Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT by Chetan Bhagat Search Amazon for other books by or about Chetan Bhagat. Rating: Reviewed by: Arvind Saraf

Introduction

Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) are our (Indian) premier engineering institutions surrounding by an aura of hype. Think of IIT students, and if there is any thought, it will vary between that of highly evolved version of humans characterized by ability to stare at computer screens for hours and solve complex equations in their head -- humans on the verge of becoming a separate species, or that of students who are all-nerd and no-play.

Stereotypes unfortunately don't do serve any good. Any attempt to break them, specially the more incorrect ones, are useful. Chetan Bhagat's Five Point Someone is an attempt to portray IITians as theyare -- regular engineering students who like other people their age like to have fun and have their own insane moments but who, just by virtue of their slightly sharper intellect and/or hard work, patience and perseverence, or just luck are got into an IIT. He should be commended for the effort alone.

The Characters

Five point Someone is a story of three friends at IIT Delhi, recounting their journey from the first day on campus and ceremonial ragging to final graduation.

For Alok, IIT is the launching pad to get a job that will solve his family's financial problems -- whatever grill he is subjected to at IIT and howsoever much he has to submit to the system to do so is irrelevant to him. Ryan is a total antithesis -- handsome, smart, with an eye for creative original work and sometimes irritating keeness to always criticize and challenge the system, unwilling to submit to it and the baggage of of classes that goes with it. Hari, the narrator, is mostly willing to comply with whosoever is more dominant, but where left without without the sane advice of his two friends, has erred gravely -- he has fallen for his draconian professor Cherian's daughter Neha. No portrayal of IT students is complete without the mandatory muggu -- Venkat, a character is special appearance, fills in that role.

As if as an afterthought, as if in submission to protests by some IIT professors about their portrayal in the novel, and to not deprive of all hope those that still have some reasonable humanitarian expectation of IIT professors, there is professor Veera as a saving grace to the creed.

Some Truisms:

Lest book distributors sue me for killing away the suspence, I will not indulge into more details of the story line. I will instead talk about some truisms about student life at IIT in the novel:

1. Flurry of classes, homeworks, quizzes -- the undeniable truth, the sadistic part of the education that makes anything further ahead in life seem far less work or less pain
2. Students spending most of the time complaining about (1) above, instead of actually working on or preparing for them. Try doing something you don't like or constantly complaining about -- more hell!
3. Classes reduced to just homeworks and quizzes, with no incentive or time for original thinking. You don't expect this at IIT, but this is often sadly true.
4. A students identity, specially among the professors, to be just reduced to one number, which depending on the IIT in question, maybe called GPA (Grade Point average) or CPI (Cumulative performance index). Depending upon your GPA/CPI, you may start believing yourself to be the smartest or dumbest person on earth, but the psychological repurcussions thus arising are your problem entirely disclaimed by IITs.
5. Booze -- it may come as a shock to many with lofty perceptions about IITs, but its true. I have seen my fellow batchmates drunk like crazy in our final year when either they or any of their "wingies" gets a job -- I am sure most start much earlier, and do it more often.

Conclusion

The book is the first of its kind, and commendable just by virtue of that. Last I heard, there were plans to make a movie on it. A scene in the movie is very reminiscent of the Bollywood movie Mohabbatein. Lets hope the hope the movie FPS won't be as cliched as that!