A seven point something read

This book has every cliche ever thought of "" and then some. Three teenagers from diametrically different backgrounds joined by adversity on the first day of college; a love affair; two suicide attempts "" one successful; midnight escapades...name it and the book has it.

Still, Chetan Bhagat's first book "" Five Point Someone: What not to do at IIT is refreshingly engaging.

Sometime around 1990, Ryan, Alok and Hari meet at a ragging session in Delhi's Indian Institute of Technology. Seeing each other naked probably helps seal the bonds of friendship, and the three mechanical engineering freshers team up.

It's an unlikely combination. Ryan is the textbook have-it-all "" he wears GAP T-shirts to bed; his parents run a handicraft business that makes big money in the US and they send him a scooter for Christmas. He's the brains of the trio "" IIT rank 91 "" but also the most screwed-up.

His parents write every week, the letters pile up in his cupboard (next to the bottle of vodka), but he never replies. He saves the other two from the business end of a cola bottle during ragging, but drags them into a morass of grass, vodka and low grades.

At the other end of the spectrum is Alok. Poor, fat Alok. Take one paralytic father, add a struggling, school-teacher mother, a sister of "marriageable" age and no money "" and you have the perfect setting for a two-hankie weepie.

Alok's acted as nurse-companion to his father since he was 12, and gave up dreams of becoming a painter to pursue Mammon instead: an IIT degree will land him a job that will ensure his sister gets married "" that is, if the groom's family is willing to accept an IOU for the dowry.

And then there's Hari, the narrator. No family details here "" Hari's focus is fixed determinedly on the present and, perhaps, the future. He'll tell you about the insti building, Kumaon hostel, the sludge that's served there in the name of food and about Ryan and Alok "" but not about himself. But then, Hari doesn't think he's interesting enough "" after all, he's not Ryan.

Still, Hari is the one with the girl. Neha is the daughter of the dreaded Professor Cherian, the head of the department. She almost runs over Hari while learning to drive inside the campus and that's the start of one of the weakest, most watery love stories ever.

Neha giggles when she shouldn't, eats strawberry ice-cream and "" the biggest sin, at least as far as Hari and Ryan are concerned "" refuses to let Hari get beyond first base.

Between trying to score with Neha, watching science fiction movies at Priya and watching the first Gulf War live on CNN, Hari and his friends have little time for what their batchmates are doing "" attending classes, putting in 14-hour days at the labs and memorising the entire library.

Not surprisingly, their first-year results aren't quite what they'd like: their grade point average (GPA) is five-point something (a perfect score is 10). Their fates sealed "" a five point someone will never amount to anything much "" Ryan and Hari descend into a spiral of cutting classes, sleeping late and drinking on the roof of the insti building.

At some point, Hari does wonder how someone who topped his school plunged to loser level, but it takes away from his fun time, so he stops thinking about it. Alok, in the meantime, breaks away from the group to team up with the nerdy Venkat "" only to return at the first opportunity.

Even as Hari's affair (such as it is) with Neha flowers, his grades dip "" and with it his chances of ever impressing her father. Ryan comes up with an outrageous plan to kill two birds with one stone. Willy-nilly, the other two follow "" as always "" but this time, with tragic consequences.

Five Point Someone is a well-crafted novel. Bhagat has drawn his main characters well "" brash Ryan, whining Alok and the perennially dazed, but compliant Hari. His prose is witty, with an appealing Indian twist to the language. But his focus is too narrow "" there are no pen-pictures of the institute, the hostel or the other students.

This is not so much a book about IIT as it is about the three protagonists. And Bhagat's callowness as a writer is held up to the light when it comes to Neha. For someone so central to the plot, Neha's character has more holes than Swiss cheese. She's not even uni-dimensional "" she's a miasma.

The fun and games aside, Five Point Someone is a telling indictment of an education system that uses marksheets as a litmus to judge people. The higher your GPA, the better you are as a person. Not true. "Don't let a GPA, performance review or promotion in a job define you. There is more to life than these things," sermonises Prof Cherian towards the end of the book.

It was a dream, Hari realises. An IITian denouncing the obsession with grades is too far-fetched "" even for a work of fiction.

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FIVE POINT SOMEONE: What not to do at IIT!

Chetan Bhagat
Rupa
Price: Rs 95,
Pages: 270