Review of the Book - The Girl in the room 105

Book Review

 

The Girl in the Room 105

: - Chetan Bhagat

 

Introduction 

 

This book surprisingly is not totally based on a love story as most of the Chetan bhagat books are. This book is 50% suspense & thriller, and the rest is a story or kind of love story between Keshav and Zara. The Plot of the book is a crime investigation story with a little romantic twist

 

1.     Review

 

 

 Keshav is an IITian who works as a teacher in JEE tuition center called ‘Chandan Classes’. He hates his job and reaches out through LinkedIn but fails to find a proper job. He is a part of an orthodox family. His mother is a homemaker, and his father is a part of the RSS, which is a political party in India. As always, he has a love story with a colleague called Zara, who is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in IIT. Zara is from a Kashmiri Muslim family and their love story ends due to their families, who fight over religious issues. Let’s not get into that. If you are an Indian and reading this, you would know the issues an inter-religion couple would face in the country. Keshav couldn’t come out of the affair and keeps remembering Zara, who then loves Raghav (Keshav’s classmate). Raghav happens to be an intelligent person with a geeky look. Keshav often calls Zara begging her to come back to him, but she never agrees. Saurabh also works in ‘Chandan’s Classes’. He is from NIT and is a friend of Keshav. He helps Keshav forget his past love and focus on his future.

As the title of the book suggests, Zara is the occupant of the Room No: ‘105’. It is Zara’s birthday and unfortunately Raghav is beaten up by some goons and is at Apollo hospital. Keshav controls his urge to call Zara and wish her for her birthday at midnight. He and Saurabh drink wine and fall asleep. Around 3 a.m. in the morning, he gets a text from Zara, who asks him why he didn’t wish this year. He is shocked to get a text from her. Zara goes on and tells him to meet him in her room immediately. Keshav rushes to the girls’ hostel with Saurabh. He shows a fake ID card and enters the hostel. He climbs up the mango tree and slides into the window of Zara’s room, which is kept open waiting for his arrival.

The room is dark, and it is utterly silent. Zara is asleep on the bed. He touches her forehead and feels a cold chill. He then switches on the light and sees her dead. He is shocked, scared and sad altogether to see his love, like a corpse on her birthday. He informs Saurabh who suggests they run away from the scene. But Keshav becomes determined to find the killer. The rest of the story is his journey where he stands by Zara after her death to find justice.

Keshav goes through a journey of suspects. He informs the police, Raghav and Zara’s parents. The police arrest the watchman of the hostel, who is missed from the CCTV camera during the time Zara was killed. But we all know that the story doesn’t end so easily. Keshav digs deeper, with the help of the police- Inspector Rana. He first suspects Prof.Saxena(the Ph.D. guide), who tries to harass Zara. It is then proved that Saxena has a limp and could have never climbed the mango tree on the night of Zara’s death.

He then tries to find Sikander, Zara’s stepbrother who happens to be part of a terrorist group in Kashmir. Keshav seeks help from Zara’s father and checks her room for clues. He finds a locker with gunpowder, pregnancy kits and selfies of Sikander with a gun along with Zara who happens to be smiling in the picture. Keshav goes through the clues one by one. He first tries to meet Sikander and asks him about his group called TEJ. Sikander gets afraid and threatens them with a gun and runs away. They try to reach him out through his mother in Kashmir. Sikander meets them again and tries to explain that he is not the murderer. But with the proper clues, Keshav almost gets convinced that Sikander killed his sister in the fear that TEJ might be known to the Army. The next day Sikander kills himself, saying that his existence would harm TEJ and convince everyone that he killed his dear sister. Keshav is back to square one and realizes he made a mistake of doubting Sikander.

He then thinks about the pregnancy kits and sees a picture of an army official in Kashmir with Zara in her Instagram. After proper investigation, he finds that the army official has gifted Zara expensive jewelry and they raid his house in Delhi. They find the same pregnancy kits and checks his internet history, which has search histories related to abortion and divorce. They also find gold blocks in his house and gets convinced with the theory that he made Zara pregnant and killed her in guilt. They arrange a dinner party to announce the victim and arrest him unknowingly by inviting everyone Zara knew, after the 100th day of her death.

Just before Keshav announces the killer, he goes on a little trip to Hyderabad. This is when he realizes that he was suspecting the wrong person all along.