Chetan Bhagat in Bangalore Literature Festival

Literature and literary enthusiasts have always inspired all age groups from the ancient times, be it folklore to contemporary writing, Biographies inspiring the directors to make biopic, art forms to poetic writings; all forms of writing have been greatly awarded and accepted. One such occasion I was fortunate to witness, the Bangalore Literature Festival. I am being honest and visited the event exclusively to hear Chetan Bhagat speak.

Born in a middle-class Punjabi family, a dream of pursuing his academics from an IIT had turned reality and then he also made it to the top-notch Management school, the IIM –A.  An investment banker by profession, little had he expected that he would turn to be such a sought after, youth-inspiring author, a youth icon. He made it!

In his conversation with Shiny Antony, the editor of his novels, he had a million thoughts to share and took this opportunity to express himself out loud to the youth of India. From an investment banker- turning into a best-selling author to co-producing his novel based movie “The half-girlfriend”, Chetan has worn several hats and he has justified those roles amply. His book “The half-girlfriend” expected to release in a week’s time, had his views on why women had such important roles to play in his life?

He says, the young boy in him and the women he had had an opportunity to share his life with have a remarkable role for being what he is today and for inspiring the young readers of our country. Here is what he had to say when asked why is his life so women-driven?

"Ask the IIT’ians how women-starved the colleges were back in those days when women were not encouraged to take up engineering” smiles and then continues to explain how the woman in his life, his wife Anusha motivates him every single day.  “My fellow IIT’ians have gone up and started billion dollar companies in the silicon valley, all they have is money, but today when I show them the selfie that I clicked with Alia Bhat and say ‘AB bol beta’ the feeling is different!J Such is the love you receive if you appreciate the beautiful souls in your life, when they appreciate you so effortlessly, just respect them and reciprocate the love.”

When asked what was his opinion when the TOI, for whom he writes had made such objectified statements about the actress Dipika Padukone, “I am in a situation where I am expected to be politically correct here, since I write for TOI and there is the soft target the woman celebrity, but I will go ahead and say it was wrong and shameful of TOI to have made such statements on a woman’s body parts. It is offensive, the media simply exaggerated things and should have come back and apologised for what it wrote.  Would a news paper editor dare do the same with a woman politician at a cost of losing its political and global presence? No, then why the softer target always, it did offend the actress, enough discussed on this, the editor could simply have made an apology and respected her privacy on this front.”

Finally coming to all the female characters he made a mention of in all his books so far, were they all true and existed or just the fictional characters?

“All the women who have had a mention in my books are real and have influenced my living in a big way, Neha in ‘Five pint someone’, was the girl I first dated in my IIT days and then came in Anusha my wife, or Ananya in the book and the movie ‘2 states’, the entire illustration being my own story of marriage and coming in terms with the conservative Tamil Brahmin in-laws who had least expected to have a ‘punjabi-damaad’. It all began in a small way of acceptance and appreciation of my honesty from a woman in my life and that fueled the motivation to make it this big today.”

'Your message to the youngsters today'.

“I urge each one of you to respect and understand the women in and outside of your lives, I am not expecting you all to act a feminist here but be sensitive to the expectations of a feminine being and pay heed to the betterment of your counterparts, be there when they need you and I’m sure their prayers will do good to you in a million ways.”

“The reason that I picked up to write about a non-English speaking character ‘Madhav’ in my new novel ‘The half-girlfriend’, please understand there exists a soul behind every such being who cannot express what he feels, every young mind has ideas and the language should not act as a barrier to those beautiful thoughts and go unexpressed. The rural India can overcome the language-barrier and make it to greater platforms if they start reading, the intention is to get the young rural India to read, and the slums should be able relate to my social message.”