April 18 is just days away and Chetan Bhagat is a “nervous ball”. Reason? That’s the day his fourth novel 2 States: The Story of my Marriage hits the big screen, with Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt playing him and his wife Anusha (fictionalised, of course), directed by Abhishek Varman. A film tie-in edition of 2 States by Rupa Publications is also available for Rs 140.

How do you think the film has shaped up?

I think it’s shaped up very well, to the point that people have really liked the trailers and the hype is very high. Only eight days to go and I am extremely nervous. I think I’m so nervous because the expectations are very, very high now.

What was your involvement with the making of the film?

Not much. Only in the initial planning stages — who’ll be the director, who’ll be the producer — and now a little bit with the marketing. But basically they made the film and I think they have done a good job.

You have been posting the songs on Facebook and Twitter and the music [by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy] has created quite a buzz. Which one is your favourite?

You know, a love story needs to have good music and the songs are nicely done. Ultimately though, it’s the story, the music has to fit into the story, especially in a film like this where the story is so important to the film. Among the songs, I like Chaandaniya a lot.

This is the only film made from your books that retains the original title...

Yes. That’s a very interesting observation. Because I think this time Bollywood has realised the power of the book’s brand, you know. The book is very popular, so it just makes it easy. See, it’s a nice title anyway. Even if it is in English, everyone knows the word ‘states’ and then there’s the No. 2. So it’s very easy to understand, even for the non-English-speaking audiences.

And secondly I think they are realising the popularity of the book. It’s a long way for me, I mean to be put at the forefront of the film has been quite a journey, you know… at other times I have had issues with the filmmakers [he had a rather public disagreement with the makers of 3 Idiots in 2009] but today the film is called 2 States, that was a big thing. The draw of the film is the book.

Yes, everybody seems to have read the book. Even Alia Bhatt, when she came to the t2 office, said she had read 2 States long before there was any talk of a movie. Only Arjun Kapoor hasn’t read it!

[Laughs] Well, he was told not to. Sometimes the director feels the screenplay has everything that needs to be there and I think they don’t want to confuse the actor. For those who have read the book already, the director can’t do anything. But I told Arjun, ‘Now you can read the book’. In fact, I had told him to read it on the flight to Calcutta.

Apart from the humour and the romance, do you think the message that this book gives out is relevant in today’s India?

I think India goes through these schizophrenic phases. Whether it’s the economy, whether it’s our personal values, and freedoms… suddenly we’ll liberalise the economy, suddenly we’ll turn socialist, we’ll talk of liberating women and suddenly we’ll behave regressive. India is in a transition phase. This community differences and people not wanting to marry their children off into another community is a very big issue still.

I remember when I was writing this book, my wife said, ‘Why are you writing it? It’s not such a big deal anymore. Ek Duuje Ke Liye came 25 years ago.’ But it is a big deal. And sometimes it can take very ugly turns.

Kids today want to fall in love and marry but they also want to take their parents along. In the West, they just fall in love and tell their parents, ‘Okay, I am getting married.’ Parents have to accept. Here it’s not only the blessings, they need the parents’ acceptance.

There’s a line in the book where Krish says, ‘I don’t want you to just tolerate me, I want you to accept me.’ And that is a harder ask. Any two families when they come together because of a marriage, there is a lot of adjustments and I think that’s what the film is about, really.

What about your wife? How is she feeling about someone portraying her on screen?

Well, she already had to accept the shock of the book but the visual medium, you know, is something else only! There’s another human being playing her who’s half her age and now my wife is quite senior in the bank... she was very nervous because the promos show a lot of romantic scenes… can cause an awkward moment or two, but I think she’s been a good sport about it. I have called the characters Krish and Ananya, I have fictionalised them, so technically they are fictional characters based on my life.

And your family… what’s their reaction to the film?

They’ve taken it all quite well. I think they are very happy. In the promos you see a lot more of the lead pair, if you remember the book, it’s actually a family story. After the first 20 per cent, there is an elder in every scene. And my mother-in-law, especially being Tamilian, she knows how good an actor Revathi is. She’s very thrilled about that. She’s more excited about that casting than Arjun-Alia, I think!

You had told us in an earlier chat that the wedding actually happened in Calcutta...

My in-laws are Tamilian and I did get married in the Tamilian style and I did have awkward moments during the wedding but the actual venue was Birla Mandapam in Calcutta and that’s because they moved there. They are still there, in Southern Avenue. In the book and movie, I kept it Chennai just to underline the contrast between the two cultures.

Do you have fond memories of your Calcutta wedding or scary ones?

I won’t say fond. ‘Fond’ is not the word [laughs]. But they are not scary either. I think it was interesting… let’s keep it at that [laughs some more]. I have kind of taken enough liberties with my in-laws so I will not make one more in-law joke and embarrass myself in Calcutta.

Speaking of marriages, your Shaadi.com ad was much talked about…

Yeah, I seem to be the marriage guy, for some reason! Well, my juniors in IIT Delhi started that company, so they came up to me and said they wanted to try me as brand ambassador. I said, ‘How come me? Why not cricketers or Bollywood stars? That’s what people do.’ They said, ‘Yaar, their marriages are not so stable.’ [Laughs] So I said okay. So, I am the guy who’s not going anywhere.

But you got married after falling in love and your characters seem to fall in love all the time, so how did you identify with an arranged marriage service?

Well, the tagline is, ‘Come, find love… arranged by Shaadi.com’. It’s not a completely arranged set-up. A lot of people are themselves putting their listings. It’s really love-arranged. Yes, parents also go there but it is an empowering tool, I checked all that. And Shaadi was very particular. Even in the ads, they show the couple choosing, whereas in the ads of some of their competitors, they show families worried... father is worried and mother is worried and then they find a match. But Shaadi was very clear that they want to position themselves as something that couples do themselves. I liked that and that’s why I did it.

Moving on to something else that you are also tweeting about these days, the ongoing national elections. Do you think the youth of India are involved enough?

When is voting in Calcutta? [May 12, we say] Wow, you guys have to really wait! The good thing is, you will know the results very soon [counting is on May 16].

I am a nervous ball right now and I didn’t even make this movie! But just because of the expectations of my readers I am a nervous wreck. So I have a newfound respect for politicians, who deal with this uncertainty of whether they are winning or losing and they have to now wait up to 40 days after voting to know whether they have a career or not! It is the hardest thing. And I can’t even handle a release!

Coming to the youth, I think their involvement is a lot more than last time. There was Twitter, there was Facebook but their reach was much less. My own follower count is 100 times more than what it was at that time. And Facebook has reached 100 million active users in India today.

I remember there were leaders saying that social media doesn’t matter but it does matter, it’s a very big segment and it’s growing so much. The youth’s involvement in politics is not as much as we would like it to be but it’s there. The rise of AAP… there are some things that wouldn’t have happened without the involvement of the youth. Are they getting involved in the right way or the wrong way that we’ll see… the kind of government we manage to create for ourselves.

Are you writing anything now?

Ya, I am writing a new book. I’ve just taken a break, I think because of the release I am not able to concentrate, but I am writing to have a book out in Diwali. And another thing that’ll come out is a movie called Kick, in July. I have written the screenplay for that. The writing is done, it is an adaptation of a Telugu movie.

Anything that you’ve read or watched recently that you’d like to tell your readers about?

I really liked the movie Queen. The movie was good, of course, but it’s a very important film for female empowerment and the fact that it was successful tells a lot. I think it reveals that a lot of Indian women are trapped and they may not even be aware of it. They may not be oppressed, they may not be getting beaten up or molested but at a very subliminal level, they are treated as a little inferior or their own individuality is not brought out. And that thing was shown very well in that movie. And I think it’s something we need to think about.

Any closing thoughts?

I think today because of higher migration, a lot of children are going outside their hometowns to study and work. The volume of people doing that is very high, compared to earlier and they will go and meet other people. This generation doesn’t care as much about the community when it comes to falling in love. But the previous generation is a little bit trapped in dogma.

And now with technology, it has also become impossible to segregate communities. Earlier it was possible. There were no phones, you could tell your daughter, you stay home, you stay near us. It’s impossible now. The daughter can still be WhatsApping her boyfriend across the country. So I think the only solution is to have the older generation come on board with this new reality.

The book did that to an extent and I am hoping that the film hits that point home. I mean it’s an entertaining film, it’s a love story, beautiful clothes, beautiful everything, but I think ultimately at the core the film needs to do that. That’ll be the ultimate success.

Samhita Chakraborty

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