When he threw the ball back to her, he said, “Change your point shooter.”
Somehow he managed to put it across in correct English.
”What?” – She exclaimed and surveyed him top to bottom.
That was the moment he wished he had worn better clothes.
I salute that thought came from Chetan Bhagat, not because of any aesthetic excellence, but for a sharp shoot of thought in which a reader enjoys the same wave-length of a writer or even vice versa.
Chetan Bhagat is not one of my favourite Indo-Anglian writers. But I like him, and the writer in him who doesn’t claim anything. He knows he wouldn’t be strong enough to wrestle with the many stand outsize. There are umpteen writers in India who can draw and paint in warmer tones than Bhagat.
That makes me talks to him.
While talking to Karthik Kumar, at the Hindu Lit for Life in Chennai, Chetan Bhagat said, “I know that I’m not a good writer. I’m not in line with the many authors who fill your bookshelves. I do not want to be remembered for ever; I want to be forgotten!
That again makes me closer to him than any Titan who carries the false celestial sphere of languages and looks at all others scornfully. (Reminds me “A little disdain is not amiss; a little scorn is alluring” by William Congreve – The Way of the World)
Before the session started live, a video screen opened with a lady throwing several brickbats at the writer.
” I hate Chetan Bhagat. He’s trash. He’s not rich in words. He doesn’t know how to write in English.”
The concert hall of Lady Andal School was packed and thicker than the many sessions it had earlier. Not because of any box-office hits on the Three Idiots, Two States, Kai Poche. Not because of his latest book, The Half Girl-friend. It’s just Chetan Bhagat, who didn’t have anything to hide from us or claim over anything. It was a hearty talk. A talk from an ordinary human being who thinks he’s one among the millions who lives here.
my jump lines 