Hello Chetan

Dear Chetan,
Hi. Where should I begin? I was in class 12th while preparing for the joint entrance exam of IIT that I came across this book, Five Point Someone by a newbie Chetan Bhagat. At that time, I was in Bokaro(a sleepy town in Jharkhand) and I read that novel after 6 months( It came to my nearest bookstores after 6 months), but during those six months, I had kept track of the book, read each and every review on various sites, countless newspapers, read everything I could which was even remotely related to the book. I even read and re-read the excerpt of your book in your site and then one February night I got hold of the book. The first few pages gripped me, you know why? I thought the novel had no pretensions, it begun with a simple objective of telling a story, a story of three underperformers, a story of a brutally compeititive system, a story where protoganists found it refreshing to read porn in the morning. The characters were so us, the one liners suited the characters to a T. This was my introduction to a certain I-banker sitting away in Hong Kong, writing stories and creating characters that were so relatable. Although, I didn't find the book very good in the first read. Granted, it was a breezy read, but it didn't touch me that much. But, I went back to the book again, and again, and again. There were some great moments of subtelity that you had weaved in a very simpleton way. There were some really good things that you wanted to put across amidst the mindless humor. And then, three months later, I didn't clear IIT. But, those lines of Sameer stayed with me.. "Dad, sees hundreds of people who can make it to IIT, he doesn't thousands of others who can't." FPS had become a cushion since then, whenever the loser(me)felt bad, he used to read FPS. I knew you were not a Naipaul, not a Narayan, not even Upamanyu Chatterjee. But, you had created characters, I felt, I could find strolling in many of the colleges in India. That was Five Point Someone for me. I thought here is a new voice who speaks like us, heck even writes like us(!), he may not be a Naipaul. And thank god for that! He is We. And we are happy for that.

After that, I lapped up each and every piece of article of you that you wrote, because I loved reading what you wrote. That Deccan Heraled article of yours about the youth of India, touched me deeply, you were a huge influence. Then, you wrote this article on Rediff about how today's youth can bring about the change, I agreed to most of the points in that. I smiled when you wrote this http://evervacillating.blogspot.com/2006/12/can-engineers-be-touchy-feel-chetan.html. And I almost cried when you wrote this, http://evervacillating.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-stupid-suicide-plan-chetan-bhagats.html. I thought you were genuine, not one of those phony people we come across. So, I was eagerly awaiting for your next novel. One morning I picked up Delhi Times to find that you had come up with your new novel, One Night at the Call Centre, I was thrilled, excited, rushed to the bookstore the same evening and read it. In 3 hours. Straight.

I was dissapointed.

To compare ON@TTC to FPS would be a crime in itself, so I would not go into that. I felt the book had its moments(few, very few, but it still had that Chetan signature), for instance, in the one of the beggining pages, where Shyam kind of rfaced an identity crisis in front of his relatives(who were there for marriage), that car scene, when Priyanka says..Oops! This is not as cool as Titanic. I laughed out loud on that. But, these and only couple of more were of any substantial interest. I don't say that every word written by an author is meant to be gripping, but even in terms of execution and plot, One Night was an insipid effort. But still, I didn't lose out hope on you, I still expected a lot from you. And I felt critics were a bit harsh on you. You were India's Nick Hornby, and I loved it when you said that I can't write a novel where they descirbe some village in Kerela the first 25 pages, you had nailed it with that comment of yours. And then, I read the '3 mistakes of my life'.

I just loved the first 70-80 pages, it took me back to my days( I also grew up in a rather small town), it was kind of a Malgudi Days feeling. I couldn't believe that you could even write like this. I was amazed and happy, but after that the book was a bastard child of Bollywood at best. I'm being polite when I say the book was pathetic after that. It was even worse than that. The cliched story of Ali, and his even sugar coated patriotism was to best put - very badly executed. And you can't say that I don't know the people of my country and that is why I say this, but the way you put it was so into the face, and infact everything after that was not what I expected from you. I had fought, argued with many of my friends about you. They said Chetan's novel are drivel and stuff like that, but I repeatedly told them it is unfair to compare Chetan to those literary stalwarts, Chetan has his own little place(this was before your '3 mistakes' came). But, after I read the '3 mistakes..' my opinion slowly started vacillating. But, all was not lost. You had the movie Hello up your sleeve( as a Story and Screenplay writer), and I thought if the movie could be atleast faithful to the novel, the movie could be a decent watchable flick which is a rarity for bollywood. Because, at the end of the day the movie would not be a DVD remake. It could still be an honest effort. And I would love to applaud you for that.


I managed to watch Hello today( as I'm not in India, I had not seen the promos of the movie on the T.V.), and the first scene shocked me. Salman Khan coming down from a chopper, Is this the One Night.. I read? And then he dances on a hip-hop number to one of the most trash lyrics ever written. Okay, I don't expect a Gulzar in a Hip-Hop song but still. And why the hip hop song in the first place? Chetan, were you dancing in the desolate compartment in the opening pages of the novel? And from there on, what I saw, I was totally repelled, the actors were not the characters of the book, even when Sharman Joshi leaves his job, there is an irritating Bollywood ma and a sibling. Very typically Bollywoodish( in a very negative sense). Dalip Tahil wears a tie which has the stripes of a U.S. flag, has a big idiotic photo frame in his office, hums a tune of New york, New york at his urinal, I mean is this is going deep into the character? I seriously didn't find anything funny in the movie, the novel had more moments than the movie. I mean some of the comedy scenes( the urinal one for instance)looked straight out of some David Dhawan movie. Now, don't jump the gun and start labeling me a pseudo and say that's your problem I like David Dhawan. You know what, even I love David Dhawan's movie( I know you are a Govinda fan), but the sad thing is, that urinal scene reeked of a bad David Dhawan movie.
I would like to quote Aniket( one of the previous comments), Do you really think One Night/Three Mistakes is even remotely close to what you could have really done?
I don't think so. You have dissapointed me big time with you r movie. And yes, one more point, I dislike your high handed attitude in this post. Is commercial succes the ONLY yardstick of a QUALITY work? You think so? Really? Aap ka Surroorrr(!) was one of the succesfull movies of last year, Was it good? Even bearble? What do you think? i know, I know getting appreciated gives everyone a high, but you should learn to accept the brickbats. If you want to continue on this high handed trip of yours, I'm sure you would give more duds like Hello.

And, it really hurts when you say that the critics(I'm not a critic, by the way) can't define fun or coolness. It seems you are personally attack them en masse. Whatever review I have read about the movie by people like Raja Sen, Rajeev Masand, Mayank Shekhar resonated with my views after watching the movie. ALthough,I think Mayank took it a bit far by calling One Night a pulp novel. These people know what they talk about and are a respected lot, just because your movie was not good, doesn't make them dumb quibs. Shooting from the hip may seem to be the easiest option, not necessarily the right one. So, I guess you would learn from your mistakes and contact people who realyl know about good cinema( and also know fun and being cool) and get their feedback on the movie. Because, Hello was neither.

I don't want to be one of the numerous fans 'Hello-Chetan-your movie/blog/book rox- you are the best-take-bye' , because I think if you can get your bearing right, you can go places(just as FPS did). I didn't intend to be rude, but somewhere down the line I thought of calling spade a spade, so I wrote this piece. You might not even think about it, whatever. But, if you do, it would make me and a lot others like me very happy. Because, we haven't seen the best of you, we haven't seen the best from you.
If you feel anythinhg was exaggerated or incorrect, feel free to mail me.

Take Care,
A Dissapointed fan.