Monday, June 4, 2007

One Night at Call Center


by Chetan Bhagat

One Night @ Call Center, another delicious story by Chetan Bhagat who is the writer of a famous story called “Five Point Someone”. The story starts in a railway compartment, where in the writer meets a sexy blonde all alone in complete compartment on a very short journey of only one night.

The lady keeps the night alive by telling him a story about 6 people working in a call center. This story spans over a period of only one night on which they receive a phone call from god. The calls results in a big transformation, changing the life of all 6 and an interesting scene of slaps on a buggy boss’ face, who tried to use his team as a stepping stone to move to Boston, head office of call center company.

The writer uses one of those 6 people, Shyam as the narrator of the story, who fell in love with a charming girl, Priyanka, another member of call center team. How they fell in love with each other, how they perform a dexterous task in the back seat of cab on a cool night, how they broke off and then re-bond keeps a person abducted throughout the story. If someone is unable to complete the story in one go, its hard for him to stop thinking about it all the time.

Other 4 characters include Esha, Radhika, Vroom and Military Uncle. Esha, a beautiful babe who wants enter into modeling; Vroom, who wants to be the best rider has a strong love for bikes and feelings for Esha; Radhika, a married young girl and her married life; Military Uncle, who wants to be with his grandson.

Each and every single member of the story has his own key role without which the story would not have been complete. The story moves around falling call rates (Number of calls per shift) at the call center. How the characters realize the people’s behavior and then turn the situation reverse, making the call rates rise high within just one night. How they recognize their Boss’ plot of using his team as a stepping stone to move to Boston and then hit hard in his face.

Though the author is not so strong at English, but his story telling style is such that one feels as if a friend is telling his own story in a free style talk. A delighting story for those, who are frustrated because of their boss’ style of working.

Vivek Nagpal

6 comments:

Nishant Singh said...

Dear Sir,
Just came across your chronological log of thoughts on "One night @ Call centre". I must say its really heart-stirring piece of writing. How you summarized the whole story in terse, so crisp yet so stimulating. I am longing to read the book right away. I have heard abt the book, but none wrote in a manner to bring that urge from inside to read the book. Thanks once again and keep doing this great job of yours...

your admirer...

ViruS said...

I have read the book myself, and I found it to be a light, timepass read. Nothing great. I just want to ask you about the GOD incident in the book. What do you think it means?

Vivek Nagpal, The Dreamkiller said...

The God incident was shown to give a moral to the story, that all of us has an inner self which get ignored in our daily lives. In search for treasure we do things against our interests and keep building a backlog in the back of our mind.

The god incident was just the author's way to bring out those feelings. It could have been done any other way too. This was just an option for him.

The book is light, fun and good timepass and that is why I have written the review in a similar manner.

Prabhat said...

I have read the book. This is a good time pass book..It can be read in one go. At least it gives a true story of a very little part of life.
About the GOD story, even i think the same that it was author's way of showing the inner instinct...

Smeagol said...

I just finished this one. Light reading but somehow didnt find it to be soooo great or anything. I think the narration in five point someone was far better.

Anonymous said...

Now thats something that fits perfectly the definition of the word - Crap.

I really wished that the author had never written this. His first novel was a masterpiece and this the anti of it.