Wow!! Chetan Bhagat is back!! Back with yet another hilarious, dark, youth centric, but message oriented Novel. This man is amazing, so is the book “One Night @ The Call Center”.I bought this accidentally. In fact I never knew the publishing of his second book. I was heading to the Citypride Multiplex for a film only to find out an Asian Film Festival happening and thought about browsing Crossword. There I found this on the New Arrivals list. I didn’t have another thought since I have read Five Point Someone and the short synopsis given at the back side told me this book has something. So what is it?
On a night train journey from Kanpur to Delhi the writer meets a young girl and to pass the time she offers to tell him a story on one condition that he should make that into his second novel. Even though he hesitated, he wanted to hear the story and the girl said the story was about six people working in a Call Center, set in one night. She said it was the night when they got a phone call from God and there begins the story with Chetan’s hesitated guarantee of making it into a book.
One Night @ The Call Center is set on the lives of 6 call center agents - Shyam, Vroom, Priyanka, Esha, Radhika and Military Uncle. It is said from Shyam’s point of view since the author found Shyam closest to him as a person. All of them have some problem or another and it is the story where they all find a solution to their problems in a single night. It has three key themes – an ex-girlfriend, a bad boss and God. Also it tries to give us an insight of how things work in a Call Center like the way calls are handled, difficulties of explaining to the American Customers, the racial abuses, the different accents etc. Chetan has put in a lot of research into this and his website (http://fivepointsomeone.com/) and the acknowledgement in book says that. He has also introduced three girls instead of a single Neha in FPS and he found understanding three girls as a big challenge. Even the girl who narrates the story to the author is a mystery. Who is she?
The entry of God may be a bit awkward in today’s modern world, but I think with the way of narration and the criticality of that character for the climax, we can digest that theme of God coming to reality through a call.
Chetan’s narration is simply superb. Be it the way the writer approaches the young girl
“…it is not everyday you sit in an empty compartment and a young, pretty girl walks in. Yes, you see it in the movies, you hear about it from friends' friends but it never happens to you. When I was younger, I used to check the reservation chart stuck outside a train bogie to see all the female passengers near my seat (F-17 to F-25 is what I'd look for most). Yet, it never happened. In most cases, I shared my compartment with talkative women, snoring men and wailing infants.”
(Yes, I have also done the same thing N number of times during my train journeys, but nobody sat near me L)
Or the way the manager Mr. Bakshi talks to Shyam in Managese (Chetan’s term for Manager’s Speak), when his team is waiting for an approval from Bakshi for sending in the system’s guy for fixing a problem…
“ …‘Big Picture. I just told you focus on the Big Picture. Learn to identify strategic-variables Shyam’… ”
I liked this book for 2 reasons.
I could find some traces of me in this book through different characters. This was the same case in FPS also. This means Chetan has some power to understand the youth and the way they behave.
The story is told in a Call Center, which is an area may be nobody has explored or may be not even bothered to know.
Grab this book if you want to read yet another novel on pure entertainment terms. It is one for someone who can step into the shoes of these characters and identify them. Stunning, hilarious and at times dark narration. Probably you will also get another explanation for FYI. Enjoy!!
Author: Chetan Bhagat
Publishers: Rupa & Co
Price: Rs 95/-
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