An open letter to Mr. Chetan Bhagat
Dear Mr. Chetan Bhagat,
I believe the world is divided into three categories of people:
Category A: People who aren’t aware of your existence and are mostly ignorant about your works.
Category B: Those proper English-speaking literary buffs who read your stuff and troll you mercilessly.
Category C: People who really enjoy your stuff — your fans.
I don’t belong to any of the above categories.
I am aware of who you are and have read some of your works. So that takes me out of category A.
I can confidently claim to possess a certain prowess in the English language, even though I’m no Shashi Tharoor. But I don’t take relish in trolling your works on social media or any other public platform, unlike many who derive adverse pleasure in doing so. So that takes me out of Category B.
I haven’t read all of your works and I am not a fan. You could call me a well-wisher, but definitely not a fan. So that doesn’t put me in category C as well.
So which category do I fit in? It’s difficult to say.
There was a time when I really did enjoy your works. But that was a long time back: back when you really dished out some interesting stuff.
India before Chetan Bhagat
Don’t get me wrong, Mr.Bhagat! India has a lot to thank you for. Before you arrived on the scene, the concept of making a career out of writing in India was unheard of. Being an author, to many misguided Indians was a hobby which only people with no fixed occupation could think of. Many Indian parents, thinking solely in terms of a ‘settled’ career did not encourage their children, especially boys to take up writing as a full-time career.
This was probably the reason Indian bookstores, before the dawn of the millennium were mostly flooded with the works of foreign authors. A few works by Indian authors such as Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Aravinda Adiga, Amitav Ghosh, Shashi Tharoor, Salman Rushdie and R.K. Narayan would be visible sometimes, struggling to find some space largely dominated by their foreign counterparts.
I grew up on a staple diet of Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys, Chandamama, Amar Chitra Katha, Indrajaal Comics, Tintin and Asterix in my early days. In my teens Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, P.G. Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Alistair MacLean and Desmond Bagley among others were my favorite past-time.
Tom Clancy, Jeffery Archer, Ken Follett, Jack Higgins, John Grisham, Wilbur Smith, Clive Cussler, Ian Fleming, Sidney Sheldon, Daniel Silva, Frederick Forsyth, Matthew Reilly, Robin Cook and others took my fancy after I stepped into adulthood.
These authors were thorough masters of their craft. I have spent many a happy hour being totally engrossed and thoroughly entertained in their works. But their work mainly touched upon foreign themes and events and described heroics of men and women from alien lands, something which I, being an Indian, found very odd to relate to in many cases. I myself felt a nagging sense of incompleteness after reading all their works. I had a morbid sense of guilt of cheering for characters who belonged to an alien land.
I wondered: Did India not have her fair share of Heroes and Heroines? Why couldn’t Indian authors write entertaining books pertaining to Indian themes? Why did good Indian authors confine themselves to write about mundane topics depicting Indian Society and prevalent social factors such as marriage, corruption. dowry, caste system, rural life etc.? Why did they have to portray such stark and depressing reality? All said and done, these books were well written with the best of intentions, mainly to make people aware of prevalent social trends and thoughts of Indian society.
But they were written to target readers with a certain level of maturity. As a young Indian, you could be excused for not having those books on your must-read list. A young mind is a fertile field where ideas can be planted and watered by imagination and fantasy to blossom into entertaining stories. An entertaining story can provide more than just entertainment. A fantastic book triggers dreams. And dreams are the foundation for ideas and achievements.
Where and how did Indian authors fall behind?
A young mind craves for more than just entertainment in a book. A young mind is looking for fantasy, excitement, adventure and imagination. Young and energetic minds shackled in the mundane and routine world crave escape from boring reality. And a good book can provide them just that! And here is where I feel foreign authors have hugely succeeded in winning over young audiences of our country.
And here is exactly where our nations’ authors were found wanting. Indian Authors’ works were largely focused on highlighting social issues such as caste system, rural life, social evils, marriage, dowry, untouchability and other issues. Not exactly the stuff young minds are excited to read about !!
Enter Chetan Bhagat
Then you arrived on the scene and changed everything. And how! Your first book “Five point Someone” was an overnight bestseller. Indian youth finally found a subject they could relate to and understand. Write a novel depicting life at the Indian Institute of Technology, the most sought-after technology destination for Indian tech aspirants. Add a love story in that and Voila!! You have the perfect ingredients for a best seller. I, among many Indians finally thought that the Indian Literary world has found it’s messiah. “Here”, I thought “was an author (with a background that many Indians can only dream of) who broke the shackles of literary restrictions”. “Here was an author who was fearless and unabashed in his views. Here was an author who, with his words touched the pulse of young India.”
Your success spawned a new line of thought and inspired many Indians to pick up the Pen, starting a literary revolution of sorts. The word ‘Author’ got a totally new definition after you entered the scene. Young India got a new mascot.
Success breeds its’ fair share of critics. And in your case, I discovered that there were many who trolled you on the quality of your literature, grammatical errors and other details. While some of the barbs were probably accurate, many a times I felt that there was a fair share of bias. I felt many of those who criticized you were jealous hypocrites who simply could not digest that a person with a non-literary and middle-class background could have made it so big. They compared you with many of the illustrious authors I mentioned earlier and took great delight in trolling your works, which I found to be totally out of place. That’s like going to a Dhaba (an open-air Indian highway eating place) and expecting the ambience of a five-star hotel.
Let’s be honest here. You’re no Shakespeare or Wilbur Smith, and you don’t even have to be like them. You are Chetan Bhagat, and no one can shake that. Granted that your early novels did have shortcomings, but I wasn’t really bothered, since they were entertaining and put across a fresh new perspective of modern India. Your works struck a chord among young men and women all across the nation.
Some of your noteworthy works(books I liked)
I for one, enjoyed reading some of your earlier works mentioned below:
Five Point Someone
This is the one that started it all.
This book tells the story of three youngsters Alok, Hari and Ryan who enter the prestigious world of IIT with hopes of making it big,
And they soon realize that life in IIT is not as they had imagined; not even in their wildest dreams. They have a lowly CGPA of five-point-something out of ten, something which is seriously frowned upon at IIT. And while everyone expects them to conquer the world, these guys are fighting for survival, hanging on with whatever they have. Various twists and turns await them in their journey which include endless assignments and cramming, bullying seniors, indifferent professors and the lot. Being five pointers, they are relegated to the last bench and have no place among the Nine pointers and other ‘intelligent’ students of their batch. The book deals with how these three guys stick together despite all odds and make it through.
Every student who has been through Engineering, IIT or any other college will surely relate to many of the incidents mentioned in this book. The pressure and ordeals faced by these three characters are those which we have all faced at some point in time as students.
Though this book is not devoid of loopholes, overall it gives a very fresh perspective of life in IIT (although disputed by some IIT’ans) and is very entertaining overall.
This book was made into the hugely successful film ‘Three Idiots’.
One Night at the call center
Probably not as interesting as your first novel, but still worth a read. The novel tells the story about six people who all work for a call center providing technical support to a major US appliances organization. Each character has a past, and probably no future. That’s because their efforts are undermined by a boss with a brain as small as an ant and an ego as big as an elephant.
Still, all of them put on a brave front and continue with their jobs with patience and diligence. And the routine continues until one night, when the narrator and his friend realize that their Boss has taken the credit for a manual which they painstakingly created. What’s more, they discover that he(their Boss) has plans for laying them off as a cost-cutting measure and is relocating to Boston.
Demoralized and furious, they step out to take a short drive. Along the way, while avoiding a near collision with a stationary vehicle, their vehicle skids and lands atop some iron bars in a construction site. They are in a precarious situation. Their vehicle is delicately balanced in such a way that the slightest disturbance will send them crashing ten feet below. It’s early in the morning and there is not a soul nearby they can reach for help. To top it all, none of their cell phones are working. At this point, they receive a phone call (despite the poor network coverage) which changes their life forever. For this is no ordinary caller. This is a call from GOD.
The rest of the book depicts how these brave men and women get out of their sticky situations, face their problems and come up trumps.
This book gives a good and entertaining perspective of life in call centers and the people who work in them. This book also has a good message to the youth, encouraging them to follow their dreams and work hard.
This book was made into the film “Hello”.
Three mistakes of my life
This book tells the story of three ambitious youngsters Govind, Ishan and Omi. All three have different personalities but have one thing in common: to make it big in life.
Set in Ahmedabad, Gujarat in the early years of the new millennium, this book describes the tumultuous events in the lives of these youngsters who face plenty of ups and downs in the course of their journey, which include the devastating earthquake which shook Gujarat on Jan 26th, 2001 and the terrifying communal riots which ravaged the state in 2002, after the Godhra incident.
This book touched upon the spirit of Entrepreneur-ism and put forth the struggles of young India, hampered by limited means but still daring to dream big. Having resided in Gujarat for a good part of my life, I could also relate to the incidents depicted in the story and the impact they had on the state, such as the Earthquake and the communal riots. All in all, it’s a good read.
This book was made into the film “Kaipoche”.
Two States.
This book tells the messed-up love story of two people from different parts of India. Krish Arora is a Punjabi boy who meets and falls in love with Ananya Swaminathan, a Tamilian girl in IIM Ahmedabad. Well, boy meets girl, both fall in love, want to get married …. So what’s wrong with that? Pretty simple, isn’t it? But only it’s not. As the author very cleverly mentions in the back cover:
Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy.
Girl’s family has to love boy. Boy’s family has to love girl.
Girl’s Family has to love Boy’s Family. Boy’s family has to love girl’s family.
Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married.
The only hitch to Krish and Ananya’s love story are their respective parents who throw a spanner into the works. The story deals with how both manage to convince their respective parents while sorting out their personal differences.
This book brings up a very pertinent topic in India which lies mostly hidden under the rubble of other mainstream issues: Inter-cultural marriages. It’s a humorous depiction of the sparks which fly when people from two different cultures meet and decide to spend their life together. People who have been through similar experiences can very easily relate to the author’s point of view. I believe this book is based on your own life experience. I’d rate it among the best of your works so far.
This book was made into the film of the same name.
‘Two States’ was also the last readable book you had put out.
Books after ‘2 States’
The common plus point among all these novels is the fact that they all highlighted relevant topics which the Indian youth felt very strongly about. The characters were well defined and had depth. Their struggles and ordeals were something which the youth identified themselves with. Hence, they clicked and sold many copies, catapulting you to fame and recognition.
Inspired by your earlier works, I then picked up your next book, Revolution 2020: hoping for some good reading material along with a social message. The synopsis looked promising enough, but after painstakingly going through a few chapters of your book I put it down unable to continue any further.
I simply couldn’t go on. The story was going nowhere. I later read reader reviews and found out that many felt the same way I did. People were expecting something revolutionary and radical, going by the title. But what they got instead was a cliched Bollywood style love triangle.
You followed it up with other works such as “Half Girlfriend” and “One Indian Girl” which I didn’t bother to even glance at. I felt vindicated with my decision seeing the story synopsis and the reviews they gathered.
Somewhere down the line, you slipped. And I don’t know why, how and when. Maybe success got to your head and you presumed that people will digest whatever you put out. All I know is that you suddenly changed your writing style and stopped focusing on content. Instead, you started churning out soppy, emotional, Bollywood style love stories and emotional tearjerkers. The characters who were lovable in your earlier works, suddenly became hollow, meaningless puppet-like personalities having no mind of their own. Your books became more like cliched film scripts rather than novels.
When your book “The Girl in room 105” was released, I thought that this would turn out to be something unique. The synopsis indicated a murder mystery, something very different from what you had put out earlier. It was not the typical love story; rather, it was an ‘unlove’ story as you put it. It promised to be a far cry from your earlier soppy works. And so I picked it up, hoping for something different. And I was wrong; very, very wrong.
What was titled as an exciting murder mystery turned out to be yet another one of your emotional Bollywood style story: a complicated love story in the guise of the murder mystery. The same old formula; a sheep in a tiger’s skin! There are many fallacies about this book I can point out, but I don’t want to digress from my narrative. If you do want to know my opinion about this book, read my unbiased review here.
Killing your Cash Cow: Recognize current and future trends
In business cycles, there is a term known as ‘Killing your cash cow’. In the broad sense, it means two things:
a) Just because any product is popular in this day and age does not mean it will be forever so. Circumstances, thoughts, perceptions, markets and ideas will change. And we must change with them, else get left behind.
b) Whatever goes up has to come down. There is a peak for everything, after which the decline starts.
b) You cannot afford to rest on your laurels, even if the going is good.
Let me illustrate these points with an example.
In 2007, when the first iPhone rolled out, BlackBerry was the market leader, dominating the mobile phone market. No one gave the iPhone even the slightest chance, given BlackBerry’s undisputed popularity at that point in time. Industry pundits and experts made public statements that the iPhone did not stand a chance. Furthermore, Blackberry revenues peaked in 2011, as if to vindicate the opinions made earlier by qualified experts. But come 2017, Gartner reported that BlackBerry’s market share had come crashing down to zero.
At one point in time, Blackberry was at its’ Zenith. It’s position in the market looked unassailable. Yet, within a span of a just a few years, it faded out without a trace. Why and how did this happen? It happened mainly because, when it was on top Blackberry took its’ position for granted and did nothing to cement it. It failed to innovate and failed to try something new. Blackberry failed to recognize the trend and did not reinvent itself. Thus, the inevitable happened.
I broached this example just to show that nothing lasts forever, no matter how infallible it might seem.
Mr. Bhagat, at this point in time you too are very much at the top of your game. Your books sell in millions while people flock to hear your motivational speeches. Your influence has spread all the way to Bollywood as well with many of your books having been made into films. I’m not a soothsayer so I can’t say whether you’ve reached your zenith or you still have more heights to conquer.
But, know this! There is a peak for everything. You can only go so high before things start sliding down. And the direction you want to take is completely in your hands. You can continue writing cliched emotional, feminist and filmy style stories. When things start going south, you will only have yourself to blame.
On the other hand, you can take some time and introspect on how and why you became a bestselling author in the first place. Think how and why your initial books struck a chord with People, especially the youth. The best books you wrote are on the themes you identified yourself with or felt strongly about. A true writer writes what he/she feels and more importantly, feels what he/she writes.
Mr. Bhagat, you have a background which many people in our country can only dream of. You are an alumnus from the premier technological institute and the best business management school of the country. No one would have had as much as exposure as you might have had. You have a large fan base in India and you have the power to captivate young minds. And because of this, people expect better from you. But time and again you disappoint by churning out that emotional stuff. Sometimes, it makes me wonder if it’s really you who’s writing all that stuff or is it someone else using your name and fame as a platform.
Some helpful tips
And that’s why you must not make the same mistake Blackberry did. Wake up and smell the coffee!! Do not take your success for granted. On one hand, your book-sales are rising and your fan base is expanding. But on the flip side, the numbers of people criticizing your work are growing too. And going by the reviews, not all of them seem to be people jealous of your success.
As a well-wisher, I humbly request you introspect on your past works and consider the following points when you site down to write your next book:
- Please write a novel, not a film screenplay: There’s nothing which puts off seasoned readers more than a book which resembles a film-script. And please try and remove those ridiculous Bollywood style flashbacks if possible. They totally ruin the continuity of the story. A linear story from start to finish without any diversions makes better reading material.
- Write to send across a message: More than money and fame, an author writes a book to tell a story, to put across a point of view and to open new lines of thought. Books which portray mundane cliched stuff might look attractive to read. But in reality, they’re like junk food. They look tasty and appealing but have no real value. Such books are popular for a brief moment in time, but they soon fade out. In Contrast, books which are written with a powerful message and inspire people to break the shackles of conservative thought are those which remain immortal through centuries.
- Please focus more on Content, less on emotions: I must have mentioned umpteen number of times in this article about you writing emotional tearjerkers. And I’m mentioning it again. Granted that emotions are important in a book. They add vibrancy and a sense of life. but a proper story with concrete content is the backbone to a good book. A story based solely on emotions is like a beer mug filled with only the froth. Please do some credible research and add some meaningful content based on facts. Your books are lapped up by many eager young Indians, especially in small towns. They are at a vulnerable age and can easily get influenced. Therefore, it becomes really important that they get to read good, informative and meaningful content. Please also sit back and analyze how your book might influence young minds in a positive manner.
- Write on issues and topics you feel strongly about: If you look back, your best books were based on your personal experiences and themes which you felt strongly about. Write on themes you are familiar with. For example, you would have had ample exposure to the corporate world and the domain of investment banking. You can write a novel with corporate life in an investment bank as the main theme. You have three non-fiction books to your credit (What Young India Wants, Making India Awesome and most recently India Positive), and I have mostly read good reviews on them. No doubts these books are written on themes you feel very deeply about. It only goes to show that good writing stems automatically on topics you care about. Don’t try to write on themes which are not your forte.
Given your hectic schedule, there is a good chance that you might end up not even glancing towards this article. Even if you do, you would look at it the same way one looks at an annoying mosquito which has perched upon your food plate just when you were about to take a mouthful.
I know what you would be thinking.
‘And who exactly does this person think he is, coming up from nowhere and giving me advice as if he was a best-selling author himself?’
‘Will you look at this guy? He’s a nobody. He hasn’t a single book to his name, and yet he advises me as if he was the winner of the Booker prize!”
These would probably be some of your thoughts running through your head. I understand your consternation. I too would probably be very pissed if I were in your place. But please realize, I am not writing this article in the aim of deriding you. As I stated earlier, I am not one of them who get a kick out of trolling you, nor am I getting an adverse pleasure in pointing out your books’ fallacies. Granted, that I am not a writer. I am putting forth my points of view not as an author, but from a readers’ perspective. I am writing this article simply because I feel that a person with your credentials and background is capable of doing a lot more than just churning the kind of stories you have been churning out recently.
I miss the old Chetan Bhagat, the author who fearlessly and humorously penned down books which touched the heart of young India.
Do take some time out from your busy schedule and consider heeding this piece of advice from a well-wisher.
To sum it all up: You might have started the great Indian literary revolution, but if you continue as you are currently, you might just end up killing it!
Cheers,
From a well-wisher!
References:
https://quizzyfun.com/best-novels-by-indian-authors-that-everyone-should-read/