Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition by Chetan Bhagat
Pages- 296
Publisher- Rupa
& co.
Date of
publication- 2011
Chetan Bhagat- He has stated that the novel is
based on the "uncontrolled corruption" in the Indian youth educational system, with
the choice of Varanasi as a setting emerging through "a special connection
to the city" following his visit. He further said "it is one of our
oldest cities, and people there now have modern aspirations. I thought the
contrast would be interesting. The city also has a lot of character. The
story’s narrator is Gopal.
Chetan Bhagat visits
GangaTech College in Varanasi to deliver a speech. There, he meets Gopal, the
26-year-old protagonist who has achieved great success in life surrounding
himself with lots of money and yet has an unhappy life .The same day, Gopal
invites Bhagat for a drink which Bhagat agrees. After an overdose of alcohol
Gopal is been admitted in the hospital and this is where he shares his own past
with Bhagat.
Revolution 2020 is the story of three childhood
friends: Gopal, Raghav, and Aarti. The story is setup in
the holy-city of Varanasi. Gopal and Raghav are schoolmates from the
childhood and share the same bench in school. Aarti is also from the same
class. Gopal loves Aarti from the school days. Gopal comes from a
filmy-Indian-middle-class background. Raghav is from an almost well to do
family, where as Aarti comes from a kind of bureaucratic and
political family. Three of them have their own ambitions in
life. Gopal wants to be a rich man, Raghav wants to change the world, Aarti
wants to become an air hostess.
After the failure in getting through JEE and AIEEE
exams, Gopal is forced by his father to repeat the exams next year. But Raghav
secures a good rank and joins the top college in Varanasi. Aarti falls in love
with Raghav.
What happens when Gopal returns to Varanasi after
his one year stint at cracking the entrance exams is the main part of the
story. Apart from losing his love, he couldn’t find a seat in engineering
to fulfil his father’s dream.
Then Gopal proceeds to set up his own business, GangaTech college in Varanasi
with the help of an MLA Shukla using his Power .He pay bribes to everyone
he comes across to keep the Engineering college running, from government
officials to the faculties in the college. He finally achieved his dream to
becoming rich.
On the other side, Raghav
succeeds in his exams becomes a journalist and starts his own newsletter called
Revolution 2020 in which he publishes an article about the Ganga Treatment Scam
and proves that Shukla is a corrupt man. Aarti is caught between the loves
of both her friends, switches from one to another due to the twists that arises
in the story. The three friends then resolve the ending where in Aarti gets
married to Raghav whereas Gopal paves way for their happy future life.
How Gopal chooses corruption as an aid to become
a successful person while Raghav tries to change the world with his
revolutionary ideals is what the middle pages of the book are all about.
Few of my favourite sentences:
>I am reproducing few of the sentences I have
underlined while I was reading the book.
>People come to my city to feel the presence of
god, but I could feel her presence everywhere.
>Ease of cremation is one solid advantage of
being in Varanasi. The death industry drives the city.
>Stupid people go to colleges. Smart people own
them.
>We don’t fix cases; we fix the people in the
cases.
What I didn’t like?
>The story becomes too predictive in
few places and you might as well skip through paragraphs at times.
It’s a
really good read if someone like reading light fiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment