About the Author : Chetan Bhagat
Chetan Bhagat was on born 22 April 1974. He is an Indian author and columnist. He was included in Time magazine's list of World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010.
He has written nine novels and three non-fiction books. His first novel, Five Point Someone, was published in 2004. His novels have been listed as bestsellers.
Works: -
Five of Chetan Bhagat's novels have been adapted into Bollywood films like
Hello in 2008 (based on One Night @ the Call Center)
3 Idiots in 2009 (based on Five Point Someone)
Kai Po Che! in 2013 (based on The 3 Mistakes of My Life)
2 States in 2014 (based on his novel of the same name)
Half Girlfriend in 2017 (based on his novel of the same name).
Bhagat has also written the scripts for Bollywood films like Kick in 2014 and adapted his stories for the movies Kai Po Che! and Half Girlfriend. Bhagat won the Filmfare Award for Best Screenplay for Kai Po Che! at the 59th Filmfare Awards in 2014.
About Book: One Night @ The Call Centre
One Night @ the Call Center is a novel written by Chetan Bhagat and first published in 2005. The novel revolves around a group of six call center employees working at the Connexions call center in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It takes place during one night, during which all of the leading characters confront some aspect of themselves or their lives they would like to change. The story uses a literal deus ex machina, when the characters receive a phone call from God.
Globalization
and
One Night @The Call Centre
What is Globalization?
Globalization means the speedup of movements and exchanges (of human beings, goods, and services, capital, technologies or cultural practices) all over the planet. One of the effects of globalization is that it promotes and increases interactions between different regions and populations around the globe.
Globalization in One Night @The Call Centre
Globalization has converted the whole world into a small village. It is stated,
"Globalization is no longer a theoretical concept; it is a glaring reality, impinging upon almost every aspect of human existence" (Sam and Sam 1044-1045).
Chetan Bhagat is such a budding novelist who considers it his responsibility to appeal to the young generation in India by writing a novel based on the call center which is a gift of globalization. It is stated,
“The global trend has not left the society untouched. Due to free incoming of values, costumes, dresses, and the living habits of western world, the basis of Indian culture has been greatly influenced” (Sam and G. Sam 1051).
Although call centres are considered as a boon for India which is facing the problem of unemployment, Bhagat Looks at the call centre culture in a different way. No doubt he supports such liberalization coming to India But He also highlights it's worse implications on the modern generation who are the victims of such change. Chetan Bhagat is the follower of change who believes in the transformation of society. For this Globalization and modernization plays an important role and India Cannot Shy away from this change.
Effect of globalization in the novel:
Through his works Bhagat subtly portrays the fast growing cities and urban zones along with all the global factors, affecting the life, experience, dreams, and attitudes of today's youth. Bhagat very comfortably depicts women empowerment as one of the positive effects of globalization but at the same time consumerism, eroding values, and rising fears and anxieties of urban Indians as some of the negative offshoots of it cannot escape his piercing observations. Thus, it can be viewed easily in the plot of his novel One Night @ the Call Center.In the novel we come across fast growing city structures like Gurgaon (Haryana), where now massive apartments and commercial malls are under construction. Here there are long and broad highways making journey easier. Basava states,
“A number of efforts to remove infrastructural constraints in order to facilitate the process of globalization are underway. The BPO sector rapidly developed in urban India and could create lakhs of jobs by the mid of first decade of 21st century (M.G. Basava Raja 1015).
The BPO sector can be witnessed in Bhagat’s novel. In Bhagat’snovelOne Night @ the Call Center, 'Connexions Call Centre' is a good example of BPO culture. Bhagat very comfortably depicts the atmosphere in the call centre. Therein we see people moving about quite frequently. The six people namely
Shyam
Vroom
Esha
Priyanka,
Radhika
Military uncle
are working in the call centre are picked up by a call center's car every night from their respective homes in Delhi, and are dropped at their work place at Gurgaon.
They deal with customers of home appliances such as refrigerators, ovens and vacuum cleaners and are skilled in dealing with troublesome and painful customers. They work in shifts starting from 10.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. The people working in call centres face exploitation at the hands of westerners and Chetan Bhagat has clearly depicted it in his novel. The characters in the novel are forced to use western names instead of their Indian names and are treated as ‘Resources’ in the call center. The Boss of the call centre always disgraces the employees and never heeds to their complaints against the computer systems. Instead he gets all the credit of the work done by his team. Working in such an environment becomes painful for them for most of the time they feel embarrassed at the hands of Americans.
Chetan Bhagat portrays call centres are popularly believed to be places of joy and enjoyment but in reality these jobs waste the full potentiality of bright young people who take them up out of financial compulsion. The novel mirrors serious issues of contemporary Indian urban middle class milieu due to the modernization. All the characters of the novel having a middle class background find it hard to survive in the contemporary environment.
Popular Literature
The ability to tell a tale, to devise its episodes with such skill that the reader often cannot bear to put the book aside, to touch on common sympathies, to understand the judgements and desires of ordinary people, to off er the keen experience of danger, of anxiety, of love, of sorrow, of triumph, but all without the intruding shadow of the actual, without obliging us to quit the Illyrian trance, so to speak, or the hermetic fold of the airport lounge. To do all this takes talent, and the money we pay for our distraction is fairly earned. (Nash 1990: 2 – 3)
What is Popular Literature
Popular literature includes those writings intended for the masses and those that find favour with large audiences. It can be distinguished from artistic literature in that it is designed primarily to entertain. Popular literature, unlike high literature, generally does not seek a high degree of formal beauty or subtlety and is not intended to endure.
The growth of popular literature has paralleled the spread of literacy through education and has been facilitated by technological developments in printing. With the Industrial Revolution, works of literature, which were previously produced for consumption by small, well-educated elites, became accessible to large sections and even majorities of the members of a population.
Popular Literature & one night @ the call centre
Chetan Bhagat is a popular writer of the age in his work; he uses 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 are some situations and like supernatural things that have 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 elements and supernatural elements, like the end of the novel.
Thank you ...Works Cited
Bhagat,Chetan. One Night @ the Call Center. New Delhi: Rupa & Co. 2005. Print.
Nash, W. (1990), Language in Popular Fiction , London: Routledge
Kshirsagar, Anil, Mrs. R.P. Bonde, and Dr. Suvarna T. Shinde. “Globalization and the Changing Urban Realities in India in Chetan Bhagat's One Night @ The Call Center and 2 States”. The Criterion. Vol III Issue IV (December 2012): 1-8. Print
