the mention of the Chetan tag.
Well, Ketan is here to live up to his brother’s reputation and he has surely done a good job at it. Complete/Convenient is a great book with a good plot, good characters and equally good narratives.
The story revolves around Kabir who is working at Satyamev India’s office in Mumbai and savouring his bachelor life living with his true friend Ramesh when suddenly he receives the news of his transfer to the Australian office.
Being a dedicated boyfriend, he duly informs his long time girlfriend Myra of his latest placement.
While he is mentioning his dreams of life in Sydney, he mildly suggests – a future for them (together) in Sydney, which to his great disbelief (when he discovers it later) is taken as a clue (by Myra) for a marriage proposal.
Before he gets a chance to be aware of and correct this misunderstanding, Myra has already spoken to her parents regarding their marriage. Soon, Kabir founds himself in a nasty situation – getting married when he isn’t even ready (and bidding goodbyes to his dreams of bachelor life in Sydney).
What follows is a funny and captivating story of Kabir’s life in Sydney.
I loved Ketan’s writing style.
It is full of wit, humour, emotions, family drama and that too in the right places and right doses. It has all the essential ingredients of a Bollywood melodrama and I firmly believe that if made into a Bollywood movie, it will surely deliver “the numbers”.
What I most admired in the book was Ketan’s very realistic expression of an NRI’s life.
What does an Indian feel when he leaves India, what does he feel when he arrives in a foreign territory and starts living there and finally what does he feel when he has been there for years.
I always thought to live abroad was living in paradise but Ketan, in this book, made me realise that my notion is a far cry from reality.
An NRI has his own, if not similar, insecurities about life, as does an Indian and Ketan has done a good job of showing this.
Talking about the disappointments there aren’t any major ones, if one may choose to ignore the title of the book and its cover.
I don’t understand why such a lovely book deserved such an uninspiring title as this one and to add further to the unattractiveness, the book cover was not good either.
Attractive book covers make bullshit plots sell like hotcakes, and what one (if there) would have done to this one is not an unimaginable thing.
But leaving all this apart, my sincere advice to the readers is to go for Complete/Convenient because if you won’t you would surely be missing a good read because barring the two aforementioned points, I did not find any other disappointment in the plot, characters or the book in general.
In the end, I give my regards and best wishes to Ketan for his upcoming novels as I eagerly wait to read the next one.