CHETAN BHAGAT, author of Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center, and The Three Mistakes of My Life has reached the acme of popularity with his Revolution 2020, which has already helped him to bag a film deal. UTV Motion Pictures has acquired the rights to the book for making it a major motion picture. Bhagat has been the author of best sellers from the outset of his literary career. In 2004 he had his debut as a novelist with the publication of Five Point Someone. The very next year the readers saw in the market another popular book, One Night @Call Center. These two books inspired the Bollywood film 3 Idiots and Nanban in Tamil.

 

The subtitle of the debut novel was ‘What not to do at IIT and this ambience is beautifully delineated in 3 Idiots. Bhagat set the novel in IIT Delhi where he himself had studied. Underneath the funny adventures of three mechanical engineering students, Hari Kumar, Ryan Oberoi and Alok Gupta, there is a serious criticism of education system which gave them a five-point-something GPA out of ten. Ryan was a bit smart and outspoken. But Alok fails to cope with the strict discipline and rigid evaluation system. All three classmates ranked near the bottom of their classes. The IIT society mocked at them. Deep sorrow prevails while the tone of the novel is humorous. Every now and then the readers are faced with the family problems of these guys. Each episode lays bare the harsh facts how the internationally lauded IIT system has stifled the creativity. They are forced to value grades more than anything else. Never before had such a dehumanized picture of the campus come to light and in the name of education, the innovation was discouraged.

 

Uninspiring teaching –learning method and countless assignments add insult to injuries, augmenting the woes of the students. The ever creative Ryan had to bear the brunt to bring all the disproportionate things to a normal pattern. Bhagat was averse to allow his novels to be made films. But the tremendous success of the two books as movies has changed his opinion.  He now wants his two other novels, 3 mistakes and 2 States to be converted into films. In the third novel, 3 Mistakes of My Life, a young boy Govind of Ahmedabad dreams of starting a business. He is joined by his friends Ishaan and Omi. The story is based on fictional events and Bhagat here focuses on their diverse motives; Govind's goal is to make money; Ishaan desires to nurture Ali, a gifted batsman; Omi just wants to be with his friends. Govind is the narrator and the central character of the novel and the story revolves around the three mistakes committed by him and the religious politics.

 

In Two States, a very much autobiographical novel, although based on IIMA, Bhagat for the first time shifts to a new theme, marriage. The book is all about an IIMA couple’s struggle to marry over the cultural differences. Krish, a north Indian Punjabi boy is in love with Tamilian Brahmin girl Ananya. Bhagat himself being a Punjabi and his wife south Indian seems to be comfortable in narrating the story with a lively gusto. It contains stuff of Bollywood movie as well. The diversity of Indian culture is delineated with sarcasm and different shades of sensibilities are well pictured.

 

The sarcastic picturisation of inhuman education system is very much there in Revolution 2020, which veers around the conflict between ruthless careerism versus human values. The backdrop of this story is Varanasi. Gopal and Raghav were classmates from the childhood and the story moves along the love triangle with Aarthi at the centre. The opening of the novel is really fascinating and it forces the reader to read the whole book in just one sitting. In this novel Gopal comes from a filmy-Indian-middle-class background. Raghav is from an almost well to do family, where as Aarathi comes from a kind of bureaucratic and political family. Three of them have their own ambitions in life. Gopal wants to be a rich man, Raghav wants to effect a revolutionary change in the existing world, Aarthi wants to become an air hostess. Chetan could never accept the conventional academic method and in this novel too, clearing examination is a phobia for a learner. Gopal fails to scrape through JEE and AIEEE exams and gets obliged to repeat the exams in the following year. However, in this novel, more serious issues crop up. Gopal chooses corruption as an aid to become a successful person while Raghav tries to change the world and cleanse it from corruption. The corruption in non-elite academies in the education system of our country is under the scanner.

 

Bhagat always picks up relevant issues like Mahesh Dattani does in his dramas. In the end of each novel there is however no attempt to make it something unpredictable. He does not want to go into the nitty gritty of writing styles, rhymes and rhetorical devices. The most important thing about him is not that the premise of his novels are predictable and similar all the time but that after all the unpredictable situations, there is always a tomorrow for the characters of Bhagat and this positive outlook of life, in spite of his sarcasm and satire, is mostly needed for the young generation that will read his novels or see the film version of his novels.