Abstract

The Other Side of IITs: A Few Aspects of Chetan Bhagat’s ‘Five Point Someone’

Dr P. Yellaiah

Volume: 15 Issue: 3 2025

Abstract:

Chetan bhagat’s Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT is a fictional creation, following his own experience of studentship at IIT, which reveals the pain of academic exclusion relating to the marks-based grading system, CGPA. He sincerely depicts the plight of three students through the characters, Hari Kumar, Ryan Oberoi, and Alok Gupta, who got low CGPA. This novel contains an informal style of storytelling, having tragedy, funny, and touching elements. The plot follows a few occasionally dark twists through the families of the protagonists, and most of the story takes place inside the IIT campus. Bhagat explores the issues and challenges of students in a standard institution such as this background. This novel reflects some aspects of exclusion on the campus of IIT. He unearthed the other side of IITs that emphasized indirectly about academic reforms in India. The story begins with the ragging menace at the IIT campus. The unfair part of IIT is disclosed by the author, that the institution suppresses talent, individual spirit, and extracts the best years of one’s life from the nation’s brightest minds. Therefore, this work of fiction follows the modern and postmodern trends of the novel. This novel depicts contemporary society and engages readers in a narrative which emphasizes the complexity of life in globalized India.

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References

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