Given that Indian authors have won a slew of Booker prizes and other awards during the past few years, it may come as a surprise that India's best-selling English-language novelist is largely unknown outside his home country. Chetan Bhagat's books have not won any international literary awards, sell primarily in India and have rarely been lauded by critics.
"I started writing as a hobby, because I was bored in my job," said banker-turned-writer Bhagat. "It was intended to be a hobby and I never thought it would become a full-time career."
The first few years of Bhagat's working life may sound familiar. He started his career with Peregrine in Hong Kong, then when it went bust he joined Goldman Sachs, where he stayed for six years. A short stint at Credit Suisse followed and then he spent four years with Deutsche Bank. Bhagat has worked across Hong Kong, Singapore and Mumbai.
He was working with Deutsche Bank in its distressed assets division in Mumbai when he decided to leave the world of banking in 2009 and says he "hopes never to have to go back". His wife, who was a business-school classmate, works at UBS and they have twin sons.
Bhagat agrees that having a wife in investment banking made him more secure about leaving his own steady, banking job. But he also highlights that Indian society is quite traditional and men are still expected to be the primary providers, which made his decision that much more difficult.
"I had to make a decision - I was doing two jobs, banking and writing, my wife had her job, and parenting was becoming difficult," he said.
Bhagat's first book, "Five Point Someone - What Not to Do at IIT", was inspired by his own life.
"I had to start somewhere with my first book and my own experience at college seemed like a good place," he explains. The book has a large following, including among a number of graduates from the Indian Institutes of Technology, who say Bhagat has successfully captured the spirit of India's prestigious engineering colleges.
Bhagat followed Five Point Someone the very next year with "One Night at the Call Centre", a book about outsourcing, which is another hot topic in India. Quickly on its heels came "The Three Mistakes of My Life". His fourth book, "2 States - The Story of My Marriage", which is also auto-biographical, was released late last year.
"Initially it was sheer coincidence that my titles had a number in them but it's now become deliberate and my fans want to know what number I will use next," said Bhagat. "But I always ensure the number has high relevance to the story."
Bhagat's books have also been turned into Bollywood movies. He sold the movie rights for Five Point Someone soon after the book was launched. He also sold the rights for his second book and even wrote the screenplay for that book. The movie, titled "Hello", did not do well and Bhagat is candid that writing the screenplay while based in Hong Kong with a demanding banking job may not have been ideal.
The movie version of his first book was on ice until quite recently. Then a major Bollywood star, Aamir Khan, got involved with the project and the resulting movie, titled Three Idiots, opened to a blockbuster response. In London, Three Idiots did better business on its opening day than James Cameron's Avatar.
Bhagat's foray into writing was supported by local publishing house Rupa & Company. In 2004, Rupa not only saw the potential in Bhagat's first book, which had already been rejected by some publishers, but also realised that Bhagat's books would have a following among Indian youth if appropriately priced. Rupa took the gamble of pricing Five Point Someone at Rs95 ($2.06), far below the price at which most English novels in India sell. And the strategy paid off. Rupa continues to price Bhagat's books at the same price point seven years later.
But pricing is only one factor responsible for Bhagat's extraordinary success. He writes his books in the English that young Indians speak, which is increasingly interspersed with Hindi, leading some critics to pan his books for being too idiomatic. But, despite what the critics say, his audience is lapping it up and have bought millions of copies of his books.
But is it profitable?
I question how much money Bhagat can make at those price points and how his earnings as a writer compare with the stock options and bonuses he stood to earn as an investment banker. "The economics are still not very good, but I do make money because of the high volumes the books achieve," said Bhagat. He is also in demand for corporate events as a motivational speaker and has become something of a youth icon in India, among other things writing columns for newspapers on topics of current relevance.
"The challenge for me is how the brand 'Chetan Bhagat' will continue to grow," he said. "Popularity is currently very high for writers and I've enjoyed the benefits of that."
Bhagat added that he did not leave banking because he expected his earnings as an author to surpass what he could earn as a banker.
"Theoretically, bankers should find it easier to quit because they have achieved some financial security," he said. "But when you leave banking you have to leave your attachment for money and the fact that it is a primary motivator."
Money is an attachment that many bankers have been forced to live without since the financial crisis broke. Given the state of the industry, Bhagat is perhaps lucky that he had already embarked on a second career.
The story was first published in the March 2010 issue of FinanceAsia magazine.
