The Free Mistakes of Your Life!!!

Dear Chetan Bhagat,

Hi, Hope you are doing fine.

I recently happened to read one of your books with the name “The 3 Mistakes of My Life”. I hope you do remember that you wrote it. Well, actually it won’t be right to say that I happened to read it as I didn’t. I wasn’t travelling any long distance train for which I might need some book to kill my time. Neither, I am any more an MBA student who is ready to read any bullshit just to make sure that he doesn’t have to listen to the Glorified Management Jargons during the stupid lectures given by Who’s Who of the Industry. I am not a retired professional. I am not a tired professional. I am not a rich man’s house wife for whom moving the eyeballs while reading would be a good calorie burner and would therefore had to read on the prescription of some dietician. Incidentally, now that the question has arisen, let me clarify you that I am a male so I can never be a house wife though; I am ready to be a house husband in case any of working lady is interested. Coming back to same point, I am certainly not a patient admitted in the general ward of a government hospital who would any way have to read any book for want of other options. Overall, I am not any of those who might have had happened to read your book. And therefore I would like to correct myself from my earlier statement - “I recently happened to read one of your books….” to the statement- “ I recently read one of your books…… ”. So, when I was going to read it I knew well in advance what I was doing and I did it quite intentionally. I hope it would make you feel a little better.

So, now that you already know that I have read your book and I read it quite knowingly the next logical question, which might be and would be arising in your mind, should be that why, then, did I ever plan to read it. Believe me it’s the same question which most of the people had asked themselves after they had read it. But I didn’t. I hope this would make you feel a little more better (please ignore the grammatical mistake). I would keep making you feel better and better as I progress through this letter. I am not a big fan of yours who would read all the books written by you just because they were written by you, though, I must confess that I have already read all the books written by you but, again, that is not because they were written by you. I also won’t say that the book has been a lesser disappointment to me than it has been to other readers who planned or happened to read it. And I am definitely not saying that I didn’t ask the question “ Why did I ever planned to read this book?”, once I had read it, just to make you feel somewhat more better, which I had promised earlier that I would keep making. I genuinely did not feel the need to ask it to myself. I always knew why I was doing it unlike most of the rest of the things of my life for which I still don’t know why I did whatever I did.

It wasn’t a strategic move in the parlance of a recent graduate from Top Notch MBA institute (it could not have been). To deviate a little, it would be worthwhile to mention that there are other MBA institutes also except IIM A (B, C, L, K, I, S included for that matter) like mine whose students still like to claim to have studied at TOP Notch MBA college though you may beg to differ on it. Coming back, if the market research reports were to be believed then it was not even a good investment. So you might consider me a little entrepreneurial about the fact that I defied all the logics, reports and customer feedbacks to venture into reading your book probably purely on my gut feeling. But, unfortunately, it was not for my gut feeling also.
You might not have given it so much of thought before you wrote it as to why you should write it the way you could be wondering now, to figure out, why on earth did I ever read your book, the way I have sensationalized it. India TV would hire me, I bet, on my terms if the HR ever happens to or plans to read this letter of mine. Don’t worry I won’t sensationalize it any further. So, here comes the reason as to why I read your book. I read your book because I felt it was human. In fact, every human being who ever read this book had read this book because it was human. They might not know that they read it because it was human to read it but it was, trust me on that. I know that animals can’t read but even if animals could read, it would still be only humans who would read this book because it is actually so human to read this book. You could feel better about it though you might be thinking was it actually so human but deep down inside you also know that it is. You always knew that it is and that is the precise reason why you wrote it and that is the only reason why readers read it. They were all humans, how they could not have.

You know how human it is to err but what is even more human is to tell others that they have erred. I swear to God that I have never missed an opportunity throughout my life to tell others their mistakes and there have been occasions when I did not even wait for them to commit a mistake so that I could tell them that they have committed one. I told them in advance that they are going to commit one as and when I foresaw it which I generally do. Being a human I consider it my utmost duty towards humanity and fellow humans to point out their mistakes. If I won’t tell them then who would and if nobody does then the poor soul would keep repeating the same mistake. I think it’s always better to commit different mistakes, every time you have to commit it than to commit the same mistake over and over again. That would be so dumb, dull and boring apart from being a highly non-learning experience. I mean, it’s always the mistakes from which men (and women as well) learn and wise men (and women as well) are those who learn from others’ mistakes. Needless to say, we humans are wisest of all animal and therefore, I feel so human while finding mistakes like I never do with any other thing associated with humanity.

So, when you provided me and us with an opportunity to know the 3 mistakes of your life by reading “The 3 Mistakes of My Life”, how could any human with humanity in his heart, would have refused to read it. That would have been so inhuman. Humans would any given day be ready to shell out any amount of money to know the mistakes done by others what the f…. hell 300 bucks are. The best of the memories I cherish are the memories of wrongs done by others rather than rights done by me. But the funniest part is that you also did not write about the mistakes of your life. You just wrote about the mistakes of somebody else’s life in first person. That is what makes this book is so human. I am sure it must have been equally human for you to write the way it has been for us to read.

Now, before I end this letter, let me give you an honest feedback for you like a human being would always do. Most of the humans whom I came across, who had read this book told me that it was not worth reading but I still did. So in the end, just to make you feel a little better (which I had promised somewhere in the middle that I would keep doing), let me confess before you that this book of yours is yet better than “In The Line Of Fire” by Mr. Parvez Musharraf about which, almost all had thought that his glorified book was not even worth writing. At least nobody felt so about yours. So, you score some points over him. I hope it does make you feel better.

Looking forward to read some more HUMAN stories.

Warm Regards,
VINEET GARG
(Fellow Human)