Creativity and following your passions have never held more opportunity than they do now. A few years ago it was unimaginable to earn a significant amount of money from a hobby. But today one has a vast opportunities to turn their hobby into profession.

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Biography of Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat (born 22 April 1974) is an Indian author, columnist and youtuber. He was included in Time magazine's list of World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010.

Chetan Bhagat was born in a traditional punjabi family. His father served as a lieutenant colonel in the Indian Army and his mother worked as a scientist in Indian Agricultural Research Institute New Delhi.

Bhagat graduated with a B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering. Bhagat then went on to do an master's of business administration degree in Marketing. In June 2018, IIMA awarded him the "Young Alumni Achiever's Awards 2018" in the Art & Entertainment category.

He was also a keen student of English literature and began writing during his high-school years. His love for writing began when he was in fifth standard. His school had started a literary magazine of their own, and Chetan was one of the students who were pushed to write for the magazine. Chetan wrote a joke for the magazine. When the joke was published, seeing his name in print on a magazine gave him intense pleasure. He thus ended up writing more in the coming years.

Chetan Bhagat moved to Hong Kong and worked as an investment banker in firms such as ‘Goldman Sachs’ and ‘Deutsche Bank. He was highly inspired to become a writer in his younger years and becoming a full-time writer was still a dream for him, as he was from a middle-class family.

Chetan Bhagat's journey of choosing hobby as his profession

He stayed back in Hong Kong and earned a job at ‘Goldman Sachs,’ one of the biggest investment banks in the world. However, he never quite liked his job there. Most of his hatred toward his job was due to his growing interest in writing and the fact that he did not like his boss there. However, he did not quit and continued to work at the bank, as he had no other lucrative opportunity.

Apart from working, he continued to write what later came to be known as his first novel. He wrote for many years before he came up with a workable draft of ‘Five Point Someone.’ Meanwhile, he worked at ‘Goldman Sachs’ for many years and then finally quit his job to move on to a better job.

Chetan Bhagat joined ‘Deutsche Bank’ in the mid-2000s and earned the position of the vice-president in the bank by 2006. By then, he had already become a bestselling author in India. Despite this, he was not making enough money to rely on full-time writing. In March 2008, he moved back to India after working in Hong Kong for 10 years. Within a few months, he was making a lot of money through his novels. He thus decided to quit his investment-banking job.

However, he maintained a low profile at his workplace and did not tell any of his colleagues that he had become a somewhat successful author.

While Chetan Bhagat was working at ‘Goldman Sachs’ in Hong Kong, he had begun working on his debut novel, ‘Five Point Someone.’ He wrote during office hours and kept rewriting and polishing the draft for years. He wrote about 15 drafts of the novel and sent the final manuscript to many publishers. However, he was rejected by most of them. Eventually, ‘Rupa & Co.,’ a publishing house in Old Delhi, accepted his manuscript and asked him to rework on a few things.

The novel was eventually published in 2004 and received instant success. It narrated the story of three engineering students, struggling in their professional and personal lives. The novel sold more than a million copies worldwide. The 2009-released Hindi film ‘3 Idiots’ was loosely based on the novel and went on to become one of the most successful Hindi films of all time.

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Preview audio:

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Biography of Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat (born 22 April 1974) is an Indian author, columnist and youtuber. He was included in Time magazine's list of World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010.