Book Review : Anything for you, ma'am - Tushar Raheja

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“Highly recommended for all veterans of campus life in India…one of the funniest books in recent times…” - The Hindu

This line mentioned at the top of the book + the fantasy of 5.someone, attracted me to this book. Also, since I am too slogging out my engineering life, I had enough curiosity in me to read about an engineer’s love story (the book’s tag line).

Ratings – lets rate this one on a normalized scale of 10 (10 being the maximum assigned to 5.someone while 0 being the minimum assigned to ON@TCC; both authored by Chetan Bhagat). On this scale I would rate it as 2.75 /10.

The standard of English used by the author (Tushar Raheja) is more formal compared to Chetan Bhagat’s style of English narration. But I guess, this back fired on him as usage of formal language cuts out the extent of comicness in the lines (that’s what I noticed esp. in the first 100 pages of the book).

All the twists (majority of them) amidst the first 194 pages does not contain that suspense which binds the interests of the readers (with few exception esp. when Prof. wants to call the protagonist’s parents, etc). One more big disappointed was, the manner in which the suspense is ended, even in plots where the author has managed to create good suspense, the revealing is too easily done.

The author employs Mr. Fate (basically his luck) for getting into numerous damnedest situations (which do feel realistic, nothing wrong in that) but, immediately after getting into trouble, again Mr. Fate comes out to help…which keeps on happening every often. Bottom-line : most of times, he creates a trouble-plot, the story behind how he comes out of that plot won’t make you more-read-binding. Also, one big feature which I would like to see in his future books is usage of good clear sub-headings. “(the last Oct), (Dec, the year before), (Dec, this year)” type headings do puzzle sometimes.

Post page no. 194 contains the best of the book. Good trouble-plots created with some interesting ends (some were really unimaginable, some were guessable, a few of them were written to improper proportions esp. that Bandits-Railway Police encounter...he could have made it more interesting)…

Good Points –
The author is young (a year older than me engineering wise). Narrating skills were well-written throughout the book. Plus I like way, he has marketed the book – that CL tag will inspire everybody for sure…good marketing management skills.
Its not easy to find publishers, who are ready to publish your art at such age (that’s what I have heard)…a good effort tho……

Its no match for 5.sum1, but I rate this book better than ON@TCC where ‘GOD calls’…irrational work…

Some lines from the book –

“…Biobull. Imagine serving the world by sitting on the potty. You’d be a millionaire brother with your current excreting abilities,”…

“One can not stop crossing roads honking that the next truck will smash him to pulp.”

“Anything for you, ma’am,” I said and hung up. I pushed the hundred rupee note in the stall owner’s hand and ran with Rajit, shouting, “Keep the change…”
The call was priceless.