Mar 15, 2006 03:07 PM
2149 Views
(Updated Mar 15, 2006 03:07 PM)
Indian author Chetan Bhagat's first book ' Five Point Someone' was great. So, with higher expectations, I read his second book ' One night @ the call center'. I have mixed reaction about this book. I would strongly say, FPS was better, partly because this book is sort of unbelievable. Secondly, I couldn't find much humour in this book.
However, Let me explain this story to you.
Story...
The book begins with Chetan travelling in a train. A lady tells him this story with one condition that he must write a book on it. Chetan agrees to this and the lady begins the story.
The story is about 6 people who work in a call-center. 5 of them have major role in the story.
These people namely Vroom or Varun, Shyam or Sam, Esha, Radhika and Priyanka. The 6th person is Military Uncle who has a light part in the story. All these people work at the Connexions call center. This call center is about to right-size it's staff as it has been incurring losses. They have only 1 client namely Western Appliances corp. These 6 people have shift from 10.30 in the night to 6.30 in the morning. It is a major shift as most of the calls occur in this time.
Since the news of right-sizing hits the ears of the 6 people, they get worried about their jobs. Moreover,the boss, bakshi is a selfish and self-centered person who is interested in his welfare only. In fact, he sends the web-site project designed by Vroom and Shyam under his name to get credit and go to Boston.
I felt that this book had 80% of nothing at 20% of story. in fact, the 'Call From God' comes only towards the end of the book. So, I will directly move to the end of the book.. I mean, the beginning of the story.
Now, the 6 people are stuck inside a Qualis on top of a construction site . The car is balanced on Steel rods used for construction. If the car moves a bit, all of em die. Now is when Shyam recieves a call from God in his cell-phone. God asks each of the 6 about their life ambition. Each of them speak thier heart out telling God what they felt. After all the people finish telling their stories, God asks them about the resolution for the problems faced by them. They tell something for this too. Finally, God helps them out of the construction site. The 6 decide to make Bakshi pay for his mistake and they put him into a fix. They also spread a fake news telling all their call center clients that there is a virus in the computers of US and only Connexions can help them. The call volumes increase and people are saved off thier jobs.
There ends this book. I felt it is OK for a one stretch read. The language is good, but not as good as FPS. Thats all with this book.
