I was really surprised when I saw Chetan Bhagat’s name on the Writer’s Fortnight list. I was instantly excited after I realized that this man had written one of my favorite childhood stories, 3 Idiots. Chetan Bhagat’s talk had made everyone roar with laughter and at the same time, gave everyone the reason as to why English-language dramedy novels about young urban middle-class Indians are so important. I personally did not find Chetan’s talk that appealing as it seemed a little artificial to me.

Throughout this talk, I soon began to realize that fundamentally everything that is written or composed is only for entertainment. From my perspective, I see a middle-aged man who is trying to raise awareness among Indians in an incredibly cheap way by dumbing down the actual messages in the stories and increasing the level of entertainment.

Even though Chetan Bhagat’s main idea of the talk was for the Indians to adapt to the new cultures, I felt as though he brought it in, in a very superficial way but he had mentioned that if an Indian writes about an Indian developing, then other Indians would be willing to read the book as it gives them an option to see the difference in culture and education.

Aside from telling us how Urban Indian Novels help Indians to progress, Chetan had inspired us to do what makes us happy and to follow out dreams. He reminded us that our success can only come from us and not anyone else which I think was a strong way to end the talk. A reminder to keep working hard is always supportive. Even though I am not a big fan of Chetan Bhagat, I do think that the ideas he had presented to us today were worth sharing.