Chetan Bhagat: Hate the Game not the Player

I can't comment on the quality of his work, but, there's no denying that Chetan Bhagat has rekindled the concept of Novel-reading in India.

I Wonder What are the names of mid-night children?   

Okay, I’ll comment a little on his Novels: They are written in a simple language, they don’t have too deep a meaning, and they are not profoundly moving. But these so called draw backs, as the lit-purist claim, are actually the strength of his Novels. They help them sell; Reason: that’s what the present masses want–Simple story in simple words. That’s exactly what is understood by Generation F (F for Facebook, as I always say). There is no point in writing high-fi NASA Rocket Science stuff if the audience’s ability is limited to paper rockets. Here’s another anology: Imagine an Indian who is not acquainted, or worse even introduced, to Europen cuisine is taken to a Fancy Continental Restaurant. No matter how well the food there is cooked, it is bound to be bad/bland tasting, and be disliked. That’s. Why. People. Who. Like. Indian. Food. Go. To. An. Indian. Restaurant.

Chetan Bhagat is dishing out much-liked, chat-patta, affordable novels that we Indians understand and enjoy. There is no harm in it. In fact, I am glad that he was able to sense the pulse of the nation so accurately and give exactly what was wanted. On a deeper level he has done more good: In this age of Facebook and Twitter and a million TV channels and YouTube and Internet and all of them accessible in the palm of your hand, Chetan Bhagat has re-started the concept of Novel-reading in India. By all standards it was a herculean task given the number of other easier-to-understand options. But he did accomplish it.

Coming back to the quality of his work. I have to borrow restaurant-eater analogy again. In any eatery, it is not the responsibility of the chef to educate the people who walk in to eat, but Chef is there to prepare food presuming that the people visiting have a taste for the food. Similarly it is not a writer’s responsibility to teach the audience high-falutin, rich English or how to go about appreciating and de-constructing a novel (We have schools for that – which fail miserable at it, but wo kahani phir kabhi). If the sensible Chef feels that the food he/she is serving is too “high-falutin” for the audience then Chef’s common-sense will dictate to either change the food or shut the shop.

No one knows me from my nip-slip.

Everyone in service/entertainment industry knows that Audience is God. Had the sight of a girl in full-sleeves and ankle-lengths skirts sitting and chanting holy-rhymes early in the morning given us hard-ons, you can bet you left hand that Rakhi Savant would have appeared donning a burkha, reciting Bhagvat Gita backwards at the break of dawn. People may continue to hate Rakhi Savant but they will also continue to get hard by her simple, non-classical, provocative hip-thrusting dance. And history tells us that anything that is simple and that affects you at a instinctive level can get your juices flowing, so to speak, and hence will hold your attention. (Tell me, when was the last time you spent your interests on watching the highly regarded, super accoladed, super classical, Bharatanatyam performance. Thought so.)

Oh My Bhagvan! This balloon is really strong!

Somewhere I had read: “Count you blessing not your sorrows.” I have always looked at Chetan Bhagat contribution to publishing world, and society at large, positively; and I think he has not only helped India go back but also in bringing life to the dying state of books itself. Furthermore he has made youth read decent English outside of academic books in the era of LOLs and WTFs.

So, it’s best that a higher stand is taken and aversion towards Chetan Bhagat, if any, is reversed. A friend of mine used dislike him but even he knew it was out of sheer jealously – that how can a person who writes just like I can achieve super stardom while I sit with my limp-dick in my left palm, jerking off to Rakhi Savant’s videos.

I was that friend.