Chetan Bhagat: No loser

Mumbai, July 1: Being a loser in IIT is not so bad if it leads to so many points later.

Chetan Bhagat, 30, an IIT Delhi graduate who is an investment bank credit analyst in Hong Kong, now has to his credit a novel called Five Point Someone — What not to do at IIT that came out a month ago, a film deal, and a sales figure of 15,000 copies in a month that could be a record for Indian publishing.

The book, a funny, dark autobiographical account of the savage campus with predators as professors at IIT Delhi as seen through the eyes of three 18-year-old underachieving mechanical engineering students — who manage to survive — is flying off the shelves at breakneck speed.

More than 15,000 have been sold in four weeks, where a 5,000-copy sale is thought good grade for an Indian novel in English. The novel is into its third edition, says the beaming author.

Kapish Mehta of Rupa & Co., Bhagat’s publisher from Delhi, corrects the figure: the book is into its fifth edition, he says. “It is an unprecedented number for any book in India. Anurag Mathur’s The Inscrutable Americans has been a steady bestseller and has sold around 2 lakh copies in 10 years, but its beginning was not comparable to this,” Mehta adds.

Magna, the bookstore in Mumbai where Bhagat is to be met, has run out of stock. Ditto at Strand, another bookshop in the city.

The popularity, which is threatening to assume cult status among young readers in the country — many of them know the horrors of an education system obsessed with marks — also has to do with the fact that the paperback is priced at Rs 95.

“If the book has sold so many copies in the first month, it is a very big achievement,” says Shobhaa De, a best-selling author and the consulting editor, fiction, Penguin India.

Then, the film. Bhagat has signed a deal with Ten Films for a “mainstream Hindi-English bilingual” movie. “I cannot disclose the amount,” says the boyish looking author, down for two days from Hong Kong to sign the deal, but says it is a “good deal”.

“Ritesh (Sinha), who is going to direct the film and has bought the rights of the novel, understands how much hard work went into it,” says Bhagat, as a very attractive young lawyer hovers over him. “She is here for the contract — the legal issues should be taken care of properly,” he says.

The film, says Sinha — who is shooting All Alone, a “cross-over” film with Manoj Bajpai — should be ready by 2005 to cash in on the popularity of the book. “We are referring to it as FPS (Five Point Someone). Maybe it will become a brand,” he says. Sinha will write the screenplay, but the cast is not yet in place.

The book begins with the disclaimer: “This is not a book to teach you how to get into IIT or even survive it. In fact, it describes how bad things can get if you don’t think straight.”

Five point something is what the three protagonists get on their GPA (grading) scale of 10, which places them in the lowest rung of IIT society. When they try to beat the system, the system beats them to pulp.

The grade becomes a “tattoo”, stamping their friendship, their future and their love lives — the last sometimes abortive — while as IITians they are pressured to do what is expected of them — conquer the world.

“I wrote the book because I was not happy just working. I faced several rejections — eight or nine,” Bhagat says. “But I wanted to come out with this book about the IIT system that is so rigorous that even the brightest cannot cope.”

“I didn’t want to write the intense fiction that Indian writers are expected sometimes to write. I wanted to write entertainingly, for young Indians,” he adds.

Bhagat, who was born and grew up in Delhi and studied mechanical engineering at IIT, says Hari in the book is a lot like him, including the fact that he is fat.

“Being overweight masks your intelligence and self-esteem,” says Bhagat, who in later life shed 10 kg. “And people tend to listen to good-looking people,” he adds.