Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Letter from an anguished reader

Dear Chetan Bhagat,


A humble request. Consider it a plea or a petition. I can assure you I can get several people to sign off on this.

What you write in the name of books is utter rubbish. Its trashy writing with one dimensional characters. You write a book, a whole 200+ pages, without even a semblance of a story. It appalls me that people read this.

Your characters are idiots, mostly hopelessly in love and stupid while they are at it. The men in your books see themselves as fat, ugly people and the women are giggly caricatures. No one has any brains or spine. All characters talk in loops and sometimes the exact thing (views, dialogues, introspections) is repeated 70 pages later. Each time a person thinks to themselves, it is portrayed like an epiphany. The only consistency is that all male characters make sharp observations about women like they have breasts. A stroke of sheer brilliance. Of course, your very introspective years at the IIM have blessed you with an insider’s view on what happens in all colleges. And this is hashed and rehashed in every book by simply changing the location of the college.

Take Revolution 2020. Why did you write this at all? I could have watched one of those 90’s movies called ‘Aaj ka Aashiq’ or something like that and that would have been more bearable and maybe even more believable. Books inspire movies. We know that, happens all the time. But copying a movie into a book? That has to be a first. When I read the ‘Three mistakes of my life’, I already knew this one had to be my fourth and I didn’t even make the first three.

Why do I read your books you ask? Don’t you watch Star/Zee Movies for the south-Indian movies dubbed in Hindi sometimes? You know, just to see how bad it can get? Yeah, that’s exactly why.

By the way, just watched your ad on Youtube. Hahaha..you..hahah…really…haha…think…*falls off chair*

*Regaining composure* The only reason your books are selling, and I am trying to break this gently to you, is that they are cheap. You and your publisher know that no one, and I emphasize on no one here, is willing to pay more than a rupee per page for your books and that’s on the higher end. Don’t flatter yourself by thinking you are an author. It’s an insult to people who actually are.

Yours sincerely,

Not-so-amused bystander





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

you seriously hate this guy!