Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat (born 22 April 1974)[1] is an Indian author, columnist and YouTuber. He was included in Time magazine's list of World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010.[2] Five of his novels have been adapted into films.

Chetan Bhagat
Bhagat in 2012
BornChetan Prakash Bhagat
(1974-04-22) 22 April 1974
Delhi, India
LanguageEnglish, Hindi
Education
Period2004–present
GenreRomance, realistic fiction, non-fiction, suspense, thriller
Notable worksFive Point Someone, 2 States: The Story of My Marriage, The 3 Mistakes of My Life, Half Girlfriend, One Indian Girl
Website
www.chetanbhagat.com

Family, education, and personal life

Bhagat grew up in a traditional Punjabi Hindu family. His father served as a lieutenant colonel in the Indian Army and his mother worked as a scientist at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. He was schooled at the Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan.[3] He claims to have been an average student at 15.[4][5] His love for writing began during his school years. He used to write articles for his school's literary magazine and seeing his name printed in the magazine as a writer gave him intense pleasure. This encouraged him to write more.[6]

Bhagat graduated with a B.Tech. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1995 as a 9+ pointer.[7]

Bhagat then went on to pursue a Master of Business Administration degree in marketing from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where he met Anusha Suryanarayan. He graduated in 1997.[8][9] In June 2018, IIMA awarded him the "Young Alumni Achiever's Awards 2018" in the Art & Entertainment category.[10]

Chetan married Suryanarayan in 1998. One of his novels, 2 States: The Story of My Marriage, was inspired by this. They have twin sons named Shyam Bhagat and Ishaan Bhagat.[6]

Career

After graduating, Chetan was placed at Peregrine Investments Holdings in Canada through his campus. However, he lost this job within six months as the company closed its operations in 1998. His next job was as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs at their Hong Kong office. Despite being unhappy with his boss, he stayed on and kept this boss in mind when he characterised the villain in One Night @ the Call Center.[11] He spent most of his time at the Goldman Sachs office in writing, completing and revising drafts of his first novel, Five Point Someone. After two years, Rupa Publications accepted his manuscript.

By 2006, he was vice-president of Strategic Investment Group, Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong.[12] His second novel, One Night @ the Call Center, was published in 2005 and became a best-seller. In March 2008, Bhagat moved back to India with his family. He joined as a director in Deutsche Bank's distressed-assets team in Kodak House, Mumbai. The same year his third novel, The 3 Mistakes of My Life, was published and sold 700,000 copies in three months. In 2009, he quit his banking career to write full-time.[13]

Bhagat is also a motivational speaker and has spoken at more than 800 organizations in 1000 cities around the world.[14]

Author

Bhagat started writing his first novel, Five Point Someone, when he was working at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong in the early 2000s. In an interview, he said he wrote about 15 drafts of the novel and also sent the final manuscripts to several publishers. The manuscript was published in 2004. It tells the story of three IIT students who consider themselves to be below average students. Rajkumar Hirani adapted the film version, 3 Idiots, starring Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, and Kareena Kapoor.

His second book, One Night @ the Call Center, was published in 2005. In the first 3 days of its release, almost 50,000 copies were sold. This novel became India's fastest selling book of its time. It was adapted into a flim named Hello; Chetan and Atul Agnihotri wrote the script.

Chetan then decided to make writing a full-time career. His third novel, The 3 Mistakes of My Life, was published in 2008. This novel became a bestseller and Chetan also became the most successful English-Language writer in India. The Bollywood film Kai Po Che! is based on this novel.

Chetan's fourth novel, 2 States: The Story of My Marriage, published in 2009, was inspired by his real-life love story. The story is about how he fell in love with a South Indian girl and the troubles he faced in his love life. The book was adapted into a film of the same name starring Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt.

Chetan's later novels, Revolution 2020, Half Girlfriend, and One Indian Girl gained a lot of appreciation and commercial success. The Girl in Room 105, One Arranged Murder, and 400 days, were bestsellers.

Bhagat's writing style is very different from other authors. He is known for making books readable for the average Indian. He believes in keeping it simple which helps him engage with the audience, who don't really want to refer to a dictionary while reading books.[15] Bhagat also invests a lot of time in creating the characters of his books so that his target audience can relate to them in a better way.[16]

Bhagat is also a newspaper columnist, and has written op-ed columns for English and Hindi newspapers, including The Times of India and Dainik Bhaskar, focusing on youth and issues based on national development ranging from education, society and economy. Some of the topics that he has written about in the past are youth and Indian development issues, India's socio-cultural evolution, motivation and inspiration, investment banking as a side business, and risk assessment.[17]

Screen presence

Chetan was a celebrity judge along with Marzi Pestonji and Preity Zinta on season seven of the dance reality show Nach Baliye season 7 on Star Plus.

Chetan has also been in the Netflix series Decoupled, which stars R. Madhavan and Surveen Chawla of Sacred Games. The show premiered on the OTT platform on 17 December 2021.[18] Madhavan plays Arya Iyer, a writer, and Chawla plays his wife. Their marriage is on the rocks, but the couple has to keep up the facade of a happy family for the sake of their daughter who is terrified of her parents divorcing. Bhagat makes a cameo as India's bestselling author.[19] The show was created by Manu Joseph and directed by Hardik Mehta. It was the No. 1 Indian series on Netflix in less than 72 hours after its release and the second most watched Netflix show in India.[20]

Films and screenwriting

Five of Chetan's novels have been adapted into films:[21] Hello (2008), based on One Night at the Call Center, 3 Idiots (2009), based on Five Point Someone, Kai Po Che! (2013), based The 3 Mistakes of My Life, 2 States (2014), and Half Girlfriend (2017).

Bhagat was one of the four screenplay writers for Kai Po Che! (2013).[22] Bhagat, along with Pubali Chaudri, Supratik Sen, and Abhishek Kapoor won the Filmfare Award for Best Screenplay for Kai Po Che! at the 68th Filmfare Awards.

Youtube

Chetan is a YouTuber along with being an author and motivational speaker. His YouTube channel is all about providing motivation tips to the young Indians.

He has recently launched his podcast Deeptalk with Chetan Bhagat where he invites accomplished guests for a heart-to-heart conversation about how they made it big in life. The podcast show has gained a lot of appreciation from his target audience. Chetan believes that it is their journey that would inspire and motivate today's youth.[23] Guests have included Ritesh Agarwal (founder and Group CEO of OYO), Nikhil Kamath (co-founder and CFO at Zerodha), and Vineeta Singh (CEO, and co-founder of SUGAR Cosmetics).

Awards and accolades

Bibliography

Novels

Non-fiction

References
  1. Kalita, S. Mitra (17 May 2008). "Chetan Bhagat | The five-point formula: keep it simple". mint. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  2. "The 2010 TIME 100 - TIME". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  3. "An Interview With Chetan Bhagat". Forbes India. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  4. "Chetan Bhagat tweets his CBSE Class 10 mark-sheet – shares how an aggregate 76% cannot define your future". www.timesnownews.com. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  5. "verveonline.com". www.verveonline.com. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  6. Dahiya, Renu (31 May 2022). "Chetan Bhagat - Biography, Family, Books, & Achievements". Myticketstoindia.com. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
  7. "Tale of the lucky hostel room". Hindustan Times. 24 February 2012. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  8. India TV News Desk (21 October 2013). "25 best quotes by Chetan Bhagat on career, education, love and success - IndiaTV news". www.indiatvnews.com. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  9. "The Sunday Tribune - Books". www.tribuneindia.com. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  10. Desk, IBT News (26 June 2018). "IIM Ahmadabad celebrates alumni success with YAAA 2018". www.ibtimes.co.in. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  11. Ganguly, Dibeyendu. "Chetan Bhagat: Novelist turn rock star". The Economic Times. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  12. "Verveonline.com". www.verveonline.com. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  13. AFP (26 July 2014). "Chetan Bhagat: From investment banking to Bollywood scripts". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  14. SpeakIn, ISB x (18 December 2020). "TOP 10 INDIAN MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS IN 2021". Indian Speaker Bureau features the best Public Speakers in India - Blog. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  15. "10 Writing Lessons By Chetan Bhagat". www.peppercontent.io. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  16. Abraham, Teena (13 March 2017). "5 Writing Lessons from Chetan Bhagat". Writing Tips Oasis. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  17. "Chetan Bhagat Blog". Times of India Blog. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  18. "Watch Decoupled | Netflix Official Site". www.netflix.com. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  19. Decoupled (Comedy, Drama), Andolan Films, Bombay Fables Motion Pictures, Bombay Fables Motion Pictures, 17 December 2021, retrieved 7 December 2022
  20. "Madhavan moved to tears by Decoupled's popularity: 'No. 1 Indian series on Netflix in less than 72 hours'". The Indian Express. 22 December 2021. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  21. Grover, Reeka (10 April 2018). "Novels that became Movies: Chetan Bhagat - Movies". Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  22. Khan, Ujala Ali (19 February 2013). "Chetan Bhagat talks about Kai Po Che, the film based on his book". The National. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  23. "Chetan Bhagat on his new podcast 'DeepTalk', reinventing himself, and his secret to a happy life - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  24. "The 2010 TIME 100 - TIME". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
  25. "Most creative people 2011:Chetan Bhagat". fastcompany.com. 18 May 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  26. "List of winners of Indian of the Year 2014". News18. 17 March 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  27. "Chetan Bhagat Receives the Indian of the Year Award in the Entertainment Category from IBN". Desimartini. 18 March 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  28. "Chetan Bhagat: Writing For Millennials". Forbes India. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  29. "Wings Publication announces winners of India's most prestigious book award - Golden Book Awards 2022". ANI News. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  30. "Making India awesome : new essays & columns | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  31. "Book Review: India Positive, Chetan Bhagat". Deccan Herald. 23 June 2019. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Chetan Bhagat.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chetan Bhagat.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.