Jul 21, 2006 05:40 PM
2398 Views
Hi people.... I will make a confession about Indian writers. I think that although most of them have won some writing prize or other like Booker's, on a personal front, I never liked any book any time. I always found that most of the Indian writers always used to stress mostly on their grammar, diction and created a book for the selected intellectual rather than the masses. Finally, here comes a writer from the reputed IIT-IIM clan who decided to follow his heart and write a book for the youth.
One Night at the call centre (ONTC) is one excellent example of this. He did it initially with his first book dedicated on IIT where he spent significant part of his life. Now, again he tries to tell the youth about call-centres which is slowly becoming the youth destination as a work place.ONTC clearly establishes Chetan as one of best storytellers of the new genre.
The story starts with Chetan himself meeting a young lady in a train who tells him about certain call center incident only on the pretext that this would be his next book. The book starts with an excellent manner of Chetan facing serious criticism from the girl about his first book. Hmm, this was the first book where an author criticises about his works in his book itself. The story told by the girl revolves around characters like Shyam, a call centre agent and a tame team leader (who thinks himself as a big time loser) and his colleagues Varun (a.k.a. Vroom), Esha, Radhika, his girl friend Priyanka and an aged Military Uncle. Shyam suffers from the break-up of his affair from Priyanka apart from the threat of them facing an uncertain future at the call center. The night happenings include instances of the romance brewing between Shyam and Priyanka, her marriage talks, Esha & her modelling aspirations, Military Uncle's family problems, etc. I will not uncover more and ask you to really read the book.
Each character has a bemoaning story to say although other believe they are in the happiest moods. Their individual stories have been explained in an interesting manner in ways of flash-backs. The book has a natural flow and high sense of humour from Chetan. There are sudden twists in the book like bike and car heroics, rapid change of mind, and an unexpected climax. I presume Chetan wants this book to be taken by a Bollywood filmmaker. His first book has already been bought by a Mumbai-based film production company. The book has several instances resembling the Dil Chahta Hain/Rang De Basanti culture. Chetan gives an interesting portrayal of a call centre and its functioning. The book made me wonder whether the Americans are so dumb even to seek help on how to operate an oven or a dish washer or defrost a refrigerator.
Chetan tries to show the dark side behind the cozy looking call centers who every youth aspires to join immediately after 12th. He shows that despite the attractive fat salaries and cozy ambiences, call centers are a tough place to work in and to excel at it too. I some where dont understand how if computers in a office go down, these youngsters start bitching around, gossiping, going to a night club for a smoke during work hours, etc.
The book is pretty cheap at Rs. 95. However, cheapness comes at a price of bad editing and bad paper quality. You can finish it in around 5-6 hours reading at a stretch in ease. All Characters are different and will quickly link with you somewhere or the other. If you work in a call centre, then it is bound to resemble your work environment in a lot of respects.
The Bottom Line is that if you want to really have a sneak peek at this new generation, their jobs, attitudes, aspirations, values, dreams and the height till which they can go to realize them, do read "One Night at the Call Center" by Chetan Bhagat.
