Name: What Young India Wants
Author: Chetan Bhagat
Publisher: Rupa&Co
Price: Rs. 140
Unlike most books, I started reading this one from the end. Knowing the author’s flair for fiction (his last five novels were fiction), I thought it would be a good idea to begin with the short stories in the end.
Not much impressed, I went on to read the non-fiction chapters. A collection of essays and columns, the author has tried to dig into quite a few topics, but the result was not as expected.
As a reader, I expected much more from the strong title of the book. The book begins with a long personal letter, where the author touches on topics such as ‘Why do our students regularly commit suicide?’ ‘Why is there so much corruption in India?’, ‘Can’t our political parties ever work together?’, ‘Does our vote make any difference at all?’ and ‘We love our India, but shouldn’t some things be different?’ Though the compilation doesnot answer all the questions, it does tell us what young India should think about.