A review with no spoilers – 400 Days
Chetan Bhagat has been one of the most popular writers of our country in the recent times. Until now he has written several books, but the one which made him popular was the book named “2States”. From then onwards, there has always been expectations from readers that every now and then he writes something that can repeat the experience that 2 States gave to us. But we all know that he has not been among the good list of the critics till now. Even so, his books have always tried to touch upon a varied strata of emotions or entertainment factors, which has been entertaining for many of his fans.
But there is always a factor of creating new ideas or imaginations that can give us all a story to talk about. It does also happen that when a new book is released by a writer, the initial response of the book in the first few months can lay a foundation for the further journey of the writer along with the characters which he has created from his thought process.
Now, taking a note of his latest book – 400 Days, he has been able to present to us a book of 352 pages and the publication house has been Westland Publication.
The Rough Idea of Story
This book is about the abduction of a girl named Siya. The case of the abducted girl is given to the private detectives named Keshav and Sourabh. In the beginning, the story is a bit relaxed and also engaging at the same time as the characters are introduced in a steady manner.
Keshav and Sourabh run a private detective agency as a part-time job. Life is going at a slow pace with not much to talk about in their day to day lives. Keshav is preparing for the UPSC and Sourabh is working at a computer security company as a full- time job. But suddenly Alia arrives into their lives with a case of abduction to solve. She has been through enough because of the incident involving her daughter and now has hopes relying only on the two detectives present in front of her.
It has been nine months since Siyawas taken away from her, just before the time her daughter was going to turn thirteen. The entire Arora family along with the Police have been unable to find her since then.
In the beginning, the mother of the abducted girl tries her level best along with the Policeto get hold of her 12-year-old daughter but the efforts go in vain. As the story progresses, Aliaenters into a relationship with the better of the two detectives. Ultimately, it results in the detective being also getting attached to the case emotionally.
In the end, the climax of the story is a bit shocking. So, the ending of the story, can be a bit disappointing for some of the readers.
The social-matter
All in all, this thriller category of a story has some of the things which are shown as a mirror image of the society taking into account the thinking of the people about the matters like the idea of a divorce. Then it’s also said that in spite of numerous efforts,there has been a loss of hope for Alia and her family. Then, there are also topics which the writer has touched upon in the story like the environment of house which can have a bad impact on the nature of a child. The story also tries to simply show the extramarital affair without complexing things too much. It also tries to depict the effects of a toxic relationship on a person’s mind and the age-old conflicting relation of a wife and her mother-in-law. Inside all this mess, the writer also tries to show the confusing atmosphere for a man when he has to choose between his wife and mother.
On another bright side, there has also been depiction of the demerits of the internet world especially from the social media point of view.
It is a fact that Chetan’s books have been wildly popular among the film makers from the film industry of our country – Bollywood. It is depicted from the fact that two of his books have been converted into full length movies in the past by some of the prominent film makers and the two movies also have some of the good actors of the Hindi film industry.
Conclusion
So, the story tries to show various problems of the society. It depicts the facts in a simple manner. But from a prospective of a thriller story admirer, it is difficult to predict that whether the book will be classic or not from Chetan Bhagat. But it is definitely worth giving a try.
Considering his previous books, it has been a great attempt from him to entertain us with an exploration of the thriller genre which has a high fan following among the avid book readers not only in India but all across the globe.
By: Raunak Jha
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