One Night @ the Call Center

One Night @ the Call Center

- By Chetan Bhagat

One Night @ the Call Center or ON@CC is a novel written by Chetan Bhagat and first published in 2005. The novel revolves around a group of six call center employees working in Connexions call center in Gurgaon, Haryana. It takes place during the span of one night, in which all of the leading characters confront some aspect of themselves or their lives they would like to change. The story takes a dramatic and decisive turn through a literal deus ex machina, when the characters get a phone call from God.

Amongst the contemporary writers, who has earned a different name and made their distinction in the literal world is Chetan Bhagat. The novel One Night @ the Call Center deals with the problems in a call center and related problems, frustration, emotion and office politics in very fascinating manner. The novel revolves around a group of six call centeremployees working in Connections call center in the Delhi. It is filled with a lot of drama with unpleasant things happening to all of the leading characters. The story takes a dramatic and decisive turn when they get a phone call from God.

The story begins with a train journey from Kanpur to Delhi. During the journey, the author meets a very beautiful girl. The girl seems to be quite caring, demanding and very intelligent. She offers to tell the author a story on the condition that he has to make it into his second book. After a lot of hesitation, the author agrees. This description itself is so captivating and tempting that it immediately catches the imagination of the reader. At the end what happens to the girl that is a big mystery.

The author personifies himself with the hero of the novel. Claimed to be based on a true story, the author chooses a person named Shyam Mehra alias Sam Marcy as the protagonist, who is one among the six call center employees featuring in the novel. The remaining are Esha Singh (Eliza Singer), Radhika Jha (Regina Jones), Varun "Vroom" Malhotra (Victor Mell), Priyanka and Military Uncle. All of them belong to the same team and their manager is a person named Subhash Bakshi, who is the negative character in the novel. He is a very cunning with a very peculiar both physically and mentally and a very shrewd guy. The description of Bakshi was like something like a mini hippo with slick and slithering dark skin shining with oil and his habits are  atypical itself.

Shyam and Priyanka’s love story is so gripping that one can just visualize things like a film. Priyank’s proposed marriage with an NRI,, her bubbly talks with him leaving Shyam to utmost distress, Vroom and his feelings for Esha, Radhika’s unique dedication to her family and in-laws and last but not the least Military uncles agony, who fails to comply with the modern life and leads a lonesome life without his son and daughter-in –law ….the story just revolves around with a touch and go like description but still clarifies every thing. The whole plot is very intelligently conceived and crafted, I would say.

The last scene when they all, out of sheer frustration, were about to had a great fall, then they happened to listen the phone call from God. Or it’s their own inner voice….this was also a great mystery… When man literally confronts with death what will be his thought and what will be his state of mind …it is describes so beautifully that you just think and think.In reality life is like that, when one confronts with death, that time he really releases himself from the self made cocoon and rifts apart his mask and hears the real voice of his heart and mind….

The novel is a wonder. Language is very simple; thoughts are awesome and very very modern in its approach. The novel is really nice and it will leave with a feeling that modernity has got nothing to do with life’s philosophy. I don’t know whether it is a best seller or not but I will suggest everybody should read this, It is too good.

Source: Google