One Night at the Call Center by Chetan Bhagat

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



(This is not a book review. It is a blog that relates strongly to the book and puts light on it's quality. Spoilers! Duh!)

So, finally read a Chetan Bhagat book. I have wanted to read one since Three Idiots. The reviews say, he is the paperback king of India, youth icon and stuff...

Before going into a short analysis of the book, let's hear a long story of my interactions with things related to Chetan Bhagat.

My Interaction with Things Related to Chetan Bhagat - Part I

Several years before this day
My Place, Dhaka

Let's go back to the Three Idiots era. The first time I heard the name I was like, "Meh!". Then almost all my friends (youth!) have started putting Facebook status' about the movie. Then I decided to watch it. As the most other youths I leached it from a torrent site. I found the 'in movie' dialogues and sequences a compilation of jokes, advices I had already heard previously. It was good, but I wasn't awestruck like the most. Then I saw some guy in somewhereinblog wrote a review of the movie and had almost the same thoughts as me. In which another guy wrote about Five Point Someone (source material of 3 Idiots) and how the book was more realistic and better (as always for the books turned into movies). This was the first time, I heard the name Chetan Bhagat. Then the movie became an all time greatest hits with lots of awards and stuff.

I'll skip part II of the saga because that involves how I spread the story - 'source material of 3 idiots is a book by Chetan Bhagat and it involves IIT' - to my friends. It spans several days, but let's have a lumped assumption that all of them belong to part II.

My Interaction with Things Related to Chetan Bhagat - Part III

Five months before this day
Howrah Railway Station, Kolkata

Now this the time when I find out Indian books are quite cheap. When they come to Bangladesh, crossing borders, the price gets doubled. In general, we buy a 299INR book at around 800TK. So what a semi-book lover student on low income like me does is buy some books because he doesn't find it worth to buy costly books in his own country. That said, I started looking for what to buy. Arvind Adiga, R. K. Narayan, Arundhati Roy is the fewest Indian Writers I knew. Then I found out that the shelves are full of Chetan Bhagat books. Since I heard his name before and I also wanted to read one of his books I decided to buy one. Let me take you through the choosing criteria:

1) Five Points Someone: What Not to Do at IIT - Already seen the movie related to this book.
2) 2 States: The Story of My Marriage - I don't know if I like the guy or not. So not interested in his or someone's marriage.
3) The 3 Mistakes of my Life - Well, my friend who is standing beside and also choosing books has decided to buy it. So I won't.
4) One Night at the Call Center - Sounds good. Probably gives the story of one night. Also will probably be a fast paced story. Let's take this one.

There were some other Chetan Bhagat books, but I really don't remember what was going in my mind about them. The other books I bought at this place includes, "প্রফেসর নাট বল্টু চক্র সমগ্র" by আদ্রীশ বর্মন।

My Interaction with Things Related to Chetan Bhagat - Part IV

Five months before this day
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata

A few hours after I bought the book, we arrived at the airport. It was past 8pm, and the stores were closed. We didn't feel like checking in a hotel for the night, we were feeling what people call homesick. So, at the airport, we are. In some sort of waiting hall, we were waiting for the night to be over and catch the plane. We were sleepy and most of us were trying to sleep. I also tried to do it myself. But found out when I'm closing my eyes there were some sort of heavy cold wind is flowing and it makes me open the eyes. What a drag! Let's read the book. I'll be able to tell a story about how I finished (or almost finished) a book even though my body and soul wanted to sleep. Read the first page of this book. Realized, my tired body and soul is winning. I closed my eyes again.

----*----

The Book Review

Present day
My Grandparent's Place, Comilla

So, finally started reading this two days ago, and finished today.
Now the start of the book is really nice, and neat. We have the first person view of Chetan Bhagat in the prologue. Then when the novel starts, we have the first person view of Mr. Shyam. Mr. Shyam is (or I thought to be a) typical sarcastic protagonist. Such books are best read in Mr. Sato's voice. Those who don't know who Mr. Sato is, here is a short description: He is the protagonist of the book and later anime, "Welcome to the N.H.K". But soon I realized, this protagonist is not Mr. Sato Type. He is different and his interests are also different. This contemporary novel mostly revolves around the love interest of Shyam tangled with his and other minor character's (minor) life problems. The character set includes 'want to be model' girl, 'life is a party girl', 'the housewife (! Chapter #26 !) working in call center' girl, the military uncle, the rich dad's boy and Mr. Shyam.

And the back cover does say they receive a call from God himself, and that does happen. But those who are thinking this an important plot point, they will be heavily disappointed. The call comes and ends in the same chapter and it is toward the end of the novel.

The plot mechanism is heavily inspired from some other book I believe. 'The Life of Pi' by Yann Martel. In that novel, the writer comes to India, he meets someone who tells him a story that has a 'fantasy/religious miracle' and then he tells the same story that is totally believable. The author admits the fantasy part makes the story more astonishing and more colorful and stuff. Now there is a similar mechanism in the 'One Night at the Call Center'. Author meets someone on a train, shes tells author a story. First time with a 'miracle' (God has called. Ding Ding!) in it. Later changes the miracle stuffs to something believable. The author admits the first version is better. Well, that's where the author is wrong.

Now, to be honest, it is not worth to compare it to 'Life of Pi'. Anyway, here goes. The 'realistic' setting in Life of Pi gives you goose bumps and changes your view about the entire novel. You start feeling sad for the protagonist and feel like you should've gone there to help him. But this book makes you think, the miracle part is 'bullshit', the realistic part is 'extra dense bullshit'. And if you are careful, you will find few dialogues from the movie, 'Fight Club' (I haven't seen the Indian one. The one by David Fincher) changing a word here and there.

Now about the cheesy Bollywood part of the story: "It was the most disappointing part of the novel". I don't know why the protagonist had to chase through the traffic to get his love. Why it couldn't be more grounded? Even the Call from God is more believable than this cheap stuff.



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