Chetan Bhagat

Some Lesser Known Facts About Chetan Bhagat

• Does Chetan Bhagat smoke: No

• Chetan Bhagat began his career as an Investment Banker in a company named Goldman Sachs. Grabbing the job wasn’t an easy task for him as he had to give as many as 27 interviews as part of the selection process. He worked for almost a decade in the company’s Hong Kong office.

• While in Hong Kong, Bhagat felt that there was something missing in his life, and thus in order to fill this void, Bhagat started laying more focus on his hobby- writing.

• Every work of Chetan Bhagat has been a bestseller. Moreover, almost all of his books have been adopted into commercial Bollywood films. While ‘Hello’ and ‘3 Idiots’ were based on ‘One Night At The Call Centre’ and ‘Five Point Someone’ respectively, ‘Kai Po Che!’ and ‘2 States’ were inspired from ‘The Three Mistakes of My Life’ and’2 States (novel) respectively.

• He considers his book, 2 States, as a partial autobiography. In an interview, he revealed that the love story showcased in the book has been inspired by his real life as Bhagat is a Punjabi and his wife, Anusha, is from the southern part of the country, who fell in love with him during their IIM days.

• In 2008, The New York Times, a leading American daily, cited Bhagat as “the biggest-selling English-language novelist in India’s history”. Additionally, Bhagat was among Time magazine’s  World’s 100 Most Influential People in 2010.

• Also a prolific columnist, he has written numerous columns for English newspapers like The Times of India and Hindustan Times.

• He was one of the screenwriters of  Salman Khan starrer Kick (2014).