One Night @ the Call Center
Encyclopedia
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
.
This is the second best-selling novel from the award winning author after Five Point Someone - What not to do at IIT!.
which recounts a train journey from Kanpur to Delhi. During the journey, the narrating author meets a very beautiful girl. The girl offers to tell the author a story on the condition that he has to make it his second book. After a lot of hesitation, the author agrees. The story within the story, which comprises the bulk of the book, relates the events that happen one night at a call center. Told through the eyes of the protagonist, Shyam, it is a story of almost lost love, thwarted ambitions, absence of family affection, pressures of a patriarchal set up, and the work environment of a globalized office.
Shyam loves but has lost Priyanka, who is now planning an arranged marriage
with another; Vroom loves Esha. Esha wants to be a model, Radhika is in an unhappy marriage with a demanding mother-in-law, and military uncle wants to talk to his grandson; they all hate Bakshi, their cruel boss.
Claimed to be based on a true story, the author chooses Shyam Mehra (alias
Sam Marcy) as the narrator and protagonist
, who is one among the six call center employees featured.
, including questions about career, inadequacy, marriage, family conflicts in a changing India, and the relationship of the young Indian middle class to both executives and ordinary clients whom they serve in the U.S.A. There is an aspect of self-help
in the book as the author invites readers to identify aspects of themselves and their lives that make them angry and that they would like to change. One of the salient features of this novel is that all the characters experience a dramatic and disturbing event during the night when they receive a call from God, and all use this moment to re-examine their own lives.
Shyam's woes
Shyam is very upset to learn that Priyanka is engaged to a person called Ganesh Gupta, who works at Microsoft
in the US
because he had dated priyanka for a long time and the two had engaged in sex . To add to his woes, he is horrified to learn that Bakshi had cheated him, and Vroom, by submitting the Troubleshooting Website to the Boston centre as his own without crediting him and Vroom.
Priyanka's woes
Priyanka is first happy when she is engaged to Ganesh Gupta, who works for Microsoft but becomes furious when she hears that her parents have planned her marriage the very next month, which she feels is too early. Both her mother and Ganesh press her to agree to this proposal. She is even more saddened by the fact that Shyam was eavesdropping
on her conversation with Ganesh. When Vroom and Shyam show her that Ganesh had forged his pictures to hide his baldness, she disapproves Ganesh for having cheated her.
Esha's woes
Esha had earlier done a compromise by sleeping with a designer to get a modeling contract. However the guy turned out to be opportunistic as he betrays her by telling her she can't become a model due to her height. He also tries to console her by sending her some money. Esha feels terribly betrayed and tries to suppress the mental pain by inflicting herself with physical pain by purposely cutting her skin.
Vroom's woes
Vroom is shocked to learn that Bakshi has cheated him and Shyam by submitting their work as his own. To add to his miseries, he overhears Esha telling the other girls that she had slept with a designer to get a modeling contract.
Radhika's woes
Radhika, who loved her husband very much, is shocked to learn about his dark side. When Vroom calls up her husband portraying as a radio jockey
and asks him to dedicate roses and a song to someone special, he chooses his girlfriend Payal over his wife. Radhika who listens to this gets terribly upset as her husband has betrayed her.
Military Uncle's woes
Military Uncle tries to be nice to his son and grandson. But when he sends some pictures via mail to his grandson, his son loses his cool and asks him to keep out of his life. This leaves Military Uncle heartbroken.
Phone call from God
The phone call from God is one of the salient features in the novel. The author has represented god as a friendly figure rather than a boss. He is shown as speaking in modern English rather than the stereo-typical pure English or Latin that one usually encounters God saying. The circumstances in which the characters of the novel get a phone call from God is discussed in the next paragraph. In order to cheer themselves up, all the lead characters of the novel decide to go and enjoy at a night club. After enjoying for a while, they leave for office. Midway through the journey, Vroom starts to feel nauseated after drinking alcohol and so they stop and venture out. Vroom throws up and also breaks the window-pane of a shop thus spreading an alarm. They rush out of the place in fear. While returning, they face a life-threatening situation when their Qualis crashes into a construction site hanging over a mesh of iron construction rods. As the rods began to yield slowly, they started to panic. They are unable to call for help as there is no mobile phone network at that place. In this situation, Shyam's mobile phone starts ringing. The phone call is from God. He speaks to all of them and gives them suggestions to improve their life. After that, God also advises them on how to get their vehicle out of the construction site. The conversation with God motivates the group to such an extent that they get ready to face their problems with utmost determination and motivation. Meanwhile Vroom and Shyam hatch up a plan to throw Bakshi out of the call center and prevent the closing of Connexions call center, whose employees are to be downsized radically. When they emerge out of danger, they have clear-cut goals in their mind. On returning to the Call Center, they carry out their plans with dexterity.
and is published by Prabhaat Prakashan .
film director Rohan Sippy
had bought the rights from the author Chetan Bhagat, but later Sippy let the rights pass on to director Atul Agnihotri
, brother-in-law of Salman Khan. The movie version of the novel is titled as Hello
starring Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Amrita Arora, Katrina Kaif, Gul Panag, Sharman Joshi.
Hello was released on 10 October 2008 to average to bad reviews and did poor business especially in multiplexes of big cities and was declared flop as it did 5 crore business in the first 2 days itself.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by Chetan Bhagat
Chetan Bhagat
Chetan Bhagat , is an Indian author, columnist, and speaker. Bhagat is the author of five bestselling novels, Five Point Someone , One Night @ the Call Center , The 3 Mistakes of My Life , 2 States & Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition...
and first published in 2005. The novel revolves around a group of six call center employees working in Connexions call center in Gurgaon
Gurgaon
Gurgaon is the second largest city in the Indian state of Haryana. Gurgaon is the industrial and financial center of Haryana. It is located 30 km south of national capital New Delhi, about 10 kilometers from Dwarka Sub City and 268 km south of Chandigarh, the state capital...
, Haryana
Haryana
Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...
. 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
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...
, when the characters get a phone call from God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
.
This is the second best-selling novel from the award winning author after Five Point Someone - What not to do at IIT!.
Synopsis
The book begins with a frame storyFrame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
which recounts a train journey from Kanpur to Delhi. During the journey, the narrating author meets a very beautiful girl. The girl offers to tell the author a story on the condition that he has to make it his second book. After a lot of hesitation, the author agrees. The story within the story, which comprises the bulk of the book, relates the events that happen one night at a call center. Told through the eyes of the protagonist, Shyam, it is a story of almost lost love, thwarted ambitions, absence of family affection, pressures of a patriarchal set up, and the work environment of a globalized office.
Shyam loves but has lost Priyanka, who is now planning an arranged marriage
Arranged marriage
An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...
with another; Vroom loves Esha. Esha wants to be a model, Radhika is in an unhappy marriage with a demanding mother-in-law, and military uncle wants to talk to his grandson; they all hate Bakshi, their cruel boss.
Claimed to be based on a true story, the author chooses Shyam Mehra (alias
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Sam Marcy) as the narrator and protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, who is one among the six call center employees featured.
Major themes
The themes involve the anxieties and insecurities of the rising Indian middle classMiddle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
, including questions about career, inadequacy, marriage, family conflicts in a changing India, and the relationship of the young Indian middle class to both executives and ordinary clients whom they serve in the U.S.A. There is an aspect of self-help
Self-help
Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...
in the book as the author invites readers to identify aspects of themselves and their lives that make them angry and that they would like to change. One of the salient features of this novel is that all the characters experience a dramatic and disturbing event during the night when they receive a call from God, and all use this moment to re-examine their own lives.
Shyam's woes
Shyam is very upset to learn that Priyanka is engaged to a person called Ganesh Gupta, who works at Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
because he had dated priyanka for a long time and the two had engaged in sex . To add to his woes, he is horrified to learn that Bakshi had cheated him, and Vroom, by submitting the Troubleshooting Website to the Boston centre as his own without crediting him and Vroom.
Priyanka's woes
Priyanka is first happy when she is engaged to Ganesh Gupta, who works for Microsoft but becomes furious when she hears that her parents have planned her marriage the very next month, which she feels is too early. Both her mother and Ganesh press her to agree to this proposal. She is even more saddened by the fact that Shyam was eavesdropping
Eavesdropping
Eavesdropping is the act of secretly listening to the private conversation of others without their consent, as defined by Black's Law Dictionary...
on her conversation with Ganesh. When Vroom and Shyam show her that Ganesh had forged his pictures to hide his baldness, she disapproves Ganesh for having cheated her.
Esha's woes
Esha had earlier done a compromise by sleeping with a designer to get a modeling contract. However the guy turned out to be opportunistic as he betrays her by telling her she can't become a model due to her height. He also tries to console her by sending her some money. Esha feels terribly betrayed and tries to suppress the mental pain by inflicting herself with physical pain by purposely cutting her skin.
Vroom's woes
Vroom is shocked to learn that Bakshi has cheated him and Shyam by submitting their work as his own. To add to his miseries, he overhears Esha telling the other girls that she had slept with a designer to get a modeling contract.
Radhika's woes
Radhika, who loved her husband very much, is shocked to learn about his dark side. When Vroom calls up her husband portraying as a radio jockey
Radio jockey
A radio jockey is a person who hosts a radio talk show where the RJ selects the music to be played, or topic of discussion, by interacting with the audience; the interaction is often via telephone, but may also be online, or via email....
and asks him to dedicate roses and a song to someone special, he chooses his girlfriend Payal over his wife. Radhika who listens to this gets terribly upset as her husband has betrayed her.
Military Uncle's woes
Military Uncle tries to be nice to his son and grandson. But when he sends some pictures via mail to his grandson, his son loses his cool and asks him to keep out of his life. This leaves Military Uncle heartbroken.
Phone call from God
The phone call from God is one of the salient features in the novel. The author has represented god as a friendly figure rather than a boss. He is shown as speaking in modern English rather than the stereo-typical pure English or Latin that one usually encounters God saying. The circumstances in which the characters of the novel get a phone call from God is discussed in the next paragraph. In order to cheer themselves up, all the lead characters of the novel decide to go and enjoy at a night club. After enjoying for a while, they leave for office. Midway through the journey, Vroom starts to feel nauseated after drinking alcohol and so they stop and venture out. Vroom throws up and also breaks the window-pane of a shop thus spreading an alarm. They rush out of the place in fear. While returning, they face a life-threatening situation when their Qualis crashes into a construction site hanging over a mesh of iron construction rods. As the rods began to yield slowly, they started to panic. They are unable to call for help as there is no mobile phone network at that place. In this situation, Shyam's mobile phone starts ringing. The phone call is from God. He speaks to all of them and gives them suggestions to improve their life. After that, God also advises them on how to get their vehicle out of the construction site. The conversation with God motivates the group to such an extent that they get ready to face their problems with utmost determination and motivation. Meanwhile Vroom and Shyam hatch up a plan to throw Bakshi out of the call center and prevent the closing of Connexions call center, whose employees are to be downsized radically. When they emerge out of danger, they have clear-cut goals in their mind. On returning to the Call Center, they carry out their plans with dexterity.
Translation
This book has been translated into HindiHindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and is published by Prabhaat Prakashan .
Reception
Like its predecessor ,'One night @ the call center" met with largely negative reviews. Also Chetan Bhagat began to receive widespread negative attention for the modest pricing of his books. Considered to be a deliberate marketing ploy , the pricing led to debates all over the indian publishing industry with some calling it ' a shrewd move by a clever IIM graduate'.Film adaptations
Noted BollywoodBollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
film director Rohan Sippy
Rohan Sippy
Rohan Sippy is an Indian film director and producer who has directed three films: Kuch Naa Kaho , Bluffmaster! and Dum Maaro Dum . He is the son of Ramesh Sippy, the director of the Hindi blockbuster film Sholay, and grandson of producer G. P. Sippy...
had bought the rights from the author Chetan Bhagat, but later Sippy let the rights pass on to director Atul Agnihotri
Atul Agnihotri
Atul Agnihotri is a Hindi actor and director.-Career:Agnihorti's career stretches back to 1983 when he made a brief appearance as a child artist in Pasand Apni Apni. He started his film career as an adult in 1993 with Mahesh Bhatt's Sir...
, brother-in-law of Salman Khan. The movie version of the novel is titled as Hello
Hello (film)
Hello is an 2008 Bollywood thriller film directed and produced by Atul Agnihotri, starring Sharman Joshi, Sohail Khan, Gul Panag, Isha Koppikar, Amrita Arora and Sharat Saxena in the lead roles. The film is based on Chetan Bhagat's novel, One Night @ the Call Center. It also had cameo roles from...
starring Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Amrita Arora, Katrina Kaif, Gul Panag, Sharman Joshi.
Hello was released on 10 October 2008 to average to bad reviews and did poor business especially in multiplexes of big cities and was declared flop as it did 5 crore business in the first 2 days itself.
See also
- Five Point Someone - What not to do at IITFive Point Someone - What not to do at IITFive Point Someone – What not to do at IIT! is a 2004 novel written by Chetan Bhagat, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. This was his debut novel...
- The Three Mistakes of My LifeThe Three Mistakes of My LifeThe 3 Mistakes of my Life is the third novel written by Chetan Bhagat. The book was published in May 2008 and had an initial print-run of 420,000...
- Hello (film)Hello (film)Hello is an 2008 Bollywood thriller film directed and produced by Atul Agnihotri, starring Sharman Joshi, Sohail Khan, Gul Panag, Isha Koppikar, Amrita Arora and Sharat Saxena in the lead roles. The film is based on Chetan Bhagat's novel, One Night @ the Call Center. It also had cameo roles from...
- The film based on the story. - 2 States: The Story of My Marriage
- Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition