What is new

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

one night @ the call center – a perfect cross over flick substance.



This review comes much later as a result of, partially my busy schedule and partially my laziness to write it. But now I realize that probably this is the most suitable time to write it. I had finished “one night @ the call center” quite a long back. And since then I had been reading others’ reviews – what others have to say about the book.

When I first picked “one night @ the call center”, I was skeptic. Since the hoopla over this new book was subsiding, I thought to give it a reading. And I was in for a thing. Chetan Bhagat was already one book old and had received rave reviews. I was still ignorant about his previous book “Five Point Someone”. And perhaps this helped me to dissect his work objectively, without being in awe of this new writer.

The book is 290 pages long and I really wondered what Chetan had to say about one night in these much pages. After all this was just about one night. But no, this isn’t about a night. This is about the confused, somewhat frustrated, still chirpy youth. This is a story about 6 people who are working together in a Gurgaon Call Center. They have their own lives, so different to each other yet so alike and entwined.

The book opens at different levels. At one level, it is a fast paced story involving 6 people and at a higher level, it’s an inspiring tale, which might give you that push you require to run that extra mile to achieve your dreams. Chetan being a management chap has touched that motivational chord for which these management gurus are known for.

The narrative is, though unstructured, fast and once you pick the book, you would want to finish it in the first sitting – because of the interesting story which keeps you asking for more. The story is about 6 friends who work at a call center as a team. This is a story of underdogs – all of them are fighting with their own share of problems. All of them know that they may lose the battle in the end but the temptation of survival and witnessing the ray of light at the end of the tunnel keeps them going. It’s set in a single night, though Chetan takes de tour at more than one occasion to develop the characters and showing the chemistry between them.

It’s also a story about a love struck couple and their relation, which has broken up after regular ups and downs. It’s also a story which narrates tales of ambitious, restless youth and the compromises on the way to a life style which come with a price tag, a rather costlier one. It’s a story of constant struggle and not giving up.

The characters are such that you’d really want to live their lives, no matter how weak they sound, how wimp they appear. Language – which is actually not at all Queen’s English – is highly induced with slang. In fact, call center workers may feel at ease reading it as this is the kind of language they actually use at their work place. But this doesn’t make this a book strictly for the call center employees. It’s a book which can be read by one and all but it certainly has an age group which would enjoy it. People outside the age group wouldn’t even want to have a look at it. The book’s target audience is confined to an age group of 18 to 25, they’ll love it.

Considering the usual ingredients – romance, flirtations, a sexual encounter, humor, fun, tragedy, melancholy, climax, anti climax, heroism, villains etc. – the story is perfect for a crossover flick with the characters and the way they have been shaped up. I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow someone comes up with a film called “one night @ the call center” and I would be writing a review for it too.

A must read for anyone and everyone between 18 to 25.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home