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One Night @ the Call Center - Chetan Bhagat


Chetan Bhagat is one of the popular and also very controversial novelists in the contemporary time. His novels have made Indians read English novels. Cultural Studies have opened up the windows to study popular literature. It is very interesting to study Bhagat’s Novel as a part of academics. It is a rare thing that you can study a book of a writer who is alive and very famous at the contemporary time.

Novel – One Night @ Call Centre
Author – Chetan Bhagat
Published in - October 2005
Genre – Fiction

Chetan Bhagat has been both loved and criticised a lot. Some believes his writing quite Bollywoodish and less intelligent. But Bhagat writes keeping in mind the contemporary readers.

One Night @ Call centre is one of the most read novels of Chetan Bhagat. There are many ways to review this novel. I would like to review this book from the angel of Cyberpunk.

First let us see plot of this novel:-
This novel moves around the story of six people who are working in call centre and one night they got a call from God.

ON@CC as Cyberpunk:-

With the help of Neondystopia.com we can that Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting that tends to focus on society as “high tech low life”. We can see influence and use of technology in the novel ON@CC.

Science fiction mostly has a geek protagonist who is a lonely frustrated person; not happy with his life. Here in this novel, we can see Vroom plays that part of angry young man. If we see this text as a cyberpunk then Vroom becomes the protagonist.

For example:

1.)     When Bakshi shares the website manual by his name , at that time Shyam is a bit calm but Vroom is very angry:-

‘And what? I don’t really know what to do. I’m in shock. Plus, right now
there is this fear he may downsize us…’ I said.
‘Downsize us?’ Vroom said and stood up. ‘We worked on it for six
months man. And all you can say is we can’t do anything as he may downsize
us? This fucking loser Bakshi is turning you into a loser. Mr Shyam, you are
turning into a mousepad, people are rolling over you everyday. Priyanka tell
him t say something. Go to Bakshi’s office and hold his damn collar.’

2.)     Even in his personal life he is not that happy. He wanted to date Esha but first she is not ready and then Vroom comes to know about her act of sleeping with the other person for success:-

‘I told you he proposed again. Maybe he’s not taking my rejection so
well,’ Esha said to Priyanka.
‘Oh really?’ Vroom shouted and stood up. ‘You think this is about the
proposal? Like I don not know about your escapades. Everyone here knows it—
Shyam, Radhika and Priyanka. You thought I would not find out? I wish I’d
known before I proposed to a certified slut who’ll bang for bucks. I feel sick.’
Esha looked at all of us, shocked. Tears appeared in her eyes.

3.)     One of his dialogue with God also shows his unhappiness :-

‘I want to have a life with meaning, even if it means a life without Bed
or daily trips to Pizza-Hut. I need to quit this call center. Sorry, but calling is
not my calling,’ Vroom said.

In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” we see that she used electricity to write a science fiction as that was a contemporary component. Similarly when Bhagat write this novel he brings in the elements like Mobile Phone, Computers, Microsoft Word and Internet.

There are three main plot movers in this scene which includes these components.

1.)     Email; through which they are able to blackmail Bakshi:-

From: Subhash Bakshi
To: Esha Singh
Sent: 5.04 am
Subject: Just one night
Dear Esha,
Don’t be upset. My offer is simple-just spend one night with
me. You make ma happy –I’ll save your you from the rightsizing.
My pleasure for you security–I think it is a fair deal.
And who knows, you might enjoy it too. Let me know your
decision soon.
Your admirer.
Bakshi.

2.)     The rumour of having Bug in Microsoft Word Software; this rumour helped them in increasing their calls:-

To check whether the virus has hit them or not, make them do an
MSWord test. Tell them to open an empty MSWord file, and type in
=rand (200, 99) and press enter. If a lot of text pops comes out, that
means there is a virus. (Don’t worry: the text will pop out-it is a bug in
MSWord). Once that happens, your customers might start shaking in
fear.
Tell them you can save them from this virus as a) you are from India,
and all Indians are good at computers b) India has faced terrorism for
years and c) they are valued clients and you believe in customer
service.
However, if they want our help, they must keep calling the Connexions
call center every six hours.

3.)     Call from God; Bhagat could also only bring the voice of God but he makes good use of the contemporary technology in this:-

Everyone sprang to attention as my cell phone began vibrating.
‘That’s my phone,’ I said.
The phone started ringing. Everyone’s mouth hung open.
‘How did this ring without a network?’ Esha said, her voice nervous.
‘Who is it,’ Radhika said.
‘Pick it up,’ I said with my hand stretched out, unable to reach the
dashboard and unwilling to move too much.
Esha lifted the phone. She looked at the screen and gasped.
‘Who is it?’ I said.
‘Do you know someone called…God? It says…Good calling,’ Esha said.

Thus we can see this Novel as a Cyberpunk.

Reference:-

http://dilipbarad.blogspot.in/2014/12/chetan-bhagars-one-night-call-center.html

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