I’m happy, says Chetan

Hopes were pinned on it to break Bollywood’s dark spell. And now that Aamir Khan’s 3 Idiots has done that, one person who can’t stop smiling is Chetan Bhagat — the author of Five Point Someone, the book on which the film is based.

Hopes were pinned on it to break Bollywood’s dark spell. And now that Aamir Khan’s 3 Idiots has done that, one person who can’t stop smiling is Chetan Bhagat — the author of Five Point Someone, the book on which the film is based.

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“The film is unbelievable. It is so similar to my book., including the dialogues. The best was ‘I asked the professor for the test papers and he looked at me as if I had asked him for both his kidneys,’” says Bhagat, who had borrowed an IIT-Delhi sweatshirt from a junior to wear to the premiere.

Bhagat admits that he was a bit apprehensive before watching the film. “I had given them the freedom to make changes. But there were all these stories that the book had changed too much. However, when I saw the film, it was a befitting tribute to the book. At the premiere Raju (Rajkumar Hirani) asked me, ‘Are you happy?’”

He further says that watching the film was like “seeing my daughter as a bride”. “It was a story that no one wanted to publish. It’s such a wonderful feeling seeing it being made into such a nice film.”