Why I need to order a Chetan Bhagat novel

Today I went through another article ridiculing Chetan Bhagat’s novels. This particular author compared the massive popularity of Bhagat’s novels with the advent of apocalypse. This was an extreme reaction, but most critics do seem to have a problem with Bhagat’s language which they say is pedestrian and only slightly better than the likes of me.

Hmmm…I am yet to read any of Bhagat’s works. So, though one ad says so, I still don’t know whether reading his books is better than sex. Bhagat’s reaction to criticism has been typical. He has termed his detractors elitist. He has assumed that most Indians do not know proper English and projected himself as their sole literary representative. He surely does have the numbers going for him. His books have turned out to be bestsellers, his language skills or the lack of it not withstanding.

So, does that mean Bhagat is right? It is interesting to note that Bhagat has never boasted of his language skills. The logical inference would be, and Bhagat has himself implied this in some interviews, that most of our domestic readers are not competent enough to be bothered by the lack of his language prowess. It seems Bhagat is the best an average Indian reader can hope for and they are quite happy with him, judging by the sale figures of his published works.

It seems nobody, even Bhagat himself, is ready to give credit to the stories he is trying to narrate through his novels. May be his plots are so awesome that people just love them like anything. May be  engineers could identify with the characters of Five Point Someone so much that they didn’t give a damn about Bhagat’s English. May be his Revolution 20-20 was released at the right moment, at a time when corruption occupied the centre stage of Indian politics.

A few days back one of my friends recommended a Mrinal Sen movie. I had watched quite a few of the great director’s works and liked them immensely. So, I watched the movie my friend recommended and didn’t like it one bit. The acting was excellent, the angles were top class, the background score was somber, but alas, I didn’t enjoy the plot one bit.

When I was a kid, I watched Godfather which was being shown as a serial in doordarshan. I didn’t know anything about acting, direction, photography or background scores then. I couldn’t even understand all the dialogues. But I loved it and continue to do so. Guess what, the story was/is too good.

May be the critics are right, may be Bhagat is a pretender or who knows, some of these critics might have been extremely jealous.

I need to order a copy of Revolution 20-20 and experience it myself.