Talib Shahin
Chetan Baghat is an Indian young screenwriter, dancer, actor, motivational speaker and popular author. His life started with his birth in Delhi on 22 April 1937. He completed his mechanical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, and moved to receive his further education to Indian Institute of Education Ahmedabad in 1977. He has the great art of delivering the right punches at right time. In 2008, The New York Times cited him as ‘’the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history.’’ He is a very famous personality in Bollywood regimes as his screenwriting has put the industry on fire. His top and most famous screen writings include 2 STATES, the action thriller movie KICK, and HALFGIRLFRIEND. His writings are quite interesting and I am not going to neglect his pen power. Really he is a good author and he should be read more and more. But there are few problems with his books. First let me tell you about his novels. He published ‘’Five point someone’’ in 2004, ‘’One night @ the call center’’ in 2005, ‘’ three mistakes of my life’’ in 2008, ‘’2 states’’ in 2009, ‘’Revolution 2020’’ in 2011, ‘’Half Girlfriend’’ in 2014, ‘’One Indian Girl’’ in 2016 and ‘’the girl in room 105’’ in 2018. His non-fiction works include ‘’what young India wants’’ published in 2012 and ‘’Making India Awesome’’ in 2015. All his fictional works revolve around the theme ‘’boy meets girl, they fall in love at first sight etc’’. Take the example of ‘’2 States’’, it is a story about a romantic journey of a culturally opposite couple-KRISH MALHOTRA and ANANYA SWAMINATHAN. They meet at college and fall in love. Same theme is intermingled in other stories with a difference of character and plots.
While reading him, the decreasing moral consideration in young generation especially the students come to the fore. As a writer, he should talk morality and respect family values but he is not doing so. His writings and liberal approach hurts the religious people in particular who work for the betterment of human society. Chetan can be seen as promoting and supporting the immorality, ex-girl friend and sex culture. That is why he is criticized a lot. Take his recent book ‘’The girl in room 105’’, he can be seen as hurting the religious as well as the moral sentiments of Kashmiri people as he narrated the fictional story of a Kashmiri girl who had some illegal relations with a boy living outside the state. He starts his book with these words;
Hi, I’m KESHAV, and my life is screwed.
I hate my job and my girl friend left me.
Ah, the beautiful Zara, From Kashmir, a Muslim.
And did I tell you my family is a bit, well traditional? Anyway, leave that.
Zara and I broke up three years ago. She moved on in life. I didn’t. I drank every night to forget her. I called, messaged, stalked. She just ignored me.
However, that night, one the eve of her birthday, Zara messaged me.
She called me over, like old times, to her hostel room 105.
I shouldn’t have gone, but I did… and my life changed forever.
He has depicted his communal mindset. In this he openly state;
1. Kashmiri militant organizations arrange funds by drug smuggling. But all know about the reality of ongoing war in the state. While writing such a childish point it seems that the writer is politically immature or is lying and spreading hatred.
2. There are so many characters in the novel however only the Muslim characters have been presented as the hardcore criminals, eg; A Muslim girl cheats her Hindu boyfriend, a Muslim army personnel cheats his wife and spares a terrorist only to have sex with the sister of terrorist, a Muslim business man forces two boyfriends of her daughters to accept Islam etc etc. The question arises that how he presents Islam? How he knows Islam? And what is the aim of writer in writing such a childish work. Either his perception is wrong, or Mr. Bhagat needs to quit writing books.
Writers write to tell stories. They write to correct the society. They write to spread the agendas of love, peace, mercy etc. They Writers love to write about communal harmony. Every good writer enjoys that world should breath in peace and there should be an end to human tragedies. Reading Chetan is not safe for young ones because the detailed sex scenes are described dozens of times in his works. His works contain excess amounts of adult material which is sufficient to degrade reader’s morality. When we study literature, we expect to learn something new out of it. His geniuses give us nothing. They just reaffirm the stereotypes our society strives to fight against. Let’s see his crude and inappropriate language used dozens of times in his works. He notes about RIYA one of the main character of his novel as: ‘he took a few seconds to answer. ‘’ I say yes, will you ask me to stop?’’ Debu said. I laughed, ‘No, silly, just that this is my first time’, I said. ‘I had one girlfriend before. Two years back.’ ‘Can we not talk about that now?’ I said. He kissed my nipples. He moved up and kissed my collarbone. He kissed my chin and then my lips for several minutes. He tugged at my panties. My heart beat fast. Was I really going to get fully naked in front of a man? I guess it was too late. He pulled down my panties. He removed his trousers and underwear. I had not seen a naked man so-up close. I wanted to get a good look, more as an anatomy lesson. However he held me tight and continued to kiss me. His hands reached higher on my thighs.’’ [One Indian Girl; p-57]. ‘Although RIYA has covered her body in T-shirt and tights, MADHAV’S eyes investigate her body’s arc. The snug outfit highlighted her curves.’’ [Half Girlfriend; p-156].
“She took off her ****. ‘Remove your hand, they won’t run away.’ ‘Huh? I said……’take it off,’ she said, tugging at my shirt. At this point, I could have jumped off the terrace if she asked me to. I followed her instructions instantly’’ [Three mistakes of my life; p-200]
‘We kissed for a long time, our pace as gentle as the rain on the window. I felt her tears on my cheeks. I paused and held her shoulders. She hugged me, and buried her face in my chest. It was what AARTI always did. And I loved it when she did that. It made me feel protective.’ [Revolution 2020; p-248]
‘’We kissed during almost every class since the last month, so it wasn’t a big deal. Sometimes we kissed every time she solved a problem. At other times, we took a kissing break every fifteen minutes. Once, we didn’t kiss at all as she did a mock test. However, we made up for it in the next class where we spent the first ten minutes kissing and the rest discussing her mistakes. When we felt desire, we kissed. [Three mistakes of my life; 197].
‘We kissed, and then we kissed again. Then she held my hand and did something that she had never done before; she put it on her ****. ‘Well tiger, are you going to remove anything or not?’’ she said. I’ll…’’ I said as she pulled me close. Half an hour, we lay on the bed, spent but completely content.’’ [Five Point Someone p-168]. Chatan may not have a great storyline to intrigue his readers, but he definitely knows all the marketing gimmicks to grab the attention of even the non readers. His book ‘’One Indian Girl’’ and ‘’Half Girlfriend’’ didn’t took long time to become the talk of the town. While the ones who’ve read these books are busy mocking them, the ones who haven’t bothered and don’t bother to buy the book, are now burning with curiosity to know what’s on page number 57 and 156 respectively. The books of author should be thrown away. Buying his books is the total waste of money. And reading him is to waste our time. His ill pained ideas are going common day by day. It will destroy the adolescent section of our society. So it needs a speedy ideological breakdown. Otherwise it may be too late.
(The author is an associate of IJT Kashmir and student of 12th class. Views are his own)