One Night @ the Call Center

One night @the call center is one of the best novels written by Chetan Bhagat, compare to his other novel this novel is appreciated as well as criticized on various grounds. Though it is considered as popular fiction but it has some elements that urge readers to call it literary book. This novel published in 2005.

Chetan Bhagat as youth writer emerged in last ten years. This novel is his second successful book, before this one he had published “Three Mistakes of My Life” which remain very popular among youth it earned him name and fame in popular fiction.

The novel presents the one of the class of Indian society, most of his novels centered on just middle class and upper middle class but many Indians falls under this class. In this novel he tried to touch upon their life, their problems and especially problems related to young generation. He himself belonged to that class that he is aware about them and presented very well. Shashi Tharoor rightly commented upon him “Bhagat has a talent for tapping into zeitgeist that he is not much older than the people he writes about makes him a particular credible portrayer of their world”.

One night @ the call center touched upon various contemporary issues in life of youngsters like outsourcing and its effect on the youth, bossism, the dark side of the glamorous world of modeling, Globalization and its effect on the lives of young and on nation at large, love and break ups will be there as its part of the new life, throw away culture, changing relation between parents and children, matrimonial issues and cyber punk.

Narrative :-

The novel is the story of six people working in connexion call center. These six are representatives of youth and middle class of India. Bhagat has used flashback narrative technique to tell the story, how nicely he unfolds each and every characters life before us by simply telling the story of one day/night of their life. The epilogue and acknowledgements at the beginning add the touch of realism in the story, where the narrator himself tells the story about the story from where he gets the materials for this present novel(In epilogue Bhagat is telling story about story, in story Shyam is the narrator who tells us story ). In prologue he met an unknown lady in the night train from Kanpur to Delhi, while the journey that beautiful and Mysterious lady tells story on condition that he will write book on that story. In the end there is epilogue which provides alternative way of reading the whole story.  

The same kind of narrative structure we find in Canadian novelist Yen Martel’s Life of Pie, where narrator meets the person, who informed about the person whose life story can become the story of his next book. Here novel start with authors note same like prologue, then pie patel tells the story of his struggle against nature. And at the end chapter provides alternative reading of the story.

Both prologue and epilogue found in old greek plays and even in Sanskrit plays, where it starts with prayer of god and ends with ending note and message.  

Contemporary issues

1.     Yes I’m agree with this comment that “Bhagat has a talent for tapping into zeitgeist that he is not much older than the people he writes about makes him a particular credible portrayer of their world”. Tharoor rightly observed that Chetan has talent to know the problems of the youth. Before him young generation remains in corner in literary works especially in Indian writing in English. He emerged out as the mouth piece of the youth in India and that make him different from others, he portrays the people like him not very older than him so he can easily identify what kinds of problem youth faces. Thus this works can be seen as written with sincerity.

2.     Chetan Bhagat is keen observer he narrates each and every character in detail that what he or she eats, likes, what one is doing while talking, habits of man and woman. He describes dates with that much details that it creates pictures in readers mind. He observes each and every thing going around him. He observes behavior of each and every character. Not only this, but his keen observation skill helped him to know the reality of India.

3.     Yes Bhagat has vision that enabled him to see the undercurrents of the institutions and call centers in India. He sees call centers as soul destroying sweat shop(because youngsters who are working there continuously remain under threat of losing job more thing is it compels him to work for 12 hours, they have to work at night). Yes I agree that call centers are soaking up the energies of young Indians who would be doing better for themselves and for their country(call centers are what make young Indians slaves, because of work and job pressure their mental growth ceased down like Shyam, those who knows very well the harms of it cannot escape from its shackles like Vroom because they are paying better). Thus call centers are doing harm with young Indians capacities and mental ability. If they are free from call centers burden they can do far better than just serves Americans, they have the capacity to do something great.

4.     Other contemporary issues that are captured in his this and other novels like education and youth, Globalization, communalism, love, arranged marriage, family issues, privatization, and corruption in education system, and in previous one importance of English.

5.     People often criticized his novel as childish and of lower quality, but here we have to look back to the Coleridge’s comment upon Wordsworth’s poetry at a time criticized as childish and silly. “had Mr. Wordsworth’s poems been the silly, the childish things… they must have sunk at once, a dead weight, into the slough of oblivion, and have dragged the preface along with them.” The same can be said for Bhagat that if it were silly and childish than it could not sustain in briskly moving time.

Mannepean Satire:-

Mannepean satire, seriocomic genre, chiefly in Ancient Greek and Latin, in which contemporary institutions, conventions, and ideas were criticized in mocking satire style that mingled prose and verse.

Bhagat’s works often referred ad Dramedy, here in this novel he satirized the idea of out sourcing as great help to our nation by pointing out harms it does that the Character of Varoon very well justify.

Example of throwaway culture is presented through Priyanka’s character as she denied marry with Ganesh only for the sake of her mothers’ happiness.

Another example is Esha who have left his family to follow her dream to be a model.

Radhika’s decision to divorce is also to throw away the cultural value of marriage system. More in that it is also criticized marriage as sacred relation between husband and wife, but what Anuj is doing? While Radhika remains completely faithful to her husband. He satirized this kind of relations and you will find this type of relations in thousands of numbers in India.

Work culture and bossism in office is also satirized by him through Bakhshi’s character to whom Varoon calls him as stupid evil. Even Bakshi’s do not considers agents as human being but as sources.

Ø Self help books and one night @the call center

It is post modern phenomena and emerged In last twenty years. It is also the part of popular fictions in which readers are suggested and instructed to do something. This book helps in solving readers problems in life. It is didactic type of literature which teaches some lesson for life at the end. These books are over simplified in compare to high literature and myths. Some of the characteristics of self help books are

Ø Self explanatory

Ø Oversimplified

Ø It asks readers to do something

Ø Simple examples to explain deep thoughts

Ø It celebrates failure

Ø Based on general behavioral psychology

Ø It takes help from myths

Ø It gives some kind of solution/s

One night @ the call center as self help book

Ø Characters have one or other kind of problem/s and this are some general problems found in everybody like introvert personality, imbalance between life and work, stress management, 

Ø At the beginning asking for three questions and their answer. Which are repeated by Esha in the story. What makes you/fear/angry/ and dislike about ones’ self. 

Ø This book gives mantra to be successful by suggesting four necessary things to be successful. They are intelligence, imagination, self confidence and Failure.

Ø God’s call and His suggestions to everybody. Problems get solved at the end.

Cyber punk:-

is the gift of science and technology to narrative technique. Scientific tools are used as plot movers in popular fiction as well as in classics. In this novel these are some plot movers used by Bhagat

Mail(to send fake mail drafted by varun to blackmail Bakshi)

“Bug”(to fear the Americans that they call to the call center and that way they saved their job)

F.M(Radio through which Radhika come to know the reality of her husband who is cheating on her by having extra marital affair with the girl named Payal )