Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat

It was always considered difficult to fit four long years of engineering studies into a 200 page novel. And this belief became stronger after reading Five Point Someone. FPS is the story of three guys, Hari Kumar, Ryan Oberoi and Alok Gupta, narrated in first person through the eyes of Hari. The story starts with these guys beginning their first year at IIT-Delhi in Mechanical Engineering. It speaks of ragging in the senior’s room which is where these guys meet each other for the first time. The story moves forward depicting how these guys struggle to follow the massive course curriculum at the IIT-Delhi. They end up devising the C2D (Cooperate to Dominate) policy but are still unable to score well in the exams. They continue getting five point something CGPAs. Alok always wished to score well in the exams and hence has a brief fallout with these guys. But he later realizes his mistake and soon rejoins their group. In the meantime, Hari falls for Neha Cherian, daughter of HoD of Mechanical Dept. This particular sequence and the following incidents don’t seem believable and this is where the author looses out. To impress Prof. Cherian, Hari & Co. try to steal their exam paper from Prof. Cherian’s office. They are caught red-handed in the act by the DISCO (Disciplinary Committee) and they are not allowed to appear for any further exams that year. Aided by Prof. Veera and Ryan’s lube project, they somehow manage to get the requisite credits to pass their engineering course. They end up somehow securing a job each and get out of IIT safely.

This book faltered in a lot of places. First of all, the story moves in leaps and bounds moving between years a little too fast and the reader is left in a confused state on most occasions. The author depicts these five pointers to be the most ‘fundo’ students in their batch (enjoying all the time with grass and vodka) which is certainly not true. In most colleges, it is generally the seven and eight pointers that are considered to be the best students in the batch. Also, the author paints a very gloomy picture of an engineering college where new and innovative ideas are never welcome, which is again untrue. Also, engineering studies are relatively much easier as compared to the amount of studies in medicine which is again wrongly depicted by the author. In short, although the plot is good and the story well-told but it is certainly not the setting of an engineering college.