I was nervous that it could be career-threatening: Writer Chetan Bhagat

Bengaluru: Many in the packed hall were waiting to catch a glimpse of author Chetan Bhagat, whose works, Five Point Someone, The 3 Mistakes of My Life and Half Girlfriend, have remained best-selling hits despite being quite a hit. Criticism.
In fact, at the Bengaluru launch of his latest book, 11 Rules for Life: Secrets to Level Up (HarperCollins India; Rs 250), a young boy came from Kalaburagi to meet his ‘favourite’ author, whom he compared to the world From the best writer of. -Selling author James Clear. Bhagat, looking embarrassed, replied, “It’s not a fair comparison because Cleary’s Atomic Habits is one of the most read non-fiction books in the world.”

Hopefully that praise will have taken away his worries about venturing into a style different from his usual one. The author admits that he was nervous about writing a self-help book like 11 Rules for Life. “I was extremely nervous about it because it could be career-threatening. Still, I went ahead with it for three reasons I believed in. Basically, I think there’s a lot of entertainment in it. But there is little guidance on how to live life. There are a lot of self-help readers in India whom I am serving. They are the ones who will pick it up,” says Bhagat, “Thirdly, my book is based in the Indian context with local Indian examples and characters.”

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The book, already in its third printing, can be found in the self-help section in bookstores, but Bhagat calls it ‘part-memoir, part-self-help, and part-fantasy.’

Despite the short attention span and reading span, Bhagat says he has studied his readers to know what will work. “I know my readers – they’re Insta reel watchers who never pick up a book. He is not a reader, but he is a ‘Chetan Bhagat Pathak’,” he quipped.

Bhagat admits the book would have had fewer takers, but it was a risk he was willing to take. “My conscience is happy because I have reached a level where performance matters to me. The obvious way out was to write another novel, but that would have left me feeling empty because that’s all I wanted to do right now,” he concludes.