Sunil Sethi: Welcome to Twitter wars

The 3 Idiots issue could have been speedily resolved if the two parties had sat down over a cup of coffee with their lawyers

A text message from novelist Chetan Bhagat some days ago: “Please read my blog and then let’s talk...” I have been reading his blog which is composed of so much verbiage, self-flagellation and self-glorification in equal parts, that, quite frankly, there’s not much room left for talk. Like much of the book-reading, movie-going public, I too have watched the spectacle of the rousing spat between him and filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra and his team. But unlike, say, a thrilling book or film or cricket match, this wasn’t much of a cliff-hanger. No big bang ending here, just a few whimpers.

So what was the film-of-the-book fuss all about? Like so many battles in the entertainment business about cash and kudos. There was nothing to it that couldn’t have been speedily resolved if the two parties had sat down over a cup of coffee with their lawyers. Instead, they milked it with all their might, blowing up at pressers and nitpicking on TV shows for so long that the public could be forgiven for forgetting what exactly the fight was about except that there was one. Who in their right minds would undertake a page-by-page analysis of Five Point Someone (Bhagat’s novel) with a frame-by-frame scrutiny of 3 Idiots (Chopra’s movie) to work out how much of one is contained in the other? It could go on forever, like decoding the Indus Valley hieroglyphics or reclaiming Tibet from the Chinese.

Still, some things made the Bhagat-Chopra row enjoyably different. One is the way the participants marshalled the new media through websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter, updating each battle sequence by the second; also how they actively encouraged, indeed goaded, the growing garrisons addicted to the new interactive networking sites to participate in the battle. These can be an effective weapon to win friends, influence people and gain public attention. I asked the beauteous Priyanka Chopra, Bollywood’s Twitter queen, the other day if she was in the same league yet as Shashi Tharoor. “No, he has a fan following of five lakhs, mine hasn’t hit that figure yet,” she replied ruefully.

Chetan Bhagat worked the sites adroitly. Realising that it wouldn’t be easy to take on Bollywood’s big boys, with their armour of commercial success and star power, he tried to gain the high moral ground with his youthful readers. If you’ve sold your story cheap, and have no legal leg to stand on, why not make a bid for the popularity contest and sell more copies in the bargain?

And here’s the other delectable feature of the Bhagat-Chopra faceoff: the sheer contrast of their personalities. The cute boy next door, who got into IIT and IIM, then gave up a hot banking job to write bestselling fiction (but still runs round in jeans and T shirts) versus the movie mogul with a bagful of mega-hits and an atelier of screenwriters, directors and stars. Mind you, both are cool customers. I asked Chetan Bhagat during a recent interview if he was now laughing all the way to the bank. He gave a winning smile and said, “No, you could argue that I laughed my way out of the bank.”

A film called Hello based on another Chetan Bhagat novel was a big flop in 2008. He probably didn’t think 3 Idiots would raise the bar so high and realised he’d made an expensive mistake. But it was too late to argue that he didn’t know the difference between a rolling or sole credit or its wording. Chopra, on the other hand, has made an expensive (and expensively promoted) film, and is obliged to reward his own team rather than be called a cheat. He has pasted his contract with Bhagat on his website.

If it were a case of renegotiating terms, it could have been settled over coffee, but as a fight it wasn’t going anywhere except get a lot of Twitterers excited.