Book Review – ‘Revolution 2020’ By Chetan Bhagat

Source - Amazon.in

‘One stupid exam, half a dozen mistakes in multiple-choice problems changes your life forever.’                  

- Chetan Bhagat, Revolution 2020

Revolution 2020, authored by Chetan Bhagat, is a representation of everything the young generation goes through. Love, ambition, obsession, and friendship. This book became a favorite for the young generation as it addressed everything so smoothly and accurately. At one point or the other, one feels connected to either one of the characters.

About The Author

Source - Wikipedia

Chetan Bhagat is the author of six-bestselling novels – Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center, The 3 Mistakes of My Life, 2 States, One Indian Girl, and Half Girlfriend – which have sold millions of copies worldwide, making him cult famous.

By profession, he is an Indian author, columnist, and YouTuber. TIME Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Fast Company, USA listed him as one of the 100 most creative people in business globally. Five of his novels have been adapted into Bollywood movies.

Chetan Bhagat went to college at IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad and worked as an Investment Banker for a decade while knowing deep down that writing was his passion. His works are mostly focused on youth and its issues. Chetan Bhagat has always tried to give a voice to youngsters through his words; gaining him the popularity he has.

Introduction

This book revolves around a love triangle, corruption, and a self-discovery journey. Despite the conventional idea readers have for ‘love triangles’, this book addresses many more issues of society, through the love triangle, which merely adds drama to the whole plot.

The book talks about the exploitative nature of private coaching classes, and how the dreams of the young generation cost everything their parents earned in their times. It addresses the struggle of engineering students, their dream to crack competitive exams and return the fortune of the family that they spent on classes in the first place.

The second half of the book focuses on corruption, and how it is inseparable from the education system in India. It also talks about people who speak up against such corruption, and how they end up at the bottom of the vicious food chain of the economy.

In between all this, the author talks about friendship, love, and everything between that. Many controversial things about love and friendship are discussed in this book; how love is not always unconditional and how friendship is not always free of jealousy.

The Main Protagonist – Gopal

The story starts with the author having a conversation with the main protagonist of our story, Gopal. They encounter each other on a flight, going to the same destination. As the nature of any author is, the author was curious to know the story that carries Gopal till that moment.

Gopal narrates his story, the story that revolves around him, his best friend Raghav, and the love of his life Aarti. Gopal is someone who has seen the hardships of life. Coming from a middle-class family, his ambition was limited to just one dream, the dream of becoming rich. With that dream of his, he aspires to crack the AIEEE exams.

In contrast to this, Raghav comes from a well-off family and his ambition is to bring about a revolution in India with a fight against corruption. He is much smarter than Gopal and is described as much more handsome as well. Despite being his best friend, Gopal subtly admits that he feels jealous of him and that he has the liberty to dream beyond the common adversities.

Between all this, Gopal talks about the center of his happiness, Aarti, his childhood friend. Gopal describes Aarti with such passion and admiration, making it obvious that he is not over her. Gopal and Aarti always had a platonic relationship. In their teenage, Gopal did try to pursue this friendship beyond this point, but Aarti wasn’t ready for it.

Friendship, Love, Or Both?

If this love triangle was eliminated from the book, it can be said that the book would’ve been a plain read. This little situation is what injects drama into the plain and predictable story. The triangle is not limited merely to love between these three characters; it is also related to success that passes on from one to another.

It is evident that when one tends to be at the peak of their career, the other two aren’t; and this continues throughout the novel. This little play of success is what communicates the thought that love is not as simple and as unconditional as people think it to be.

Self-Discovery Or Validation

Coming to the end of the novel, we realize it is Gopal on the journey of self-discovery by trying to make every wrong he did right. But, as a reader, it seems to be more of a ‘seeking-validation’ case than ‘self-discovery’. Gopal is looking for someone else to tell him that he is a nice guy after fighting his demons.

While this can be termed as the beginning of his self-discovery journey, a sequel of this novel could’ve discussed this aspect better. Nonetheless, this novel seems to be complete on its own and also leaves the end of Gopal’s journey to the reader’s imagination.

Overall Review – 3.8/5

Written By – Simran Mahon