Book Review – ‘The Girl In Room 105’ By Chetan Bhagat

Source - Amazon.in

‘Crying dads and slapping moms are a routine part of how Indian kids are hammered into shape and manipulated to give up on things they really want.’                                         -Chetan Bhagat, The Girl in Room 105

The Girl In Room 105 is the eighth novel authored by Chetan Bhagat. Chetan Bhagat is often seen as a conventional romantic novel, with all his novels being about falling in love and/or staying in love. I think this novel is what breaks the streak of his love stories.

About The Author

Source - Wikipedia

Chetan Bhagat is the author of six-bestselling novels – Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center, The 3 Mistakes of My Life, 2 States, One Indian Girl, Revolution 2020, and Half Girlfriend – which have sold millions of copies worldwide, making him cult famous.

By profession, he is an Indian author, columnist, and YouTuber. TIME Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Fast Company, USA listed him as one of the 100 most creative people in business globally. Five of his novels have been adapted into Bollywood movies.

Chetan Bhagat went to college at IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad and worked as an Investment Banker for a decade while knowing deep down that writing was his passion. His works are mostly focused on youth and its issues. Chetan Bhagat has always tried to give a voice to youngsters through his words; gaining him the popularity he has.

Introduction

This book starts with the author’s signature style; a conversation between him and the main protagonist of his story. On a flight to Delhi, the author has an encounter with Keshav, who starts to narrate his story which eventually catches the attention of the author.

Keshav was an IIT class tutor, a job that he hates, and is looking for a proper job but has failed repeatedly. He comes from a pretty by-the-book kind of family, a mother who are a homemaker and a father who is a part of RSS. His story revolves around a girl named Zara Lone, who is a Ph.D. aspirant.

This story is not any usual love story as the subtitle suggests, it is an unlove story. Keshav talks about his lady love with all his passion but tells the author that she died a while ago. Seeing Keshav, the author thought that he must have made peace with her going, but the story has a more complete plot than any usual one.

The Plot

As I mentioned earlier, this book breaks the streak of love stories and the author enters the mystery and thriller genre with this work of his. What seems like a simple unfortunate incident turns out to be a bigger mess than the author anticipated.

Keshav and Zara were deeply in love, but couldn’t be together because of their families. The classic religious issues are what mark the end of their relationship, but not their love story. Keshav refuses to move on from Zara, while Zara seems to be in a happy and content relationship with Raghu, Keshav’s classmate.

Keshav seems to be jealous of Raghu always, given he is supposedly an intelligent guy, but nerdy looking. Keshav continues to call and message Zara, reaching out to her to come back but Zara keeps refusing. On the night of Zara’s birthday, Keshav breaks his ritual of wishing Zara on her birthday on the advice of his dear friend Saurabh.

Interestingly, Zara texts Keshav that night and asks why he didn’t wish her this year and consequently asks him to come to meet her. Crazy with ecstasy, Keshav and Saurabh run to Zara’s hostel and break in. When Keshav enters Zara’s room, he finds it to be quiet, wondering why did Zara fall asleep after asking him to meet her.

He goes near Zara asleep and touches her forehead. He finds her body to be cold, and when he switches on the light, he finds the corpse of the love of his life on that bed. Even though he and his friend became the prime suspect in Zara’s murder case, they manage to justify themselves. Keshav becomes passionate about finding the murderer along with the inspector, Vikas Rana.

Although the story starts a bit slow but picks up the pace eventually. The writing is perfectly captivating, forcing the reader to keep turning the page. The author surprises us with this new take of his, perfectly portraying his versatility.

An Unlove Story

This story is about falling out of love with someone and moving on. Keshav eventually finds out all about Zara and knows that it is important to limit the love one feels for someone. The story of Keshav is about the other side of any love story – when you dig deep into those corners of one’s life that were hidden from you for a long time.

‘Thank you. For showing me what love is all about. And thank you for also teaching me to never love someone too much.’                                                                                          -Chetan Bhagat, The Girl in Room 105

The book is not about holding grudges, revenge, hard feelings, or a bad breakup. It is simply an unlove story.

Overall Rating – 4/5

Written By – Simran Mahon