The author of many best-selling books in India, Chetan Bhagat took to Twitter yesterday to express his joy at Delhi University’s decision to include Bhagat’s first book ‘Five Point Someone’ in its English Literature Popular Fiction elective. Obviously Bhagat, who has a rabid and loyal fanbase among certain sections of society, knew that this decision is likely to invite the wrath of those who have an acquired taste in literature.
Five Point Someone is going to a part of ‘Popular Fiction’ part of the syllabus from the next session beginning this July, among other books like Little Women (Louisa M Alcott), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling) and Murder of Orient Express (Agatha Christie).
Good literature, that is. After some major trolling by former and upcoming DU students, and everyone else in between, Chetan responded by calling haters, ‘elitists’. Pretty obviously, that did not scare anyone into silence so he tweeted again and again, dissing everyone who had the audacity to diss him. The result? A whole lot of more trolling, because Twitter.
Am honoured DU added my books to their course. Literature is about being open minded, reading the classics as well as the contemporary.
— Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) April 23, 2017
Elitistaan theories trying to diss me and literary value of my books have failed miserably with DU adding my books to their course. Sorry.
— Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) April 23, 2017
To me good literature is writing that actually touches people, whether in the past or now. It isn’t something an elitist club decides.
— Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) April 23, 2017
@chetan_bhagat sex education ke lye add kiya hoga.
— singh param (@SinghParam35) April 23, 2017
@chetan_bhagat https://t.co/xsvFX3fKMk
— Aviraa (@AimlessAvian) April 23, 2017
@chetan_bhagat Thanks DU…I could have suffered a stroke if hadn’t been graduated in 2016
— Utsav Jain (@utsavPjain) April 23, 2017
@chetan_bhagat They added your books in the course just to prove that, sometimes in life shit happens.
— Winter Is Coming (@desispiderbhai) April 23, 2017
@chetan_bhagat Guide to what not to write how not to write
— midhat kidwai (@midhatkidwai) April 23, 2017
Almost everybody was blazed and stupefied with the decision to add Chetan Bhagat’s name in a curriculum that teaches Shakespeare, TS Eliot and Tagore. To express their disbelief, the staggered netizens took to Twitter. An angry Chetan Bhagat tried to save his sailing boat by calling out ‘elitist’, and ‘fake’ Indians, and he invited, even more, wrath from the Twitterati:
Gussa thook de bhai…apni kitaab par https://t.co/ch0Qwr79Bc
— Rofl Gandhi (@RoflGandhi_) April 25, 2017
@chetan_bhagat and now there will be a decline in people taking admission in DU
— gareeb (@Teetotroller_) April 25, 2017
@chetan_bhagat Sir aapki kitab sach me wahiyaat hai..Mai to elitist bhi nhi hu aur mujhe apna kala rang Krishn saa Shyam hi lagta hai.
— रश्मिरथी (@termi2881) April 25, 2017
@chetan_bhagat @Oinkoo someday mastram will replace your books too.
— CymbidiumNamo (@CymbidiumFool) April 25, 2017
@chetan_bhagat chota pappu why so angry
— RêßêL (@SpikeLevi) April 25, 2017
And the best one so far…
@chetan_bhagat Sympathy with the students
— SAQUIB (@saquib_saq) April 25, 2017
Guess, no amount of critical theory and literature can guarantee sane decisions?
