Chetan Bhagat is an Indian celebrity who is known primarily for authoring many famous books like A Night at the Call Center, Three Mistakes of My Life, 2 States and etc. He is also known for his stint in reality shows like Nach Baliye season 7.

Early Life and Family

Chetan was born in 1974 in Narayana Vihar in Delhi. His family used to live in a MIG flat in the H block. His father was a lieutenant in the Army and his mother was a government employee. He also has an elder brother.

Chetan Bhagat’s Net Worth

Bhagat over the years has earned through multiple sources of income mainly from his book sales, by being a judge on dance shows, brand deals, from giving motivational speeches, and from Youtubing also. It is widely rumored that he has made nearly 80 crores from the sales of 20 million copies of his books. Apart from book sales, he has also earned significantly from the movie adaptation rights of his books.

A stint as a Judge of Dance Shows other TV presence

Bhagat was paid a hefty amount in crores to be the judge on Nach Baliye Season 7. He also starred in a Netflix series titled Decoupled. He was reportedly paid Rs 5 crores for the series.

Chetan Bhagat Real Estate Investments

Bhagat has invested in posh properties in Bombay and Delhi. His apartment in Delhi’s Westend cost nearly Rs 12 crores. His Mumbai apartment cost Rs 6 crores when he bought it in 2011.

Motivational Speeches and Youtubing

Being a famous author and celebrity has its many perks and one of them is to be called for delivering motivational speeches. Chetan Bhagat throughout his career, has given more than 100 motivational speeches. Data from the Internet suggests that popular figures similar to the stature of Chetan Bhagat usually charge Rs 8 lakhs per outing. In the last two years, Bhagat has started coming on YouTube also through his official channel. Initially, his YouTube videos got plenty of traction but the flame has died down in the last few months.

After considering Chetan Bhagat’s book sales, his stint as a judge, and royalties from the movie adaptation, one can easily say that Chetan Bhagat’s net worth is well over Rs 150 crores.

Chetan Bhagat Education

Being a son of the Army Father, Bhagat did his schooling in the Army Public School from 1978 to 1991. Bhagat himself said that he was not a bright student at all during his schooling. He also opines that the children in that school belonged to very modest families of Army Officers and civilians. The notable thing about his schooling days was the big campus. Bhagat was a very underconfident student during his school time as he was not into sports like the other kids. However, he used to have a lot of fun like going into the jungle which was in the vicinity of their school. In a video, he reveals about watching 18+ movies with his friends during his school time.

Bhagat was good at studies in his school time but he wasn’t great. He used to come in the top 10 students of his section. He had a lot of curiosity for everything, especially for Chemistry. In 10th Standard, he got 76% marks.

A couple of his friends were preparing for IIT. The brother of one of them was studying in IIT Delhi at that time and Bhagat went to meet him once with his friend. The campus of IIT Delhi fueled Chetan Bhagat to prepare. He used to study for 3 – 4 hours a study for IIT entrance to prepare for the IIT exam. He got AIR 326 at the age of 17.

Bhagat then decided to prank her mother by saying that he didn’t make it to the IIT. To his surprise, his mother didn’t show any sad emotion as he expected and instead enquired him whether he had filled out the admission form for other colleges. When Bhagat eventually revealed the truth, his mother didn’t believe him and told him to not make jokes. Chetan’s friend then convinced her mother that Bhagat had indeed made it into the IIT.

Chetan opines that his success in getting into the IIT brought a lot of limelight from his relatives, neighborhood, and also from the opposite gender which was never the case before. But the success also changed his perspective about himself and Chetan started to view himself as the opposite of what he used to think in his school days which was an underconfident boy, who is not sporty and doesn’t make girlfriends.

When Bhagat expressed his desire to opt for computer engineering, he was told that his rank of 326 was not good enough for it. He was advised to go for IIT Kharagpur if he wanted the Computer Science branch. His friends and relatives suggested that mechanical engineering is an evergreen branch and therefore, Bhagat filled out Mechanical Engineering as his choice of study at IIT Delhi.

Ragging was a common practice back in those days and Chetan Bhagat faced it too. In his first lecture on IIT, Chetan found it hard what the teacher was explaining and believed that he had a big mistake by laboring for two years to reach IIT. After witnessing the first day at IIT, Bhagat felt that JEE preparation was much easier than the classes he endured on the 1st day of IIT.

Somehow Bhagat managed to complete his IIT. However, upon completion, he realized that getting an MBA would guarantee an easy job and future stability therefore, he studied hard for IIM Ahmedabad and got selected in 1995. He passed out in 1997 in Marketing.