"Don't try to preach": R Madhavan – Chetan Bhagat's war of words gets ugly

R Madhavan and Chetan Bhagat recently had a showdown on social media. The duo, who has worked together in Netflix's Decoupled, were seen taking potshots at each other. And towards the end, it did get a bit ugly. Whether this was a part of a promotional antic for the show or was it all real remains to be seen.

How did it all begin?

It all started when Netflix asked, "Let's settle this. Books > Movies or Movies > Books?" To this, Chetan Bhagat said, "My books, and the movies based on them." To this, Madhavan wrote, "Hey Chetan...My bias is movies > books." And soon, the war of words began.

Chetan Bhagat soon asked, "Have you ever heard anyone ever say the movie is better than the book?" And pat came Madhavan's reply, "YES! 3 Idiots." It didn't too long for things to escalate from here. "You're flaunting 3 Idiots to ME? Don't try to preach to the choir, maybe you should go actually read my books," wrote Bhagat.

Not ready to take it lying down, Madhavan wrote, "If you love books so much, why are you in my new show? Decoupled streaming only on Netflix." Bhagat wasn't ready to let this argument pass off so easily. He further took a dig and said, "HAHAHAHAHA, what an unsubtle plug, maybe it's just me, I prefer a Pulitzer over a pan masala branded award show."

The fight goes on

"Well I prefer the 300 Crore Club over Bestseller," was Madhavan's comeback. "Well I prefer to be known as Chetan Bhagat over being known as Farhan from that one movie," Bhagat wrote. "I'm not known just as Farhan. I'm also known as Manu from Tanu Weds Manu, Kartikh from Alaipayuthey, and my favourite, Maddy kyunki mein rehta hoon sab ke dil mein," asserted Madhavan.

Closing the argument, Bhagat finally asked, "WOW, if this was your writing test, I'd say you passed. But honestly what did you think about my Netflix debut?" And Madhavan only had good things to say. "I would say just like your books, you are also better on the big screen! Hahahahaha.. actually you were Brilliant bro."