Various interpretations in One Night @ the Call Center

Various interpretations in One Night @ the Call Center

Nikunj Bhatti

MA Sem: 4

Email id: nikunjbhatti332@gmail.com

Submitted: Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

v Introduction

Chetan Bhagat is one of the most popular authors in the fiction category in recent times in India. He is very well known author and he is the author of bestselling novels. He writes columns for popular English and Hindi newspapers including The Times of India and Dainik Bhaskar focusing on youth, career and issues based on national development.  The Novel One night @ the call center (ON@TCC) is included in the 'New Literature'. New literature means something which is published in 21st century with contemporary issues.

Famous collections of his works are.

§  Five Point Someone (2004)

§  One Night @ the Call Center (2005)

§  The 3 Mistakes of My Life (2008), 

§  2 States (2009), 

§  Revolution 2020 (2011), 

§  What Young India Wants (2012)

§  Half Girlfriend (2014)

Now let’s discuss his famous novel One Night @ the Call Center.

One night @ the call center was made into a movie in 2008 with the title Hello, directed by Atul Agnihotri. Novel follows a group of six friends who work at a call center in India. The six characters in the book are deeply disturbed by their own troubles, but rather than finding solutions to their problems, they just get more intertwined in them due to their refusal to deal with their issues. Shyam Mehra is a narrator and the most important character of the book. Hero of the book along with his close friend Vroom( Varun Malhotra). Varun is the most carefree person in novel. He has a soft corner for his colleague Esha. Esha is an attractive girl.  She wants to become a model. She went to cross the limits of sleeping with the designer to get the contract. Radhika Jha is already married. She stays with her husband and in-laws house. She has great trust and love for her husband. Priyanka is an intelligent and a practical girl and loves shyam. She broke up with him.Priyanka is initially happy about her new engagement with Ganesh Gupta. After all the conflicts and facing all the problems she choses her love shyam and marry with him. Last Military Uncle lives alone so he works at the call center to earn some extra money. Let’s discus various elements of this novel like

Ø Mannepean satire:

Ø The effect of Globalization

Ø Popular Literature

Ø Self help book

Ø Nationalism

Ø Cyber Punk

v The effect of Globalization

§  What is Globalization?

“Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology” (Globalization)

The effect of Globalization In this novel also describe the struggle of each of the character‘s life. As globalization was economic movement. In it we find man corporate. Friedam’s the world is Flat’ is non fictional book. The title of the novel itself tells about the effect of globalization in call center. Novel is based on the working people in Call Centre.  Bhagat wants to give message to the Indians that who working in call center they just get good salary but it not give it a opportunity to do something else or for their skills and creativity

 Chetan Bhagat is such a budding novelist who considers it his responsibility to appeal the young generation in India by writing a novel based on the call center, which is a gift of globalization. Although call center is considered as a boon for India which is facing the problem of unemployment, Chetan Bhagat through this novel is trying to give a message that the Indians, instead of relying on the western countries, should explore own creativity and potentialities. The present paper highlights the influence of call center, which is a child of globalization, on the personal, social, moral, intellectual and cultural relations of the call center employees.

       Globalization is that Indian youth are getting good job opportunities in western countries. It is a thing of pride that the companies like Microsoft cannot think about their business without taking into consideration the Indian software engineers.

Americanized form of English in Call Centers, Workers forced to change their names to Western one

    e.g. like,

                  Shyam Mehra – Sam Mercy

                  Varun Malhotra  - Victor

                  Radhika Jha – Regima Jones

                  Esha singh – Elina  

One of the bright sides of globalization is that Indian youth are getting good job opportunities in western countries.

v Mannepean satire

The genre of Menippean satire is a form of satire, usually in prose, which has a length and structure similar to a novel and is characterized by attacking mental attitudes rather than specific individuals or entities. Menippean satire derives from the philosopher Menippus (3rd century B.C.), but it was identified as a specific genre by the Roman satirist Varro, an older contemporary of Horace whose works exist only in fragmentary form.

§  Characteristics of the Menippean Satire.

·        It is usually more comic than Socratic dialogue.

·        It is unusually free (from history, realism, and legend) and hence fantastic.

·        Its fantasies create extraordinary situations for the purpose of testing philosophical truth, especially through the manipulation of perspective…

·        It mixes the fantastic, symbolic, and even quasi-religious with”crude slum naturalism."

·        It is full of contradictory behavior and characters. (Bakhtin)

ü In One Night @ the call Center  find characteristic of Menippean Satire.

ü In the novel present the current situation of the society.

ü Chetan Bhagat shows the real situation of the people.

ü Chetan Bhagat also critics the society.

Menippean satire is a form of satire, usually in prose, which has a length and structure similar to a novel. Mannepean Satire is a seriocomic genre. In the novel we find that these characters suffer from the problems in their life. In this novel Bhagat represent the idea of bossism that the boss of call centre who has a power over these six characters. And God making a call, Marriage of two different characters Radhika and Priyanka. 

Priyanka has problem with her mother that she tries to be free from the restrictions that was leads towards The Menippean satire where profession is important than the family so we can say that , time of modernization and globalization, because of that, some traditional ideas are satirized.

v Self help Book

Self help book is about moral lesson, solution of problems and also helpful for build personal philosophy. The meaning of Self-Help Book is to self improvement, Genre – non fictional book. Self –help books often focus on popular psychology such as romantic relationship, or aspects of the mind and human behavior. In On@tcc God’s call it shows the moral massage and it developed self confidence of characters.

Here we see that all character present the real life situation, of the people. In the story we see that character of Shyam, who almost lost his love. Character of Radhika is in an unhappy marriage with demanding mother-in-law. Character of Military Uncle, who wants to talk to his grandson. Character of Mr.Bakshi, who boss of the call center, all hate them because of their cruel and somehow sadist behavior.

We see that all character suffer in their life. Also these all problems we find in our real life and also in the society. With help of the type of book we find solution of the problem. Chetan Bhagat’s present the real life situation of the people and how they all manage the life.

We can say that Chetan's God becomes a mouthpiece for his self help - 'listen to the inner call'. It is about inner call or inner voice. A self-help book is one that is written with the intention to instruct its readers on solving personal problems. God’s call it is a kind of a help, or it can be interpreted in many ways. God’s call pays the path, he shows just the path, but then all characters help themselves. In this way we can take this book as a self help book also.

ü God's message to the group

ü Four things needed for success:

ü ‐ a medium amount of intelligence,

ü ‐ a bit of imagination

ü ‐ self‐confidence

ü ‐ Facing, suffering failure

Chetan Bhagat book One Night @ the Call Center. We see that how Chetan Bhagat present the people life situation. In the story we see that all character suffer in their life. Many problems in their life. But then they all live in the life.

v Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a postmodern science fiction genre. Cyber Punk connected with science and technology. It features higher science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order. Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and Mega Corporation, The characters deals with cyber technology. Vroom hacks Bakshi's email and writes email to Esah on his behalf. The American's are terrorized with the help of bug in MS Office as virus attack on Internet . In the world of technology heroes are hiker like Shyam. Machine is controlling human beings. Bakshi controlling heroes and other high teach and law life. Character dealing with Bug, FM radio, Email, Internet (computer). So we can say it classify as Cyber punk novel.

v Nationalism

One Night @ the Call Center writer introduces a young India and their problems. This novel is show the Nationalism.

“Nationalism involves national identity, by contrast with the related construct of patriotism, which involves the social conditioning and personal behaviours that support a state’s decisions and actions”(Nationalism)

In the novel characters working in the call center and their bay’s name is “Western Appliances Strategic Group” or WASG. They deal with the customers of home appliances such as refrigerator, so deals with American customers. Vroom’s ideas are very anti American so he says that,

“Americans suck the life blood out of our country’s most productive generation”

·        Call to alarm to India

·        Politicians

·        “I should not have taken up a job just for money” – Vroom

·        Priyanka reject Mr. Microsoft

·        Dead weight of corporate life

·        Radhika divorce cheating husband

·        Shyam Mehre needs to stop being ‘Sam Marcy’

v Popular Literature

Chetan Bhagat is popular write of the age in his work he use simple language that is very easy to understand for the reader. His books appeal to the reader widely accepted by the youngsters. This novel there is some of situation and like supernatural things that not happened in reality or real life. In One Night @ Call center in,

·        GOD’s Call

·        More familiar or accepted moral teaching.

·        Highly reflective of philosophy of life.

·        Narrative technique.

·        Mystic element and supernatural elements, like the end of the novel.

Ø Conclusion

            In short, this novel deals with the theme of  Deus ex Machina, Human Relations, Strategic, Love, Sex and Marriage. The aim of  Bhagat’s is to convey a message to the people of India from the situation of the characters like the harshness of the situation of women in India.

Ø Works Cited

·        Bakhtin, M.M. "MENIPPEAN SATIRE." (1984): 112-21.

·        Globalization: http://www.globalization101.org/what -is-globalization/

·        Nationalism: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism