Why do so many people love to hate Chetan Bhagat? Is it snobbery? Jealousy? Sour grapes? A case of Indians pulling their own down? His comments on Twitter? Displaced anger at ourselves? What is it about CB that makes people hate him so?
Twitter
The Twitter incidents don't count, for the very reason that people disliked CB before #Chetanblocks, and used that as an excuse to vent their feelings. Of course, Chetan's initial reaction to the instigators i.e acting like he was doing people a favour by letting them read his tweets, and arbitrary blocking, didn't help in the 'garnering sympathy' department.
We love to pull down our own
For some reason, a large section of Indian society likes holding those Indians whom we see as being gifted or intellectually or culturally superior to ourselves up on a pedestal and showing them off to the world. We love to bask in the achievements of those whom we consider to be greater to ourselves (inferiority complex?). But when it comes to mediocre stuff created by one of our own ordinary kind, we are quick to put that person down. Because for us, that person has no business achieving success.
I don't know why we feel this way. Maybe it's because of snobbery, where we feel we need to patronise only 'upper class' creations, and put down what we perceive as mediocrity? Because it invalidates our sense of fairness and we need to restore order in the universe? Because it forces us to question why we aren't as successful too, and what we might need to do to change this? Because it forces us to realise that we will never be able to do what he/she has done, no matter how seemingly ordinary, and this leads to jealousy or resentment?
Resentment
The fact is, we see Chetan Bhagat as one of us. A regular ordinary non-gifted Indian. We do not see him as a gifted writer and a contributor to what this country should be known for. His books prove this. CB is not a good writer in the literary sense. He is no Vikram Seth or Arundhati Roy. He does not write flowery beautiful prose. But he does write simple to the point short books that tell stories that millions of Indian youth enjoy reading.
We hate him for this. We hate him and are bitter at the fact that one of our own, someone destined to wallow in middle class mediocrity, has suddenly achieved so much that he doesn't (in our minds) deserve. We seethe at the realisation that other people might think he's better than us, which we feel he isn't. We feel he doesn't deserve the fame, the celebrity status, the money and everything else his writing has got him. We resent it.
Snobbery
Forget of course that Chetan haters can't even produce the ordinary work they accuse him of creating. That isn't the point. The point is, no matter how un-literary like we are as a large population, we still expect greatness to be bestowed only on those who seem to deserve it. One could argue that this is snobbishness (see this post), which is debatable.
CB's work is mediocre. Mediocrity is mediocrity. This is non debatable. Also, it isn't snobbishness to find a piece of work mediocre and reject it for being so. But as to the question of holding the creators and their fans in contempt for patronising mediocrity, and denying them any form of attention, that's just wrong, and could well be snobbishness.
CB's work is mediocre. Mediocrity is mediocrity. This is non debatable. Also, it isn't snobbishness to find a piece of work mediocre and reject it for being so. But as to the question of holding the creators and their fans in contempt for patronising mediocrity, and denying them any form of attention, that's just wrong, and could well be snobbishness.
Displaced Anger
Or our anger at Chetan could be displaced anger at ourselves. We know that his work is mediocre. And none of us are reading his books anymore. But millions of Indians are. They love his books, and it's not Chetan's fault. It's his fans' fault for liking them. Some of them read his books because they don't know any better or they don't enjoy reading good Indian fiction or contemporary international literature, or even the classics. Some of these people consider Dan Brown and Sidney Sheldon great novelists. No wonder then that they worship Chetan Bhagat.
Is this Chetan's fault? Of course not. He didn't force all these millions of Indians to buy or read his books. He simply used his natural talent to write within his capacity, and the masses happened to love his work. Why blame Chetan for the reading habits of the masses? Our anger at Chetan Bhagat's success could actually be our displaced anger at the masses.
Dealing with it
If you're a CB lover, then you've probably not gained much from this post. But if you're a lover of good literature, and are amazed by the constant attention CB gets, my advice is to ignore it. That's right. We are an evolving society. Until we all evolve to a point we we appreciate good literature, we should realise that there will always be some people who will enjoy reading CB. What's more, no one's forcing you to read his books.
Like I said, don't begrudge CB for the doing what he loves. It's not his fault so many people enjoy his work. If you don't, just ignore it and concentrate on doing what you love, and hope that someday people will like your work as much. Do you see thousands of Americans getting together on Twitter to berate Dan Brown? No? Do you know why? Point taken, I hope.
Or you could exploit the system and write like CB i.e mediocre books written in a way that makes the average not-well-read-Indian love you.
As for making fun of him, I don't see anything wrong in the occasional quip at his expense. And I don't see why Chetan himself shouldn't be able to join in and laugh at himself, given the quality of his writing. People shouldn't take themselves or their work too seriously. Doing so only makes people hate you more.
What I don't get are the folks who waste their time twisting his tweets out of context to use as an excuse to be evil for no reason at all. A joke here or there is fine, but people who go out of their way to squeeze a rude joke or snide remark out of a celebrity's innocent tweet, when it's unwarranted, do themselves a disservice.
Comments are welcome as always.
