Chetan Bhagat

After graduating with a masters of business administration degree in 1998, Chetan 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 on and kept this boss in mind when he characterised the villain in his second novel One Night @ the Call Center.[11] 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, Strategic Investment Group, Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong.[12] 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.[13]

Bhagat is also a popular motivational speaker and has spoken at more than 800 organizations in 1000 cities around the world.[14]

Chetan Bhagat started writing his very 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 a publishing house named Rupa Publications in Delhi and was published in the year 2004. This very first venture took him to peaks of fame and popularity. This novel narrated the story of three IIT students who consider themselves to be below average students among other students at IIT. The story was adopted by film director Rajkumar Hirani into a film named "3 Idiots" starring famous Indian stars Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi and Kareena Kapoor. The movie turned out to be one of the most successful Bollywood movies of all time.

After the huge success of his first novel, he started working on his second book "One Night At The Call Centre" which was published in the year 2005. The novel went on to become yet another major success. In the first 3 days of its release, almost 50,000 copies were sold. This novel became India's fastest selling book of its time. The book was also adapted into a movie named "Hello" and Chetan along with Atul Agnihotri wrote the script for the movie.

Chetan then decided to make writing a full-time career. His third novel "The 3 Mistakes of my life" published in 2008 also became a huge success. This novel became a bestseller and Chetan also became the most successful English-Language writer in India. The Bollywood hit movie "Kai Po Che" is based on this novel.

Chetan's fourth novel "2 States", published in the year 2009 was inspired by his real-life love story. The story is about how he fell in love with a South Indian girl and the troubles he faced in his love life. The book was adapted into a movie with the same name starring Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt and became a massive success.

Chetan's later novels named "Revolution 2020", "Half Girlfriend" and "One Indian Girl" gained a lot of appreciation and commercial success.

His novels, "The Girl in Room 105", published in 2018, "One Arranged Murder", published in 2020 and his latest novel "400 days", published in 2021 turned out to be bestsellers.

Chetan was a celebrity judge along with Marzi Pestonji and Preity Zinta on the dance reality show named "Nach Baliye" season 7 that aired on the Indian television channel Star Plus.

Chetan was also seen in Netflix's series Decoupled, which stars R. Madhavan in the lead role. In the show, Madhavan plays the second bestselling author in India, while Chetan plays himself as India's bestselling author and Madhavan's rival.

Five of his novels have been adapted into movies. The film 3 Idiots released in 2009 (based on his novel Five Point Someone), was a major success. For Kai Po Che (2013) based on his novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life, Bhagat was one of the four screenplay writers.[15] The film was a commercial success and Bhagat, along with Pubali Chaudri, Supratik Sen and Abhishek Kapoor won the Filmfare Award for Best Screenplay for Kai Po Che! at the 68th Filmfare Awards.

Chetan is a YouTuber along with being an author and motivational speaker. His YouTube channel is all about providing motivation tips to the young Indians. He has many subscribers and the same has been increasing with every passing day.[16]

He has recently launched his podcast show Deeptalk with Chetan Bhagat where he invites a list of accomplished guests for a heart-to-heart conversation about how they made it big in life. The podcast show has gained a lot of appreciation from his target audience. Chetan believes that it is their journey that would inspire and motivate today's youth.[17]

Some of the guests that have been a part of the podcast show were Ritesh Agarwal (founder and Group CEO of OYO), Nikhil Kamath (co-founder and CFO at Zerodha), Vineeta Singh (CEO, and co-founder of SUGAR Cosmetics), etc.

Five of Chetan's novels have been adapted into films:[18]

• Hello (2008) – Based on the book "One Night at the Call Center"
• 3 Idiots (2009) – Based on the book "Five Point Someone"
• Kai Po Che! (2013) – Based on the book "The 3 mistakes of my life"
• 2 States (2014) – Based on the book "2 States"
• Half Girlfriend (2017) – Based on the book "Half Girlfriend"

Chetan has been a part of the popular Netflix show named Decoupled which stars R Madhavan and Surveen Chawla in the lead role. The show was premiered on the OTT platform on 17 December 2021.[19] In the show, Madhavan plays the role of Arya Iyer, a writer. His marriage with his estranged wife, played by Surveen Chawla of 'Sacred Games' fame is on the rocks, but the couple has to keep up the facade of a happy family for the sake of their daughter who is terrified of her parents divorcing. Bhagat makes a cameo in the show, as India's bestselling author. To sum up, 'Decoupled' is an interesting take on separating couples while also touching upon today's trending topics on social media.[20]

The show has been created by Manu Joseph and directed by Hardik Mehta and it turned out to be the No. 1 Indian series on Netflix in less than 72 hours after its release and the second most watched Netflix show in India.[21]

• Five Point Someone (2004)
• One Night @ the Call Center (2006)
• The 3 Mistakes of My Life (2008)
• 2 States (2009)
• Revolution 2020 (2011)
• Half Girlfriend (2014)
• One Indian Girl (2016)
• The Girl in Room 105 (2018)
• One Arranged Murder (2020)
• 400 Days (2021)

• What Young India Wants (2012)
• Making India Awesome (2015)
• India Positive (2019)[22]