CHARACTERS: 2/5
WRITING STYLE: 2.5/5
HUMOUR QUOTIENT: 4/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5
Moonstone: The Incredible One Hour is all about a hilarious (and true) episode in the life of the author Atul Gupta.
This episode occurred while the author was pursuing his studies at the Indian Institute of Technology, Powai (nowadays referred to as the IIT, Bombay).
Every year IIT, Bombay organizes something called a Performing Arts Festival (PAF), which is an inter-hostel skit competition wherein each hostel (out of 9 resident hostels) gets to pair up with another hostel and gets together to prepare an hour-long skit to be presented every Thursday in front of all teachers and students.
The PAF is a cult thing and therefore finds a huge number of followers in residents of all hostels.
This particular incident which the book talks about was a skit jointly prepared and executed by the teammates of Hostel 6 (H6) and Hostel 9 (H9) in the year of 1991.
The author being the part of that batch beautifully reminisces about the then life at IIT, Bombay and narrates the events that led to that incident.
So, as you must have already guessed right, Moonstone is the name of the skit which the team presented and which went horribly in such a way, that the phrase “Moonstone ho gaya” became the “it” phrase for describing anything gone wrong or anything gone out of control.
I hope that by now, you must have had a fair idea of what the book is about. So, let me then delve into the trickier parts.
Talking about the structuring of the book and the writing style, the author has done a fair job of describing a lot of minute details, which supplement the book on one hand and the other, are also essential in understanding the other parts.
For the benefit of the readers, the book is divided into two major halves; the first one describes the campus life, the campus buildings, students and their nicknames, and a few other funny incidents which happened during the author’s stay at the campus.
The other part is about the play, and how it shaped up. What was the original plan? What all went into its preparation? Who were all the team members and what were their respective parts in the overall play?
And last but not least, how it came to be known as the laughing stock of the campus.
Though I did not agree much with the unnecessary introductions in the first half, I must admit that they were somewhat relevant in shaping the whole book together.
Moonstone: The Incredible One Hour, all of 116 fun-filled pages was humour at its best. I enjoyed it so much that it took me so long to remember the last time I had the opportunity to enjoy such a hearty laugh.
I recommend this book to one and all, for it is worth every penny and even though you may not discover treasures of literary measures, you will surely enjoy gulping it to its fullest.
So go ahead, what are you waiting for? Grab a copy and laugh your heart out..!!!