The next national crisis was a fully man-made one.
This crisis involved the great Gujarati riots of 2002--led mostly by Hindu groups attacking Muslim communities in the state--as revenge for an attack on a trainload of Hindu youth returning to their hometown from a weekend conference and proselytizing. (By the way, Mama sees himself as responsible for recruiting Hindu youths to be on that ill-fated train.)
These attacks on Muslims immediately hit home for Ish, Omi, and Govind as their star athlete, Ali, is a Muslim. As a matter of fact, Ali's father and mother are some of the first attacked by Hindu gangs in Ahmadabad as the rioting in that city begins.
The trio set out to save Ali from a similar fate of blind anger and revenge.
WAKE UP INDIA!!
In short, a love story, a sports story, and a mathematics' lovers tale is transformed by the location in time and space it is embedded--namely in a Hindu dominated state (Gujarat) in India during some of the most disruptive episodes in India's recent memory. The events in Gujarat of the past 8 years ago continue to effect most of India today. For example, in July of 2008 there were a series of 16 bombings in a singled day in Ahmadabad alone.
In some ways, every time Gujarat sneezes, the rest of India gets a cold. Lack of press freedom in the name of fighting terrorism took on a particularly distasteful form in Gujarat this past year when the governor of the state had an local editorialist arrested in January simply because the writer had criticized the government in a series pieces. (The good news is that this past summer the India's national courts threw out the Gujarati governors charges and severely criticized the state's governorships when doing so.)
With the Bhagat's choice of situating his story of youthful passions in Gujarat, the author has made The 3 Mistakes of My Life a must read, especially for non-Indians looking into the world of modern South Asia and attempting to comprehend what sort of existence is lived out by 1.2 billion people each and every day.
In this tale, none of the protagonists are wealthy, but most have greater aspirations for themselves and their own country or family. This focus on family and "we Indians"- hits home when the young Ali snubs an offer from Australian officials, who have kindly offered to help both him and his impoverished family to resettle in Australia on a sporting scholarship, whereby the young prodigy would have a much better chance to grow in the athletic potential and stardom he was born to demonstrate.
Ali, his coach, and older friends instead return to their poverty and struggles in Gujarat, situated on the cusp of horrible racial, religious and ethnic violence.
This violence would not only cripple this star athlete but would lead to the death of one of the partners of the cricket shop along with the deaths of other members of their families.
Albeit a short novel, The 3 Mistakes of My Life hits home with many young Indians who cry out that they did not build the world they were born in--and yet must struggle through and inhabit the nation of their forefather's making.
There is pride and hope for India's future revealed in the tale, but in the representations of the main characters, youth of India are portrayed as disconcerted individuals who have to pick up the pieces of messes that others have made. Young people question the historical solutions to date. These solutions have been to join cadres of political parties or cadres of thugs who benefit from social division and strife in India""while not allowing society to develop in a much more positive manner. NOTESChetan Bhagat's Official Website, http://chetanbhagat.com/index.html
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