Revolution 2020: An over-promised entertainer

The very cover of Revolution 2020gives a hint about what is inside – a girl hugging her lover with one arm around him and one arm being held by another boy standing by the side. Chetan Bhagat’s new novel Revolution 2020 is no different from a mainstream commercial movie. In fact it has all the elements of a comercial Hindi movie - a loser hero cheated by all, a coughing father who keeps nagging his son about his failure, a girl who chooses a rich boy over him and a kahaani mein twist during the interval after which the hero bounces back with full force.

Gopal, Raghav and Aarti are childhood friends who grow up in the holy city of Varanasi. As they blossom into youth, Gopal wants to get into a commitment with Aarti. Both Gopal and Raghav attempt the IIT-JEE exams. Gopal fails to make it anywhere with his poor rank while Raghav succeeds and gets into BHU. Prodded by his ailing father, Gopal leaves for Kota where he spends one year toiling to crack the IIT entrance without much avail. In Gopal’s absence, Aarti falls for Gopal’s friend Raghav. Gopal is a total loser now.

The twist comes with the entry of a local MLA Shukla who helps Gopal set up an Engineering college. Soon Gopal, who did not even study in a college, greases umpteen palms of government officials with Shukla’s money and sets up an Engineering college, while Raghav renounces all the plush comforts, refuses a job offer in a top IT company and decides to be a journalist, hoping to bring in a revolution to clean up India from the city that washes all sins. Aarti now rediscovers her fondness for Gopal and thus begins a series of events that sets the tempo for the second half of this book.

After having kept his books below Rs. 100 all these years, Chetan Bhagat has for the first time let his book cross the Rs 100 mark. This one is priced at Rs. 140. Even the price of one novel is not more than the cost of a ticket to watch a Hindi movie in a multiplex. Quite opposed to his peers launching books in five-star hotels, Bhagat has always chosen retails outlets, in the midst of his readers. His books are every inch commercial products in the guise of written words.

Those of us who have watched Sudhir Mishra’s classic Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi would be familiar with the outline of this story of the rich boy going the path of revolution, because he can afford to do so and the middle-class boy, whose sole ambition is to be rich, becoming street smart to make pots of money. At the centre of both is a girl who can turn the scheme of events as she desires.

But this book is not even a pale shadow of the great work of Sudhir Mishra, not that it aspires to compete with it. It is entertaining and provides value for money, something that Bhagat would have had in mind while writing the book. Chetan hinges on the victory of the underdog in this book, a feeling we love as Indians. The problem is with the title and the promotion itself. Chetan Bhagat has bluntly exposed the corruption in our education system. But the book is more about that than about a revolution. Yes there is a character parroting some lines about a revolution but he fails to infuse any confidence, perhaps because Chetan Bhagat himself is not well acquainted with the idea. Though it is supposed to be the titular theme, it has been sidelined to a few pages with repetitive description towards the end. Chetan Bhagat has been carried away by the wave of the Anna brigade and perhaps named this book in the last few months. This book is not so much about a revolution as it is about ambition and corruption. There was much more that could have been done with the plot that he so strenunously developed.

Chetan Bhagat’s Revolution 2020 is like Karan Johar’s My Name is Khan. Both Chetan and Karan are mass entertainers and have strived to make a serious statement with these works, which simply cannot be taken seriously because they lack conviction and fail to look real. People might sit and listen for its star appeal, but that’s it.

Chetan Bhagat's have never been great works of literature just as a Dabbang or a Ready have seldom appealed to the intellect. The next time you are planning a sojourn in a train, do not forget to take Revolution 2020 along. It does disappoint to deliver what it promises, but it entertains as his books usually do.