Thinking Activity

Thinking Activity: Revolution 2020

Hello everyone, i am Nidhi Dave a student of the department of English, MKBU. This blog is response of my Thinking Activity given by professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir. In this blog I'm going to discuss about the Some questions of the novel Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat. 

Revolution 2020:

Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition (2011) is a story of success and failure of three youngsters - Gopal Mishra, Raghav Kashyap and Aarti Pradhan who live in a small and traditional town called Varanasi. The subtitle of the novel runs as Love, Corruption, Ambition and each word in the subtitle sticks to the particular character. Aarti is a sensitive girl and very much cared about her love. When she comes to know that Raghav has no time to spare with her, she comes to Gopal who happens to be her childhood friend. Gopal Mishra indulges in corruption as he joins his hands with MLA Shuklaji. Though he fails to be an engineer, he becomes the owner of engineering institute. Raghav Kashyap is a brilliant boy who succeeds in entrance examination and secures a degree in engineering. However, he leaves the job offered by Infosys and starts to work as journalist to eradicate corruption in the society.

About the Author: Chetan Bhagat:

Chetan Bhagat is the author of five blockbuster novels – Five Point Someone (2004), One Night @ the Call Center (2005), The 3 Mistakes of my life (2008), 2 States (2009) and Revolution 2020 (2011).

Chetan’s books have remained bestsellers since their release, and have been adapted into major Bollywood films. The New York Times called him the ‘the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history’. Time magazine named him in the “100 Most Influential People in the world” and Fast Company, USA listed him as one of the world’s “100 most creative people in business”.

Chetan writes columns for leading English and Hindi newspapers, focusing on youth and national development issues. Thus, almost all of his novels are overloaded with social realism and the youth shading light on their ambitions, struggle, love affairs, marriage institutes, corrupt politics and media culture. 

1, Social realism in the novel:

Realism, broadly speaking, is the faithful or truthful representation of the events in a matter of fact way avoiding any kind of embellishment or glorification. In literature, the term ‘realism’ is associated with a number of prefixes that varies its trends of presentation. There may be philosophical realism, magic realism, surrealism, hallucinatory realism, social realism and many more. Social realism is a literary technique that presents a true picture of society. It also mirrors the life as it is and offers social commentary. The novelists who use the technique of social realism often present the social evils, social injustice and social issues that affect the life of middle class particularly. 

Chetan Bhagat is the well known author of sixnovels and all these novels are about the youth, their aspirations and problems, their

struggle, success and failures. According to Chetan Bhagat, the young generation of India is on the verge of destruction. They are indulged in drinking, smoking, sex and illegal business. Gopal, the narrator-cum-protagonist of Bhagat’s fifth novel Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition symbolically stands for the young generation of India who are walking on the wrong path. Aarti, the only female character in the novel enjoys Gopal’s company for drinking and develops sexual relations with him though she loves Raghav. Thus, by introducing these two characters, Chetan Bhagat succeeds in presenting degradation of moral and ethical values in Indian society. Gopal, Aarti and Raghav are three young aspirants in the novel who aspire for being successful person in their life. Gopal, because of his father’s wish wants to be an engineer but couldn’t make it. Aarti wants to be an air-hostess but fails and Raghav has great ambition of eradicating corruption. These three characters have faced severe problems while achieving their target. Through these characters, the novelists tried to depict the problems of youth such as unemployability, poverty and failure and malpractices in the society, etc.

Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition (2011) is overloaded with the theme of social realism. It sheds light on social evils and unfair practices. The author has shown the social stratification through the central characters. The novel narrates the ambitions of youth, their struggle, the problem of unemployability, the scenario of private coaching classes and job fairs, etc. Through Gopal’s character, the author has succeeded to present two attitudes of the youth. In the beginning, Gopal says “Nothing will happen here. This is India. No revolution will take place in 2020 and no revolution would take place in 2120.” This is his negative attitude. However, at the end we learn some bits of positivity through his act of sending Aarti back to Raghav. Chetan Bhagat delivers the message- if we want to bring revolution, we have to contribute.

2, Significance of the title 'Revolution Twenty20': 

Title of the novel, ‘Revolution 2020’ itself suggests the revolution, which might have started in 2020. Bhagat’s views are similar to Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Dr Kalam used to say that India would become one of the developed nations by 2020. Unless and until corruption ends, no country can makes progress. Bhagat is agreed with Dr Kalam’s vision. The author in the novel has given minute details of corruption in Indian politics, administrative, and educational system. Corruption has burrowed Indian political, social, and educational system. Talking about corruption Chetan Bhagat says:

In India, one question is

constant: why isn’t corruption

going away? The question

baffles the educated middle

classes. Why is a reasonable,

universal and noble demand for

an honest society so difficult to

achieve in a democracy? 

And why is it that corrupt parties win election time and time again.

Revolution 2020 is bookended with a Prologue and an Epilogue in which Chetan Bhagat speaks with Gopal Mishra, "the young director of GangaTech College" -- a typical set-up for a Bhagat novel, framing the main story itself, Gopal's story. Sub-titled Love. Corruption. Ambition, it revolves around a trio of friends from Varanasi (formerly Benares): Gopal, Aarti, and Raghav, and the story gets going as they finish high school and Gopal and Raghav's futures are determined by how they did in the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) and the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE).

Much of Revolution 2020 is about the 'Great Indian Education Race', and Bhagat covers a lot of this ground fairly well: the importance of the test results, the cram-schools, and then also the competition among them as well as various colleges for students (with bargaining for discounts and ruthless competition). Education is big business in India, and a fast-growing one -- and this is something which Gopal is able to take advantage of when the original plan -- get a higher score and get into a prestigious engineering school -- falls short again.

The Indian way Bhagat describes -- of doing business, and most everything else -- is one of connections and bribes. Corruption is endemic. So also with the education system, especially the setting up of new colleges. And so, as the corrupt local Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Shukla-ji, who partners with Gopal explains to him:

If we had a straightforward and clean system, these professors would open their own colleges. Blue-chip companies and software firms could open colleges. The system is twisted, they don't want to touch it. That is where we come in.

Revolution 2020 does offer many interesting insights into fast-changing contemporary India, especially the educational and business systems. The portrayals of Kota-life or the building of a college from the ground up, in particular, are quite fascinating. Bhagat is on less sure ground with the relationship-aspects of the novel, his leads generally behaving more like petulant teens (especially in breaking off communication when often what they really should be doing is talking things out) than young adults. Gopal is also a somewhat problematic narrator in that he is so shallow -- and apparently completely oblivious to any and all ethical questions, as if he were able to just block them out. Ironically, Gopal is the perfect advertisement for a liberal arts education: he's obviously never had anything like that -- never engaged in even the most cursory way with literature or philosophy -- and, boy, could he have used a big dose of it.

       The love story (or stories) are also somewhat frustrating, Gopal's behavior towards Aarti rarely allowing him to appear to be worthy of her (while we see too little of Raghav to know if he is -- and given her complaints of how little attention he pays to her, there are obviously issues here too). Particularly frustrating, too, is the characters' avoidance of one another at various times: rather than communicate they ignore each other -- even when there are obviously things to discuss. Gopal's final act, determining the final outcome, and their futures, is also entirely staged -- not even a real confrontation, but just a tableau, a faked scene meant to mislead (which it does, just as intended); ridiculously, the characters can't just talk things out, and instead Gopal does something extremely hurtful. (Arguably he is doing a 'good thing' but, again, a proper liberal arts education -- or common sense and decency -- might have allowed him to do so in a less theatrical and brutal way.)

       If the final outcome is vaguely satisfying, with the three central characters on the 'right' path, Revolution 2020 still leaves a bit of a bad taste, specifically because Gopal seems to have so little moral understanding, of anything he has done. Bhagat's characters again show a shallowness that makes even the positive outcome feel almost like happenstance. Both the novel as a whole, and Gopal as a characer, feel teen-age, not adult: the worldview here is a simplistic young-teen one, as is the way relationships are handled and hurt dealt with, as are the grand gestures. The way the world works is presented in a reductionist almost black-and-white way, the characters -- and Bhagat -- refusing to deal with life's complexities in a meaningful (much less thoughtful) way -- life the way a young teen might see it.

       Revolution 2020 does offer enough to make for an engaging read -- though it is the technical aspects, about education, politics, and business (including, incidentally, Aarti's career struggles), that are far more successful than the relationship stories (much less the family ones: Baba, and the land-disputing relatives, serve their brief purposes, but are unceremoniously swept away when Bhagat doesn't have any roles left for them to fill). It makes for a decent (if in some ways annoying) YA novel -- but one wishes Bhagat had allowed his characters to show more growth and eventually some actual maturity.

3, Do you think that an opportunity of a good novel is wasted because the story is told from Gopal's perspective? Can it be better if narrated from Raghav or Aarti's perspective? How would it be better if it was narrated from Raghav or Aarti's perspective? 

The book revolves around three major characters Raghava, Gopal and Aarti. They are childhood friends and want to succeed in their life. However, the deep-rooted corruption turns on the ambition of one who wants to fight against this and another joins hand with the very corruption to make it a staircase to success. But the story loses the track when it just begins to make a progress and the narrative shifted to a classic Chetan Bhagat love story. Both boys Raghava and Gopal are friends and they love the same girl Aarti. As you could have expected it to be, yes, it is a classic deception by Chetan Bhagat who can turn any tragedy into a semi-thriller or a cheap love story which does not offer anything new to the readers rather than hopes and despair and continuous rounding up of this cycle. Revolution 2020 could well be his magnum opus but then, Chetana and the fans of Chetan certainly did not plan it this way! 

Yes, story is wasted from Gopals perspective, Gopal Mishra is a protagonist who you can easily root for, even as his ‘grey shades’ continue to darken as the book progresses. Despite being quite stereotypical, it’s probably this that holds the book together, as all the other characters are quite cardboard.

Yes, it can be good if story narrated by Raghav and Arti's perspective because Raghav Kashyap belonged to an upper-class family. His father was an IITian, and an engineer at BHEL. Raghav himself cracked JEE exam and graduated from BHU- IT. but then he followed his passion of being a social reformer and became a journalist. He became a fearless journalist who went against authority/ power which lead him to lose his job and so he began his private small printing press where he tried to bring the real face of authority and real news to society. In this run of following his passion, he didn't give time to Aarti which created distance in their relationship. He also went against his family for his passion. 

 Raghav expects to convey perfect world inside the general public through influencing the general public to free from tricks, misbehaviours and debasement. He is by all accounts the honest to goodness illustrative of Chetan Bhagat himself. The author seems to energize the more young innovation to ponder thought on country, defilement and mission. The message of the unpredictable is completely clear, that on the off chance that one needs to be a superb person, it isn't important to be an IITian or a scholastic topper. Goodness continually exists in people. In a genuine set up-forefront encounter, Chetan Bhagat goes about as a social portrayer or pundit, featuring the greater issues of the Indian coextensive society.  That's why story was totally change of Raghav and Arti's perspective .  

In the novel Revolution 2020 it is my favorite novel from my Graduation to still now. In my graduation i was read first time in Chetan Bhagat novel so at that time I did not understand the whole idea of that novel. I have read it as a Love story but in during the master I read it as my study novel. so I have totally changed my point of view on this novel.  

so, here I have also put my personal presentation of this novel that I have prepared in the Third year of my college.

Upoload ppt from NidhiDave30