The virus is contagious, after all. The genre of campus literature is becoming popular among various professionals these days. After IIT and IIM alumni writing about their (mis)adventures, doctors have now begun recounting vulnerable, palpitating tales of their college life. Joining the bandwagon is Dr Anirban Bose, a consultant nephrologist, who has blended facts and fiction based on his four years in a medical college. Still, Bose's debut novel is far better than a Chetan Bhagat or a Karan Bajaj novel, or any of the previous books in this genre. Bose, for instance, doesn't dwell into academics.
Adityaman Bhat arrives at Mumbai's Grant Medical College with his Baba (father), a man of principles, who never misses an opportunity to show Adi the right way of living. Armed with his dad's advices and his dream of breaking away from Ranchi, Adi lands in the medical college expecting a liberating, fun-filled life. Amidst getting ragged, making new friends, and his new found attraction towards girls, Adi realises that he is not really the guy he thought he was. He is no more bogged down by lack of confidence or the inferiority complex -- his mediocre performance coupled with his inherent attitude to be liked by all makes him the undeclared class leader. Adi experiences several things in these four years -- first crush, his first real relationship, friendship, betrayal, adventure and more.
Bose, perhaps, would have almost got it right if he had resisted the temptation of writing about Adi and his friends' struggle of going to the north-east over a period of four days in order to meet their best friend's parents. The book becomes slightly stodgy at this point. Yet, Adi's middle class sentiments, his little accomplishments, his dilemma during the strike, are what haunts you for a while after you have finished reading the book. And that's where Bose scores his brownies. As an after thought: couldn't Bombay Rains Bombay Girls have found its feet in any city in India?
Book Reviews 
The virus is contagious, after all. The genre of campus literature is becoming popular among various professionals these days. After IIT and IIM alumni writing about their (mis)adventures, doctors have now begun recounting vulnerable, palpitating tales of their college life. Joining the bandwagon is Dr Anirban Bose, a consultant nephrologist, who has blended facts and fiction based on his four years in a medical college. Still, Bose's debut novel is far better than a Chetan Bhagat or a Karan Bajaj novel, or any of the previous books in this genre. Bose, for instance, doesn't dwell into academics.
