Chetan Bhagat, What’s With All These Numbers?

He is one of India’s most successful writers, and with 3 Idiots, Kai Po Che and 2 States raking success at the box office, Chetan Bhagat has become Bollywood’s eye-candy as well. Maybe that was the reason that he was chosen as the additional screenplay writer in Salman Khan’s recently released movie Kick, despite the fact that all his previous filmy connections revolved around movies based on his books.

As he announced the name of his new book on various social media platforms, there has been a lot of memes and jokes going viral because of his fetish with using numbers in the titles of his books.

His books have been titled as

• Five Point Someone – What not to do at IIT!
• One Night @ the Call Center
• The 3 Mistakes of My Life
• 2 States: The Story of My Marriage
• Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition.

We all know that Chetan Bhagat is an alumnus of India’s premier education institutes IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, and worked in banks for 11 years before turning to full-time writing. Being an engineer, an MBA and a banker has surely made him think numbers and even five years after he left investment banking, he shares a special relationship with numbers.

His latest book, Half Girlfriend has a number too, although this time around, it has been reduced to half. This is a story of a young girl who becomes her friend’s “half girlfriend” because he wants a relationship and she doesn’t.

The teaser of the book is getting a good response because of the loyal reader base that Bhagat has managed to make in all these years.

Coming over to the other side of fame, which is criticism, Bhagat has always been criticised for his literary skills and even this time around, there have been many jokes and satires on him.

Some of them:

"Bihari ho?"
"Haan"
"English nai ati?"
"What?"
"English nai ati?"
"What nonsense is that? Aren't you being overtly presumptuous?"
"Oh sorry, wo Chetan Bhagat ki novel mein padha tha na..."
Chetan Bhagat – reinforcing stereotypes since 5 Point Someone! [sic]

~The Anonymous Writer

You are supposed to Write the "other" half of the novel yourself after reading #HalfGirlfriend as homework. [sic]
~Anurag Rekhde

If I marry my girlfriend, she will be my better half. So, if I marry my‪#‎HalfGirlfriend, she will be my better quarter, right? [sic]
~ Kaali Zabaan

Chetan Bhagat -
1st book: Five Point Someone.
Last book: Point Five Someone.
~Ramesh Srivats