5 Chetan Bhagat and Gulzaar... what a combination

When we go through a book, when we read a poetry, when we see a nice painting or scripture or when we see a cartoon, deep inside our mind, we get a pleasure which is not available otherwise. Pleasure of satisfaction after reading poetry is different from pleasure of listening a lovable song. The author of a book, a poet, a painter and a cartoonist all of them are artists.

Overwhelmed by the numbers of fans of Chetan Bhagat on various social networking sites, I started reading his book. He is a different author. He claims that he writes for masses. I assumed he must be a good narrator. But I got disappointed after reading his book, two states. I read another book. I have the same experience.

Science is a logical thing. One can learn science. Art is a god gifted skill. If it is not so, then everyone would have become painter, cartoonist or a poet. Writing a book is not documenting a sequence of events. An author is supposed to write non-obvious thing. Thus those non-obvious things are known as “contribution of an author”. Read the books of Chetan Bhagat and try to find non-obvious things. I did not find anything as such. Either it is my personal inability to find non obvious things in his writings or he does not know it.

My above mentioned believes become stronger with two incidences and this is why I am writing this blog. In first incidence, Chetan Bhagat said, “So what if I write for the masses? So did Shakespeare. He was probably the Ekta Kapoor of his time.’’ There was no one to make arguments with him. In the second incident, however, cart was put before the horse. Here, in a television show Chetan was introducing Gulzar the legendry author, lyrics and thinker who is also known for his straightforwardness. He said that he liked the later’s Kazrare… song. Gulzar reacted, and challenged him to explain the meaning of the song. Intelligent Chetan decided not to confront with him. Dumbfounded with the reality, he estimated his position and decided to stay silent. I thought he is collecting his energy to bounce back which he never did.

I remember year 1989, when Tendular started playing. He hit 28 runs in a single over of Abdul Kadir with three sixes, two fours and a two runs and became a hero overnight. Subsequently he went to play Sarjah cup. He was coming for batting at 7^th down. He used to get 15-20 balls and was scoring 20-30 runs. The cricket fans were happy to see him punishing Waqar Unus and Washim Akaram. End of day India lost in the final, thanks to Aqib Jawed for his brilliant seven wicket hauls. Everyone were pointing towards the batsman and hence Tendulkar. Sunil Gawaskar challenged Tendular, “Players cannot be termed as a batsman by merely hitting fours and sixes. He needs to stay on the pitch, when needed”.

Subsequently, what happened is now a legendry story of Sachin Tendular. He stayed on the pitch to anyone’s and everyone’s expectation. Like Gawaskar, now Gulzar also challenged “Chetan Bhagat”. It is good that he had not confronted with the Oscar winner lyricist. However he needs to prove himself. He needs to prove, he is an author who writes non-obvious things. He needs to prove he is an artist beyond “an intelligent mechanical engineer who can document the sequence of events”.