Q: How is your writing different from, say, a Jhumpa Lahiri, a Neel Mukherjee or a Jeet Thayil?A: I think we are writing for different people. We may be writing about the same things, which is India. And we may all be Indian. But I think they are writing for a different audience. I am writing for a different audience. People say they are very good writers. Much better than me. So maybe that is the case. I don’t know.(from Book talk: an interview by Ankush Arora http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2014/10/10/chetan-bhagat-half-girlfriend/).
This is how Chetan Bhagat differentiates his writing from that of contemporaries like Jhumpa Lahiri and Neel Mukherjee.But as a reader who finds books by both Bhagat and these authors referred to at the same place, be it on Flipkart or amazon or at the bookstore at the neighbourhood mall, I really feel let down by Chetan Bhagat. I bought novels by both Chetan Bhagat and Neel Mukherjee last month and read them in the same week.
Q: We have an India-origin author once again in the race for the Booker Prize. Have you read Neel Mukherjee?A: No, I am dying to read it. Listen, these are brilliant authors. I write for very different reasons. I want every Indian to pick up an English book. Every slum girl or kid to pick up an English book. And for that I have to write a certain kind of a book.
That is what Bhagat thinks but behind every writer the inherent desire is to be read by a large audience.Dickens and George Eliot were best sellers and so are Rushdie and Coetzee. Actually Bhagat is insulting the intellect of his readers when he says he is writing for a particular set.Just like a driving license, reading ability comes at a certain level.If you can read Chetan Bhagat, you can read Neel Mukherjee as well. At least Mukherjee gets his Calcutta and Midnapore right and writes a credible story where you wait with anticipation for the turn of events more so than in Bhagat.And just as when one learns to drive in a city, she can gradually take to the highways, so too can the reader growing up on CBSE English Core and communiccative English learn to enjoy so called serious fiction.
This is how Chetan Bhagat differentiates his writing from that of contemporaries like Jhumpa Lahiri and Neel Mukherjee.But as a reader who finds books by both Bhagat and these authors referred to at the same place, be it on Flipkart or amazon or at the bookstore at the neighbourhood mall, I really feel let down by Chetan Bhagat. I bought novels by both Chetan Bhagat and Neel Mukherjee last month and read them in the same week.
Q: We have an India-origin author once again in the race for the Booker Prize. Have you read Neel Mukherjee?A: No, I am dying to read it. Listen, these are brilliant authors. I write for very different reasons. I want every Indian to pick up an English book. Every slum girl or kid to pick up an English book. And for that I have to write a certain kind of a book.
That is what Bhagat thinks but behind every writer the inherent desire is to be read by a large audience.Dickens and George Eliot were best sellers and so are Rushdie and Coetzee. Actually Bhagat is insulting the intellect of his readers when he says he is writing for a particular set.Just like a driving license, reading ability comes at a certain level.If you can read Chetan Bhagat, you can read Neel Mukherjee as well. At least Mukherjee gets his Calcutta and Midnapore right and writes a credible story where you wait with anticipation for the turn of events more so than in Bhagat.And just as when one learns to drive in a city, she can gradually take to the highways, so too can the reader growing up on CBSE English Core and communiccative English learn to enjoy so called serious fiction.
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