How often do
you come across novels based on college life, school days, friendship, and love
affairs? Almost now and then – isn’t it? But the question is, how many of those
novels manage to stir your soul or able to pull you back in the memory lane.
That analogy factor matters when you read these kinds of books – where the
storyline throws the reminiscences of your earlier happy life about your
childhood, schooling days or teenage. We all love to read these novels and go
an extra mile to put ourselves beside the protagonist.
Well, coming
to our story – College Diaries by Gaurav Gupta. What new we have today for you?
As the title suggest, the story is about college and its tagline says – Story
Behind the Wall. Remember Chetan Bhagat wrote his first novel – IIT Five Point
– that was based on life of students in IITs and how they screw their life if
not studied well. We can draw some parallels between these two books, as both
authors belong to IIT, that too of North India. The setting of both novels
takes place in an IIT and a few other common factors. Chetan Bhagat was
inclined towards fun and humorous aspect, while Gaurav takes you on an emotional
roller-coaster ride. This book is not only meant for IIT people but for those
also who did engineering from some remotely located colleges, away from their
parents’ vigil. For students, the real fun and learning comes as a first-hand
experience when they are away from their parents. If you wish to read about
engineering students having shallow fun while staying with their parents, go
and read Sudeep Nagarkar.
The story is
about Amay Gupta and some other characters with auxiliary significance. Amay is
studious, in the wake of his elder brother, he clears the entrance exam (IIT-JEE)
and gets into IIT Roorkee. There he bonds with two like-minded friends: Kabir
and Rahul. The three first gets into basic college fun and mischiefs and also
see the hard time during ragging. Then, we see NCC and NSS. The guys are
reluctant to join NCC as it involves hard physical activities, like getting up
early and going for parade and all. On the other hand, to escape that, these
guys somehow join NSS. Under NSS, these guys will be working towards social
responsibilities and handling off-campus activities for their college that
involves things like PAN-India college summits, Tech Fest, Cognizance and so
on.
Soon, they get
acquainted with senior student named Kashyap. He takes care of them like a half-brother
and they respect him in return. But little did they (or Amay) know that Kashyap
is all set up to scheme and plot against them for his personal benefits. After
this point we see that the novel drifts towards a political landscape. Can you
imagine politics in IIT? So, guys, NSS, election in the college campus for the
post of SAC, G-sec, Cell Ward and so on. The political angle involved into the
working of NSS makes this novel a gripping read. Gradually, it comes out that
things that look simple and straight aren’t like that. The book is poignant in
highlighting the campus politics.
Though the
battle for NSS-related politics keeps running in the backdrop, there are
equally strong stories entwined that keep their characters intriguing tightly
pack and pull them on and off on the lines of nostalgia, peer pressure, family
matters, betrayals, gloominess in love and so on. Apart from NSS politics, Amay’s
love story with Shreya, too, keeps him on tenterhooks. By the time book drifts
to its end, we see that Amay’s love story grows deep in meaning but loses its
sheen. As a result the lead character gets into writing melancholy poems for
his sweetheart. The talk about grades, academics and attendance has not been
highlighted as we all know that whosoever gets into IIT doesn’t need this
show-off.
Amay and
Kashyap, the way these characters fight, one for humanity and the latter for
self-importance and superiority, is a beauty that channelizes the course of the
novel right up till end. Amazing read for all young Indian readers. The author
has put in lot of efforts towards language usage, editing, and the overall pace
of the book.
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