Chetan Bhagat - 'the man who made Indians read'



He deserves the tag line that i have given to him. Although i am not a fan of Chetan Bhagat and do not like his style of writing but could not resist myself from finding out what makes him so popular among the Indian mass. And this IIT and IIM passout has become more of an youth icon than an author. He has earned himself the tag of 'The biggest selling English language novelist in India's history'.

All the four novels he has written so far has created waves and has went on to become bestsellers. His just released, fifth novel 'Revolution 2020' is also no exception. So is his aura that Time magazine had named him as one of the hundred most influential people of the world. But, is his aura really something worth of so much appreciation? We have some of the finest Indian authors in Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Anita Desai, R.K. Narayan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy to name a few and is he really worthy of more appreciation than these names that i just told? He is very overrated.


The shortcut to his fame or success if it can be told so is that he writes in the language which the 'youth' of India speaks and his books have the perfect spices for a Hindi film too so that makes the books even more attractive to the Indian audience. The strong language (slang) used in his books spreads like forest-fire and it becomes a sensation. I have seen many friends and neighbours of mine who never even bothered to go through a magazine, leave alone a book but they too become so excited with every new Bhagat novel. Several times i have heard the 'youth' talking among themselves and asking, 'etay kota achhe re oi sab?' (In this novel, how many of those things (sexual content and explicit language) are there?). So is this the main point of attraction in his novels? Keeping this aside, another factor which appeals to the mass is its low price, these books are very pocket friendly.

But, i am not an enemy of Bhagat and i like him for one reason, he at least could make most of the non-reading Indians read! And Rupa & Co.(the publisher) became something from almost nothing. I had read '3 Mistakes of my Life' but found nothing so big about it that it has to be celebrated so much, however seeing all the pomp and show around Bhagat, maybe i would someday like to try another novel of his. Long live Bhagat!

Chetan Bhagat with his wife



Comments

  1. Anonymous26 October 2011 at 12:38

    yess i 2 agree wid ur talk about him but i would like to say that whatever u say he has overgrown n now he deserves to b e recognised as a youth icon atleast he has made the millions of FALTU indians read whatever be it!! but no doubt he shouldnt be compared to great al timers as u have discussed earlier

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  2. Arijit Nandi26 October 2011 at 17:06

    man i feel that bhagat's novels, although popular has no literary value.....they are a good read but bhagat simply cannot produce what Hemingway, Hosseini or Joyce can. From among the Indian authors i feel Arundhati Roy or Khushwant Singh to be much better. Literature is meant not only to entertain but also to encrich us, so it will be of no use of reading literature which cannot teach us anything. And the greatest testimony to this fact is that after reading a book of bhagat and a same of coelho your reactions would be completely different.

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  3. Saptarshi27 October 2011 at 08:47

    I agree with you Arijit, and its great that you took out time to read and comment. And as far as Abhroneil (Anonymous) is concerned, you are right in your views but do not call Indians FALTU!

    ReplyDelete

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