Biography of Chetan Bhagat – a Significant Name in Indian Youth Population

Chetan Bhagat is a significant name in Indian youth population which would not be forgotten for a long time. His journey to current stature has been extraordinary and sets an example for every youth in the country to follow his footsteps.

Born on April 22, 1974 Chetan Bhagat is a well celebrated Indian author of nine novels. He is also a screenwriter, columnist, television personality and motivational speaker. His academic career has been like a dream come true for every student. He did his graduation in engineering from Indian institute of technology Delhi and received his master’sdegree from Indian institute of management Ahmedabad. In a way we can say that he received best of both worlds.

Before turning out to be a fulltime author Chetan Bhagat worked for a multinational bank in Hong Kong for almost a decade which became a topic of discussion after he got famous. People questioned his judgement of working in a bank in spite of being an engineer. That seems to not bother him in his consistent growth.

He wrote his first novel five point someone while working in Hong Kong. It became an instant hit and sold over one million novels worldwide. Once considered reading a lost art in India but he revived that. Later he came back to India and became full time author and penned down eight more bestselling novels.I think a lot of authors are jealous of Chetan Bhagat essentially because he leveraged his "elitist" (IIT-IIM) status adroitly to push the sales of his books and get a foothold into the print market in India. Anchoring biasness may be the situation here. Anchor-ing bias is for an individual to rely too heavily on an initial piece of information offered when making decisions. Readers used his (IIT-IIM) status for the quality of his novel.

Five of his nine novels have inspired Bollywood films. One movie in particular 3 Idiots which was the adaptation of Five point someone became superhit and won the best film award. Com-mercial success of the movie was beyond the clouds at the time of release.With the success came the controversy and accusations. Chetan Bhagat claimed that he was not given the due credit in the film. He said that he was expecting the credit in the beginning of the film not in the end, to which the producer of the movie responded that everything was done according to the contract signed by the author. Producer also said that the movie is only 5% of the novel and remaining was rewritten from the scratch. After watching the movie Chetan Bhagat said that not 5% but 70% of the movie was based on the novel. This controversy divided the followers in favour of both the parties.

Chetan Bhagat is also a very active columnist and writes for far reaching newspapers Times of India and Dainik Bhaskar. He presents his perception on the then current happenings of the world be it religion, economy, environment or anything. He is such a personality that he can’t be unheard. Everyone takes the notice of his writings. Many a times his views were not digested and misinterpreted by major section of the society leading it to be aconfirmation bias.Confirmation bias is our tendency to cherry-pick information that confirms our existing beliefs or ideas. Confirmation bias explains why two people with opposing views on a topic can see the same evidence and come away feeling validated by it.

Chetan Bhagat was becoming so famous with his writings and controversies that he was called to be the judge of the Indian dance show Nach Baliye. First people questioned how a writer can qualify as a judge of a dance show to which he said that he is also a motivational speaker and he can help contestants in some way but people didn’t think in the same way and flood of trolls came on his twitter account. People called him the most annoying judge in the history of reality show and he was neither entertaining nor enlightening. He defended his position by writing a post on his Facebook account regarding a scientific study done by the Worldpost and Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute which named him as one of the most influential voices and thought leaders of the world. He went on to say that many people who criticize him are failed writers.This above statement of Chetan Bhagat may be perceived as an overconfidence biasness. The overconfidence bias is the tendency people have feel more confident in their own abilities. This overconfidence also involves matters of character.Generally, people believe that they are more ethical than their competitors, co-workers, and peers.Most of us believe we are better performers, more honest and intelligent, have a better future, are less vulnerable than the average person, etc. For example, a recent study showed that 50% of business people polled believed that they were in the top 10% ethically.