Chetan Bhagat (born 22 April 1974) is an Indian author, columnist and YouTuber. He was listed in Time magazine's list of World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010. Five of his novels have been adapted into films.
He is one of the most successful Indian authors who has penned several novels that hit the market with massive success. He is considered a youth icon rather than just a novelist or writer. He is also a popular newspaper columnistand writes columns for many leading newspapers. For him, novels are entertainment tools through which he expresses his opinions and views about the youth and the society in general. Chetan is also a motivational speaker and has given many speeches at various organizations and institutes.
In 2008, The New York Times published an article on him with the headline Chetan Bhagat: An Investment Banker Finds Fame Off the Books. His books have been bestsellers since their date of release. Several novels of his have been adapted into successful Bollywood films. He is also known as a celebrity author.
Early life and education
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 in Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. He was schooled at the Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan. He claims to have been an average student at 15. His love for writing began during his school years. He used to write articles for the literary magazine of his school and seeing his name printed on the magazine as a writer encouraged him to continue writing.
Bhagat graduated with a B.Tech. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1995.
Bhagat pursued a Master of Business Administration degree in marketing from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) and graduated in 1997. In June 2018, IIMA awarded him the "Young Alumni Achiever's Awards 2018" in the Art & Entertainment category.
Career
Banking
After graduating with a masters of business administration degree (MBA) in 1997, Bhagat was placed through his campus at Peregrine Investments Holdings in Canada. 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 and kept him in mind when he characterized the villain in his second novel One Night @ the Call Center. 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 and offered to publish it.
By 2006, he was vice-president of Strategic Investment Group, Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong. 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 wife and three-year-old twin sons. 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 seven lakh (700,000) copies in three months.
In 2009, he quit his banking career to write full-time.
Bhagat is also a popular motivational speaker and has spoken at more than 800 organizations in 1000 cities around the world.
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 finally accepted by the publishing house Rupa Publications in Delhi and was published in 2004. The novel narrates the story of three IIT students who consider themselves to be below average students among other students there. The story was adopted by film director Rajkumar Hirani into a film named "3 Idiots" starring Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, and Kareena Kapoor. It became one of the most successful Bollywood movies of all time.
After the success of his first novel, he started working on his second book "One Night @ the Call Center" which was published in 2005. The novel was also a success. In the first three days of its release, almost 50,000 copies were sold. It became India's fastest selling book of its time. The book was also adapted into a movie named "Hello"; Chetan and Atul Agnihotri wrote the script for the movie.