Guide- Dr. Kranti Vats

Prof. M.V.M.College, Bhopal

Co- Guide- Dr. Shubhra Tripathi

Prof. M.V.M.College, Bhopal Head of Dept. English, M.V.M. College

Bhopal.

Asst. Prof. Sapna Tiwari Dept. Of Humanities Truba Group of Institutes

Bhopal.

This study determines to attempt the madness of Indian youth for cricket. This game has taken a vast and huge place in the heart of youngsters. Youth of India are already facing a serious and big problem of unemployment but the fever of cricket is overlapping this problem. Madness of cricket has made them unhealthy object of society. Chetan Bhagat covers all the aspect of an adolescent to a matured boy or a man who struggle with the unavoidable circumstances of life and tried to fight against them and simultaneously they want to be successful in their lives and enjoy cricket till fullest. Young people may have to transition from the school to college or from the college to the work or job or to parental home to a house hold of their own or all of these.

Introduction

The Three Mistakes of My Life is one of the finest piece of Chetan Bhagat . This novel is based on young generation and their dreams. Indian youth is highly admired and inspired by

cricket. They adore Indian cricket players as they are their role models and if we use the word ‘God’ that  will not  be exaggeration. This is once again a piece of crumbled bread for the

youngsters.    Omi, Ishaan, and Govind are the main characters of the novel “Three Mistakes of My Life”. Adolescent is an important stage in terms of psycho social development particularly

identity information. Chetan has presented young generation or youth as protagonist because they are able to confront the things and move on. Chetan believes that the youth of India is fed

from the beginning for sports. Everybody knows about Indians that they how much adore this game, although, hockey is the national game of India, but people have made cricket the best

game of the country. Bhagat has tried the balance between the struggle and demands of the youth for employment and poverty and love for cricket. In the novel, when Ishaan’s father is not ready

and happy by his step because he left Army school and came back home. But whenever he watches Indian cricket match, he becomes crazy for Indian cricket team as he is a great cricket

lover and he is paid to cheer up Indian team.

Ishaan is a good cricketer of Belrampur. He is dropped out the military school. He is very

fond of cricket. No exaggeration, if he is called the Sachin Tendulkar of Belrampur. ‘Ish’ Ishaan‘s nick name , has not maintained healthy relation with his father . He wanted to become a famous and popular cricketer of the country; but destiny does not show interest on him, and he became looser of his family and among his friends. But fortunately among the friends, they had very good and strong bonding to survive even if crisis was there. Govind , the central character is

very greedy but Ishaan is not fond of money. Cricket is his passion where he gets the real pleasure of life.

“Today is not purely a question of the education of youth; it is a question of the parents, because so many parents, I have found to hold on their children …

We can not simply expect them to say, “our elder people have had experience and they have proved to themselves certain things therefore they are right.”             I find they are perfectly

willing to talk to older people, but they don’t want to talk to older people, who I are shocked by their ideas  , nor do they want to talk to older people who are not realistic .”

The same thing happens in “ The Three Mistakes of My Life”  when  Govind , Ishaan  and Omi wanted to open a sports shop but they were aware of angriness of Ishaan’s father , because

he never understood the love of Ishaan for cricket , he tried to enforce Ishaan for putting him into Army school , and as a result Ishaan ran away and came back to Ahmadabad and enjoying

his life with cricket and his friends .

On the other hand Govind was the first, who told his mother about his dream of opening a

sports shop, as he knew the importance of cricket in India. He wanted to club the cricket and business together and with the consent of his mother, he was successful on his business. The same incidence happened with Omi, his mama (uncle) was a sensible man, but not so cricket lover but he maintained the dignity of his elder and gave permission of opening sports shop in temple premises.

It is often said that India is a cricket crazy country. Indians take cricket as much more than

just a sport and the resulting madness often gives a bad taste in mouth of any cricket lover. Chetan has tried to touch weak mettle of Indians through three mistakes….

The career decision and unemployment in all section in India is increasing, particularly in the higher educated groups the inflation rate is also increasing. To cope up with the economic

demands of life, the youth experience a conflict between economic survival in a competitive society vice a versa pursuit of inner human interest and services to the society, a high percentage

of youth  , after graduation of bachelors’ level or at post graduation levels in engineering.

As Chetan   portrays the characters of the three mistakes … belonging to lower and middle

lower class. They are the great followers and lovers of cricket. Cricket is not only famous in cities, but it is famous also in rural class. We can find people especially of young generation playing in “Gali and chauraha”.

It  was  outstanding.  The  atmosphere  in  the  entire  country  was  lively,  optimistic  and

contagious. I’m afraid to think what would have been the case had India lost the final or semi- final. The team would’ve been ashamed; the citizens would have been incensed and frustrated. Newspapers would unearth another scam and reporters would go nuts hatching and revealing schemes and frauds.

Through this novel, Chetan tries to catch the heart of the Indian youth, because as we know cheatan Bhagat has become the best seller only due to youth readers, Chetan has pointed out at many chapters in the novel where characters of the novel are interested in cricket coaching as they knew that India had adequate hidden talent; but not enough facilities. Hence in very young age Ishaan started coaching of cricket in his town. Instead of spending big amount of money on their young cricket poor players, those had talent but not money. Chetan has showed the kindness of the young generation as they thought of the society and its welfare.

He made 122. The guy did (Sachin Tendulkar) his job. Just a few final closing shots left.

Why    are    you    getting    so    worked    up?    I    asked    during    a    commercial    break.

……………………………………………..  The  match  was  in  vadodara,  just  two  hours  away  from

Ahmedabad. But we could not go – one, because we did not have money, and two, because I have my correspondence exams in two days.

This is about Ishaan when he left NDA and came back. Ishaan had always avoided this topic  ever  since  he  ran  away  from  NDA  a  year  ago.  His  dad  had  already  sarcastically

commented, cut a cake today to celebrate one year of your uselessness.

I saw Ish’s face, he tried to smile but I saw the pain. The champion batsman of Belrampur

would become an insurance salesman. Belrampur kids had grown up applauding his boundaries at Nana Park. But now he had no life ahead, he wanted to other people’s lives.

Chetan’s characters are very much inspired by cricket that they open a cricket shop named ‘Team India Cricket Shop’, with the colours of Indian flag.

Omi is an important character of the novel. He believes in deep bondage of friendship although he belongs to a very religious family but he shares his cream time with his friends.

Chetan Bhagat writes for the youth, the style and the presentation of the book almost remains the same as it was in his other novels. The best part of this novel is based on Gujarat and it is said for

Guajaratis that they love to be in the business and respect business than any other place in India does. The story of the “Three Mistakes of My Life” is woven around Govind’s life is very

simple. His friends and other characters of the novel are Omi and Ishaan . Ishaan is very talented and well aware of his qualities. He never tries to negotiate the things in which he does not

believe or does not trust. Ishaan has represented district level cricket number of times in matches. Yet he failed to make it big. That’s where his dreams were shattered and he started behaving

very weird to everyone except his best friends. And as a side effect of it, he became habitual watching cricket all the time on T.V.   Omi is a simple person he is neither as intelligent as

Govind nor as good player as Ishaan. He believes that he is not perfect and attentive all the time with his friends but still his commitment and dedication towards his friends is par excellent and

this makes him an inseparable part of his trio. Omi belongs to a Pandit (Brahmin) and religious family and his father was a temple priest of the city. But Omi hates the job of the priest and

break the tradition of being priest in the temple.

Fickle  mindedness  is  another  attribute  that  characterizes  the  Indian  cricket  fan.  For

youngsters, cricket players are turned from idols to villains in no time at all. Sensational victories are forgotten due to recent defeats and then defeats are again forgotten due to victories. Sachin Tendulkar might be God for every Indian especially for youngsters. And young people can do everything for Indian victory.

Sehwag has quoted these famous lines in one of his advertisement, “ Ye India ka cricket hai beedu , jeete to thaat  hai per hare to waat hai” .

The roles of Indian fans become more important when the team does not perform well. Like other people, our cricketers are also human beings and thus are bound to make mistakes.

Govind and Ishaan started tuition and cricket coaching along with sports shop, although Govind was very money minded, but for the sake of his friends’ happiness and his own interest, they

jumped into the coaching field.

Our country has a billion people. We should always win, Ish insisted.

‘Statistically impossible’.

Why? Australians has twenty million people. Yet they win almost every match. We have

fifty times the people, so fifty times the talent. Plus Cricket is India’s only game while Australia has rugby and football and whatever. So there is no way we should be defeated by them. Statistically, my friend, Australia should be a rounding error….

Actually this is fact that Indian parents are not ready to pay even some money for sports but they are willingly ready to pay thousands and many more for their wards to study. Chetan Bhagat has pointed out here that if a child’s interest is in sports then parents should let him involve in sports also. Like Chetan is studied at IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmadabad, worked and earned good amount of money at Hongkong but somehow he was dissatisfied with his job, not because he was not earning nicely but he had the talent of a writer and he wanted to become a writer from the beginning as it was his dream. He realized later on that he wanted to become a writer from the bottom of his heart. I do believe that Indian parents force their children to do and pursue that what they want but not interested in what their children want and wish to achieve in their lives.

According to the research, scholar wants to add that Indians are very impulsive and emotional to take the decision and especially about youth, they play a vital role to portray somebody hero or zero

Another important character of the novel is Ali, a Muslim boy whose presence in the story

touches the issues of religion and of course it tells you.

I have figured it out. Passion versus parents is a tough call. But if you have to choose,

passion should win. Humanity wouldn’t have progressed if people listened to their parents all the time.

Exactly. Our parents are not innocent either. Weren’t we all conceived in a moment of passion? I looked at her innocent looking face, shocked. This girl is out of control .maybe it isn’t

a good idea to get her out of her cage.

If we talk about the latest research of maximum colleges in India, usually they keep holiday

on the day when India has its important and crucial match, and passion of cricket is par excellence like the young generation of India cry when Sachin Tendulkar is out and they jump when Dhoni or Yuvraj hits a six or a four. Everybody has seen the present scenario of world cup, where India has won the world champion ship and after finishing the match the madness and craziness could have been seen anywhere even at night also. Boys and girls were seen at night

12.30 in the main square of every city.  We could found them easily outside enjoying and

celebrating Indian victory. But the same passion and craziness is not found for any other sports. Regional attachment can be found with particular game and sports, but each and every member of the family where ever they belong to any class have been found enjoying cricket match.

Usually  Indian government declares  holiday on particular day when the match is going to

be played especially India verses Pakistan .Streets, offices, schools and hospitals run empty on a day when the Indian side locks horn with Pakistan in a sensitive match in India or Pakistan or even anywhere in the world. It is seen incidents of heart attacks during a nail-biting finish or even suicide at the loss of Indian side have also been known to occur. This shows the madness and  craziness  of  Indian  youth,  actually  this  happens  with  every  age  group  in  India.

But the huge cricket mania in India has undeniably turned the sport into a large industry in the country. A lot of money spins around the sport and multiplies its effect in the national economy to the benefit of everybody. The Stock Exchange Index rises and falls and elections are won or lost centering round the sentiment of cricket. Top rung corporate organizations eye the Indian market to launch a product or sponsor a game.

Cricket has become the game of the nation although hockey is the national game but it

fascinates youngsters. And we can find true patriotism when Indians play against Pakistan that becomes the national pride of life and death. Sometimes, it is very dangerous for them due to

classicisms. Youngsters have remembered the figures and years of matches and important event like when Sachinn completed his first century or Gambhir’s fastest half century instead of learning and memorizing the dates and formulas of their syllabus and courses.

“Hey Mr. Mathetician has it happened? Has it ever happened that the side facing a follow

on actually won the match? Ish said signaled. Omi to start urgent, special prayer.”

Here if we see usually youngsters hardly believe in’ ‘Pooja Paath’ but for Indian victory

they can go to any extend which is possible for them. After the conversation Govind stands for getting the data which is more important than any other competitive book. When Govind said to his friends, “I pulled out the cricket data book from the top shelf. We hardly sold any of these, but the publisher insisted we keep a few copies. ‘Ok, so it has happened earlier,’ I said after ten minute search.

Another character of Three Mistakes of My Life is Vidya, who is Ishaan’s sister dropped

out for a year to prepare for medical entrance, and girl friend of Govind who teaches her math, is also angry due to madness of her brother and because of him, they went to Goa to become a part of the match between India and Australia.

The central character, Govind is a perfect professional, but, he also does the things beyond

expectation. For example, when they had some responsibility of their shop but for sake of a child Ali, they went to Goa to watch cricket match because Ishaan was interested. Ishaan did not want to anything but when Govind asked to open a sports shop, Ishaan felt happy, but I think madness is always bad, but craziness for cricket is the main problem or I must say, youngsters cannot minimize the love for cricket until or unless cricket is played in India.

Ishaan is a cricket freak. He knows more about cricket than anyone else would have in

Belarampur. Here, Chetan is inspired by his brother in law, who is also cricket freak. The best part of Chetan’s writing is his surrounding where the people who spend time with him are captured in the novel. We can find these types of characters in our day to day lives.

Being  a  developing  country,  India  everyday  resolves  and  fabricates  multitudinous

problems. A vital fraction constitutes the problems of the youth. This not only connotes the problems “constructed” by the youth but also the problems “faced” by them.

Basically youth in India are going through more personal issues. Many are introvert, (this word  always  being  wrongly taken  for  a shy or  reserved  person,  actually  means  “a person

predominantly concerned with his/her own thoughts and feelings rather than with the environment around”) or extremely gregarious and few are able to create balance. This situation

has risen because of the fact that the society is either very harsh or very lenient with its teenagers.

Seemingly all youth issues are directly and obviously related to the form of the society around them. For example Govind was the boy who was very much balanced in his life where

we talk about business or personal relations, but Ishaan was very poor to make relations even with  his  father  also.  Youth  in  societies  struggle  for  the  “freedom of  choice”  –  choice  to

occupation, choice to views, choice to clothes and most of all choice to education. The same thing fall with Ishaan on which have discussed already that army was not his choice but cricket.

Outgoing educational prospects or provisional jobs are strictly not accessible to girls. Vidya, she wanted to go in some other field or directly we can mention that she wanted to leave the house

and town and wanted to fly and enjoy her life till fullest, but restrictions were there. This part of the youth suffers from extreme restrictions, which includes the suppression of thoughts, feelings

and anxieties, leading to repression. Adolescents’ and young age problem of maladjustment here is accompanied by factors like the family, social and educational background, and they are not

being able to catch up with the constructive aspects of modernism. It brings about conflicts of values and creates frustration among youth.

There are very few things in India which are not affected by the recession, Indian economy, natural disaster, slow down or anything or any man made tragedies. They go for ever with us.

That is cricket, which is more popular than Bollywood and politics in add that India. Indians are crazy about it. And I must add that Indian youth live for cricket. It is possible that they may not

know Indian hockey players’ name or any other sports person, but they have full knowledge about Indian cricket team.  They may not know the president of India but can give you the full

description very easily of any Indian player who plays for national team.

This was not the case from the beginning. Infect cricket was a dying sport as people were

losing interest in it…………other sports such as hockey or football are finished well under 2-3 hours and because of their fast pace, the excitement lasts throughout the match. This was missing in cricket. And was the biggest drawback of this format of the sport. So in a desperate attempt to save cricket, the big guns of the sport came up with new and unique format.

Although cricket is not the official national sport in India, but it gets much more excitement and a greater fan following than the official national sport Hockey. But there is a question, Why only hockey? In fact, no other sport in India can be adopted as claim the position hold by cricket in respect to its popularity, fame, money, glamour which is not gained by any other sports. But our youth does not understand that all sports are also important, and the youngsters those are interested to make their career in other sports will be always neglected, and this gives frustration and depression to our young generation.

People work out their social events, leaves from office and travel plans tallying with the Indian cricket team’s schedule. There are several instances of Indian cricket fans arranging elaborate poojahs or going on a ceremonial fast on the eve of a final game of a significant international tournament.

Conclusion:

Bhagat has tried to expose the problems of youth through Three Mistakes of My Life.

Whatever the problems we face in our life, apart from that ‘where there is a will there is a way’, policy should be applied in our day to day life. Hence problems can be minimized or maximized but fun and madness and craziness of youngsters cannot be defined in words.

Works Cited

Bhagat, Chetan. Three Mistakes of My Life, Rupa publication, 2008.

Garg   Pratyush. Noida   April 15, 2009.  http://pratushgarg.instablogs.com/entry/cricket.mania / http://www.mapsofindia.com/cricket/cricket-in-india.html http://www.hindu.com/2011/03/30/stories/2011033062570400.htm http://anujarathi.blogspot.com/2011/04/cricket-mania.html

Menon,  Romesh  and  Dhillon.  Amrit  suicide  fatal,  Attraction  in  India Today,  February 28, Paxman publication, 1991.

Roosevelt,  Eleanor.  Facing  the  problem  of  youth,  national  parent  –  teacher  Magazine  29 February, 1935.

Tandan. Sumiran. Indian youth in front of problems article, India.

… Indian youth in front of problems article, India.