It is the kind Bollywood rejoices, youth of our generation enjoys and everyone directly or indirectly related to the release of the book makes fortunes. The latest book by Chetan Bhagat – “0.5 Girlfriend” is soo much filmy and the book is nothing but a perfect script. A script you would hand it over to the casts (anticipated) of the movie and they wouldn’t think twice to sign up. It’s already a 300-cr (a crore/cr is 10mn) movie 
It was a very (v.) easy read (obvious, ya) that one could easily finish it in 2 go’s of 2 hours each. As I was reading the book, my mind picturized where all would the shooting of the movie happen. 3 places primarily – St. Stephens’ Campus in New Delhi, Bihar (Patna and Dumraon mostly) and NYC (Central Park, Manhattan, 5th and 8th Avenue, all the popular bars there).
Let’s move to the plot and the main story now. First year at the very British like St. Stephens. A royal but poor guy from Bihar meets the very beautiful and rich Delhi girl. The poor guy reads Social sciences and the rich girl reads English literature. Both of them have pretty much no interest in studies. The rich girl’s aim in life is to work as a singer in a Bar in NYC. The poor guy is from the Sports quota and wants to go back to his State after graduation. Coffees, sms’es, tiffin sharing, basketball playing and some such things happen. As expected, the poor guy falls in love with the rich girl. His friends ‘suggest’ (wrong word! The right word is ‘force’) him to have ‘sex’ with the rich girl and ‘Make Bihar Proud’. If having sex meant making Bihar proud, it must have been one of “the most…” (please complete the sentence yourself). The royal guy in the midst of all the confusion utters something stupid to the girl that she leaves him.
Second year at Stephens starts. The girl is not speaking to the guy. He catches glimpses of her every now and then. Annual fest starts, the girl bags a lot of prizes, the guy badly wants to speak to the girl. He goes up to her and she behaves very casual and why should she not, she is up to something important. She takes him to his car and hands him her wedding card. She is getting married to the same rich guy he met on her birthday party, one who is settled in London and whom people lovingly address as ‘Ro’ (understand the pun here?). The poor yet royal guy is extremely upset and suddenly realizes that he needs to focus on studies. Job placements start in the 3rd year and he is given a job from HSBC for being bluntly and blatantly true in the interview. The royal guy of course refuses to take up the job and joins down with his mother in Dumraon to run her school.
The royal guy gets a royal treatment at home but is stunned at the kind of problems the school run by his mother is facing. The MP refuses to provide any funding to the school when one day Bill Gates plans to visit India, the backward and rural India and the MP needs help from a Stephanian to deliver a speech to Mr. Gates and highlight the poor, ugly, downtrodden India. He doesn’t know that this Stephanian is not so good at English. Mr. Royal’s mom re-iterates that Mr. Royal is ‘Royal’ and royal blood’s are supposed to take up challenges. Mr. Royal joins a ‘English speaking course’ in Patna where they spend a day teaching the right pronunciation of ‘How are you’ to the students.
Bill Gates’ secretary who is making arrangements of his visit to India invites Mr. Royal to a hotel in Patna to discuss the preparations his school is making. Mr. Royal catches a glimpse of his rich friend from Delhi but is unable to believe his eyes. He waits for the whole day in the Hotel to catch a glimpse of her again. They meet. Coffee sessions start again. Rich girl got a divorce from ‘Ro’ and is now working with a Multinational company in Patna, India. She lends him hand to prepare for his speech and he in turn helps him setup her house. I imagined Ranbir Kapoor and Konkona Sen from the movie ‘Wake Up Sid’. People in movies are always so lucky, they find such huge apartments to stay in cities like Mumbai.
Girl and the guy help each other. The girl visits Dumraon and meets the guy’s mother. Conversations happen, dinners too and the speech to Bill Gates is a big hit. Mr. Royal gets a huge funding from the Bill Gates Foundation but the rich girl vanishes. She writes a letter stating she is suffering from cancer. Mr. Royal rushes to her house in Patna but finds her nowhere. She has left everything as it is in the house and Mr. Royal is heartbroken once again. He goes into depression, comes out of it and rebuilds the school.
One fine day again, somebody gives a call to Mr. Royal that the journals of Ms. Rich are found and he can take them if interested. Mr. Royal seeks help from CB. CB does his bit of research and comes up with 6 journal entries for Mr. Royal to read. Mr. Royal reads them which make up a complete story. They explain Ms. Rich’s difficult childhood, her life after marriage and why she went for a divorce and wait for the climax – ‘That she is still alive. Cancer was a lie to go away from Mr. Royal. Mr. Royal’s mom had refused of their relationship and she had to take this step’.
Mr. Royal rushes to NYC because he remembers Ms. Rich’s goal in life. He goes to NYC with a 3-month internship from the Gates’ Foundation and searches each and every bar in the city. He stays with his old friend from Stephens and his live-in partner. Just before the end of his 3-month stay, he meets Ms. Rich. A few years later, Ms. Rich, Mr. Royal and their son are found to be living in Dumraon. This brings us to the end of the ‘happily ever after’ story.
After this, we should wait for Vigil idiot’s column on Mumbai boss.
PS: All the opinions in this article are my own. They are a result of reading the novel. The opinions could be believed or argued, in both the cases it is perfectly fine.
No comments:
Post a Comment