ONE NIGHT @ THE CALL CENTER OF CHETAN BHAGAT: A REVIEW BY SANKALP

Name of the Book : One Night @ Call Center

Name of the Author: Chetan Bhagat Publisher: Rupa Publications (India) Pvt. Ltd Bind: Soft Pages:263

Price: Rs. 95/-

The Author:
Chetan Bhagat (born on 22 April 1974) is an Indian author, columnist, and speaker. He has authored four bestseller novels - Five Point Someone (2004), One Night @ the Call Center (2005), The 3 Mistakes of My Life (2008) and 2 States (2009) - two have inspired Bollywood films including 3 Idiots. In 2008, The New York Times called Bhagat "the biggest selling English language novelist in Indias history". Bhagat, a graduate of IIT, Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, is seen more as a youth icon than as an author. He quit his international investment banking career in 2009, to devote his entire time to writing, working for change in the country. Bhagat lives in Mumbai with his wife Anusha Bhagat and his twin sons, Shyam and Ishaan.

Theme:
The ultimate attraction of the book lies in the life improvising tips it offers to the readers through the pages. Everyone aspires to lead a happy and prosperous life. But as we all know, where there is rose, there will be thorns. Life is not always smooth; we all face many ups and downs, tensions and tribulations in life. These challenges and hardships are but for our inherent imperfections. At these crucial junctures we need to listen to our Inner Calls which can really be handy and helpful. No one in this gross world is perfect except God, but He is too selfish to allow anyone to be perfect. Man may grieve this lacuna in him, but it has been a blessing in disguise. For, if we all were made perfect, then we all would have become God, the Almighty. Nobody would have cared for anything, even for God. And the whole world would have become a hell as everyone were filled with selfishness, jealousy, egotism and arrogance. Everyone would be vying for supremacy. But thanks to God! He kept us imperfect so that we would at least have faith in Him, pray Him for his blessings to improve our character and conduct to overcome our impurities. So to improve ourselves, we have been given some imperfectness. Moreover, as we are aware of our and limitations, we respect each other and have belief in us. Our imperfections are but the ways to smoothen life in this world. Some common imperfections in all of us are (i) we are fearful; (ii) we get angry with others; and last but not the least (iii) we do not like criticism against us. But we need to listen to the calls of our inner voice to identify and rectify these impurities whenever they arise to harm us. By creaming out and eliminating these common imperfections we can standardize our life a lot.

Summary:
The story revolves around six people - Shyam, Priyanka, Varun, Esha, Radhika and Military Uncle - working in a call centre at Gurgaon, Haryana for an American based company named The Connexions. Moreover, they all were in the same team called Western Appliances Strategic Group and shared a good deal of rapport between them. They were working in night-shifts because when Indians fall in sound sleep, the Americans get bee busy. All of their lives were messed up in something or the other. But the most shocking thing came to them quite unexpectedly when the company decided lay-offs because its call traffic had decreased to 20%, which meant they could get kicked off any moment. Then one by one all their problems cropped up and they got more entangled. All this depressed them heavily, they started getting angry of and anon, and their friendship weakened under tensions. So one evening they decided to go on a ride to a nearby night-club for relaxation. But that fatal night they met an accident and their whole fortune changed in a mid-night stroke. While returning they took a shortcut to reach the call center soon. But unfortunately they slipped into a pit with some iron rods in between life and death. They all began calling for help but none could hear nor did they have network on their phones. Everyone was in fear and trembling when all on a sudden Shyams mobile phone broke the silence and started ringing even without any network. When they heard it was none but God calling them through the mobile, all were surprised and filled with even more fear. But God spoke to them softly and reassuringly and then He came to the point of the pit. He said that he would save them all only if they had a deal with Him. The deal was that they had to close their eyes for 3 minutes and think over what they really wanted and what change they needed in order to get it. Everyone thought awhile and told about their wants. Then God revealed to them that four things were needed for success - (i) a medium amount of intelligence, (ii) a bit of imagination, (iii) self-confidence, and (iv) the need of failure, a shocking one but one had to accept it as God explained that it made people humble and honest. He then helped them get out of the pit; all were saved. After reaching the call center they put their heads together, planned different strategy to save the call center and at last succeeded through patience and perseverance. And they all did what they had promised to God; Shyam and Varun resigned and got Bakshi resigned. They all started their life anew, enjoying its multi-faceted colours with humility and dignity.

Characters:
Shyam:
The narrator-hero of this novel was a simpleton and a great loser in life. First he lost his love because of his moron manager and then was fooled by the same haggy manager. The Connexions called him Sam Marcy. He was going on with a low self-confidence, but regained it and started living life anew after the fatal accident and the revelation that followed. Varun Malhotra: Cool, smart, speed was all what we could say about this guy. This speed junkie had a craze for bikes, cars and pizza. The Americans named him Victor Mell and friends called him Vroom. He hated the call center and his American employers. But, unfortunately, he had to make compromise to accept them in order to keep his job.

Esha Singh: A beautiful aspiring model, named Eliza Singer by the Americans. She had run away from home and took the job at the call center only to become a dumb model. She worked all night at the call center and met the designers in the day.

Radhika Jha:
Named Regina Jones at the call center, Radhika was a traditional housewife married to her college boyfriend. She aspired to earn enough money for her family and manage her Sasural, but had been sandwitched between her jobs at home and office. She tried her level best to keep up with the demands of the job and her Sasuma Loved her husband diehard until he dumped her. Priyanka: She is the heroine of the novel, and precisely, was Shyams ex- girlfriend. Her dominating mom wanted her to marry an NRI of Seattle and she could not withstand the mounting pressure and said yes. Although she had left Shyam she preserved her love and sympathy for him deep within her heart.

Military Uncle: He was the oldest of the WASG. A son, a daughter-in-law and a grandson whom he had left still made a home for them in his heart; divided by norms and united by love.

Language and style of Writing:

Bhagat is just awesome. His writing is so cool and conveying that even a kid can try it out. The use of simple language and suave vocabulary has been the cynosure. However, there are situations where he tries out the readers patience. He kept so many things in suspense, making the reader just to check out the suspense. But that is a way the novelist could extend his readers imagination and ensure their renewed interest in the text. Both the Prologue and the Epilogue have been very interesting and realistic, throwing lights not only on the action and plot construction of the novel but also on the novelists message on managing the affairs of life in better ways.

My Opinion:
If one asks me whether to read this novel or not, I would just say Must read it. Bhagat has presented the realities of life in a very telling manner. The book is full of interesting vocabularies and some enriching facts. At the beginning he made me write about my fears, angers, and anxieties, which I did not like exploring earlier or discussing in the open. But at the end of reading the novel, he made me realize that I could enrich myself immensely by overcoming these impediments. However, one thing I could not appreciate about the book is that in the synopsis the author had said that there was a phone call from God. This was the main reason why I bought this book. But even after reading some 200 pages God didnt show up. I was just imagining

when He would show up, but to my surprise there He appeared at the end. This was just unfair, making one read some 200 odd pages to get to the main twist. Nevertheless, I think the author was trying on us a lesson how to have patience. By and large the book has all ingredients to make an interesting reading; hence, a bestseller.

(Bhagat, Chetan. One Night @ Call Center. Rupa Publications: New Delhi, 2005. Soft bind, pp.263, Rs.95/.)