One Night@ Call Centre

This blog is part of my academic thinking activity on Chetan Bhagat's ON@TCC.

Introduction
One Night @ the call center or ON@TCC 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 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 melodramatic and decisive turn through a literal Deus Ex Machina , in call of God. Apart from that there is air of realism along with fantasy, Magic realism, chutney fication of words and beautiful narrative technique with prologue and Epilogue.

1)What is popular literature? Is on@tcc popular literature? Illustrate.
Popular Literature is literature that is enjoyed by a large group of reader. A good example would be the Harry Potter series, which is read world widely. In India, one might associate popular literature with the likes of Chetan Bhagat, Preeti Shenoy, Amish Tripathi and etc although most serious readers would hesitate to classify their works as literature because of that shallowness.
It can be seen from the above analysis that All Chetan Bhagat books deal with the problems of the Indian youth and how they tackle it well to reach their goals thus, with the main theme of X-Girl friend, Bad Boss and call from Device , One night @Call center fit into archetype of Popular literature.
More evidence for in support of this position can be found that, The author successfully depicts problems of youth and how successfully they overcome it.

2) What do you understand by self-help book. Is on@tcc self-help book? Illustrate
The time comes in everyone's life, when one need to motivation for live. One can not live without hope and this element of hope provide motivation. But, from where one get that inspiration or motivation? ? ? So, there is thousands of videos and speeches with full of motivational ideas.

Despite this, Books like How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, The Power of Positive Thinking, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People etc. are self help book written for self improvement.

Amongst the name of Popular self help book, there are books which include sub plot or theme as self help book. In On@TCC the phone call from God is one of the silent feature in the novel. The conversation with God motivates the group of such an extent that they get ready to face their problems with utmost determination and motivation. Major six character emerge out of danger, they have clear cut goals in their mind after the call of God.

3) Is this novel anti-America? Illustrate it in context of theme of nationalism.

There are many dialogues in mouth of characters which shows strong anti-american ideas therefore yes, this novel is anti American.

Shyam Mehra hates it when the Americans call Him Sam. He hates it even more when his boss calls him Sam too. Mehra is  of the American hating characters from a book. 

Despite this, In the beginning there is reference that, “ Remember, 35 year old American's brain and IQ is the same as 10 year old Indian's brain. Americans are dumb, just accept it. And even when God said that ‘Any country obssed with war can't be happy.
for this reasons we can say in context of theme of nationalism that One night Call center is novel with Anti American thoughts. 

4) Does the novel have social realism? If yes, illustrate. If no, what did you expect as social realism which is absent here.

Social realism is a style of art, fiction, movies and plays. It describes the daily life of workers and poor people. Social realist artists try to show people and their lives in a realistic way. This means that they often show things which are not beautiful or attractive. They may show people who are elderly, sick, sad, insane or have a disability. This does not mean that a Realist work of art or literature is ugly. It can be made beautiful by the way that the artist or writer creates it.(Wikipedia)

Chetan Bhagat said in his one interview that, “ My books touch the Indian middle class , where I also come from. I understand their problems and can make them entertaining. The book was written to present these issues to the youth but, of course, In my style … with fast paced , dark humor.” 

On a different level, this novel is portrayal the number of individuals who sacrifices their creativity and skills and join call centers merely because of the fat pay packet on offer. Apart from that the theme involves the anxieties and insecurities of rising Indian  middle class, including question about career , marriage, family conflicts in changing India. Each major character has their personal woe… 

Shyam's woe

Shyam is very upset to learn that Priyanka is engaged to a person called Ganesh, who works at Microsoft in the US because he had dated Priyanka for a long time and He used to feel he was a good for nothing and non achiever.

Priyanka's Woe

Priynka seems happy to got engage with Ganesh Gupta. But Becomes furious when her mother planned her marriage the very next month, which she feels too early. Despite this we feel while reading that she have some feelings of love for Shyam though they broke up relationship.

Esha's woe

Esha is living with her dream of become a Model and got constant failure. She had earlier done a compromise by sleeping with designer to get a modeling contract. However the person turned out to be opportunistic as he betrayals her by telling her she can't become a model due to her height. 

Vroom's Woe

He is tired from his parents clash and shocked to learn that his boss Bakshi  cheated him and Shyam.

Radhika's woe

Who loved her husband more than her family but her husband Anuj, betrayals her. And her mother in law was also irritating for her.

Military Uncle's woe

Military Uncle's son didn’t like his father’s interruption in their routine. When Military Uncle’s son and wife leaves the home and went US this leaves Uncle heart broken.