Ashneer Grover says ‘Chetan Bhagat apni vellapanti justify kar raha hai’, believes writing books isn’t a proper profession

Ashneer Grover said that having degrees from institutions such as IIT and IIM isn't what it is cracked up to be.

New Delhi | January 6, 2023 01:36 PM IST

3 min read

Ashneer Grover recently released his first book, Doglapan.

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Former Shark Tank India personality Ashneer Grover said that he wrote his recently released book, Doglapan, as a lark, and that it took longer to release the book than to actually write it. At a recent talk at a university, Ashneer said that writing books is what people like Chetan Bhagat and Ankur Warikoo do to justify their free time.

Of course, he said it in trademark Ashneer fashion. Asked how he stumbled into this ‘line’ of work, Ashneer said, “Logon ko lagta hai book likhna ek line hai. Bhat woh Chetan Bhagat aur Ankur Warikoo apni vellapanti justify kar rahe hain (Writing books isn’t a profession, it’s how Chetan Bhagat and Ankur Warikoo pretend to not be completely aimless).” Chetan is a former IIT and IIM graduate who became a bestselling author. Warikoo is an entrepreneur who creates instructional content on the internet. Ashneer himself is an IIT graduate.

Also read | Ashneer Grover says he won’t be watching Shark Tank India 2, has unfollowed all the ‘sharks’: ‘Rs 10,000 crore ka dhanda bana ke de diya Sony ko’

In the same chat, Ashneer spoke about how unimportant having degrees from IITs or IIMs is if you want to actually achieve something in life. “Ek baat bata deta hoon, bade saare IIT IIM waale takrenge tumhe life mein, aur hamesha unke chip on the shoulder rahega. Aur woh isliye hain kyunki jab aathwi ya ninth class mein sabne taiyyari shuru ki, woh tumhare saath they. Phir kissi ka IIT mein hogaya, kissi ka IIM mein hogaya, ab usse lagta hai usne phod diya. Aisa kuch nahi hota. IIT IIM mein bhi 80% log float karte hain, 20% log phod ke jaate hain. Tum yeh socho, jo IIT gaya aur usne bhi nahi phoda, uski kya haalat hogi? Andar se toh usko khoklapan lagega na (You will meet many IIT or IIM graduates in your life, and they will always have a chip on their shoulder, because they were once like you. But even at such institutions, there’s always a difference between those who float, and those who actually do something. Imagine the kind of person who went to IIT and still didn’t do anything with it, they must feel empty inside).”

Ashneer said that at the end of the day, all that matters is the work that one does, and not on the degree that one has. He said that degrees are a pathway to earning money, and something that parents pay for their children to get because they want ‘insurance’. He said that all the information that anybody could never need to succeed is available for free online.

After becoming a household name thanks to the successful first season of Shark Tank India, Ashneer didn’t return for the recently released second season. He didn’t specify why, but in a podcast recently, he said that he ‘dominated’ season one. A couple of his fellow ‘sharks’, such as Anupam Mittal and Namita Thapar, appeared to take veiled digs at him when they said in a recent interview that season two will not have any ‘toxicity’ that people had begun to associate with the show after season one.

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