Book Review: Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat

Revolution 2020 is the latest offering by the celebrated Indian Author Chetan Bhagat. Bhagat has always been known for his connect with the Indian youth and his books are out and out best sellers despite protests from critics.

Revolution 2020 is no different. The book cover talks about "Love. Corruption. Ambition." and you are enthralled by what you see. The back cover reveals that the story is set in Varanasi, a city that is written more for its Ganges rather than the people. Yes, this approach pays off. For the first time you are going to be exposed to people from this city and youths at that.

Yet, Bhagat disappoints here. There is no insight in youths from Varanasi. Instead we are treated to his usual cocky protagonist (Gopal) who is greyer than before and a girl (Aarti) who is bold and free spirited for the protagonist as well as Varanasi. Be it Ahemdabad, Delhi, Chennai or Varanasi, Bhagats characters remain same. Yet, there is a third character (Raghav) a passion driven revolutionary. He is a character Bhagat has never written before and that could be the reason we see very less of him in the book.

And then there is IIT and AIEEE.

The story is simple about three friends from the small town of Varanasi. One of them is an intelligent student making it into IIT in his first attempt but wishes to bring about a revolution instead with his writing skills. The second is our protagonist coming from a poor family where his father is the sole bread winner who also harbours engineering dreams but fails in two attempts. The third is the probably the most half baked character written by Bhagat, the girl Aarti, harbouring a desire to become an air-hostess from a tender age of 10 she is the protagonist's bestfriend and love interest. She is confused and vague. You cannot connect with her at any point. Here, the author exhibits his lack of understanding of female emotions and keeps them stereotypically similar.

The story progresses to adult lives with both the men clashing over the corruption in the system and of course the girl. One chooses to blend with the system to succeed as the other vows to bring it down by hook or crook.

From here on the story is as predictable as Gujarat's weather.

In terms of writing, the book is engaging at some points yet randomly slags more than a few times.

It comes at a time when young Indians are looking forward to weed out corruption from the crux yet it chooses to be a love story rather than highlight the woes faced by nation. It could have been a lot more.

There is no doubt that every boy in the country reading Bhagat will enjoy it in bits and pieces. Ardent readers, not so much.

Quick Take: A story worthy of tired and tested Bollywood triangles. Cannot out do the humour of Two States.