Jhakaas. Review on One Night at the Call Centre - Chetan Bhagat

Six friends, messed up lives, one night, call from the god…

After Five Point Someone, I was waiting eagerly for this book. One Night @ The Call Center. When Chetan Bhagat wrote his first book, he would have not been even imagined that expectations would be this high from his second book. OK, enough of this mind-boggling introduction now, lets get to the point quickly.

One Night @ The Call Center

INTRODUCTION

Author : Chetan Bhagat (oops, An IIT-D and IIM-A alumnus !!!)

Publisher : Rupa and Company (Now, why I am telling this, formality dude!)

Cost : Rs. 95/- (Now, that’s affordable)

Type : Fiction. A dark, witty and humorous novel. ( no kidding this time)

CHARACTERS

Shyam : The narrator. Works at a call center. (hero !)

Vroom : A pizza-jeans-automobile buff. (hero’s best friend)

Esha : Another friend. Aspiring Model.

Military Uncle : Co-worker at the call center.

Radhika : Another friend. Housewife.

Priyanka : Shyam’s ex-girlfriend. (heroin !)

Bakshi : Shyam’s boss. (villain !)

PLOT

These six friends Shyam, Vroom, Esha, Radhika, Priyanka and Military Uncle(he’s not actually a friend though) work at a call center called ‘connexions’ in Gurgaon. They work in the night shift. This is the story set up in only ONE NIGHT. All these friends reach their working place at around 10:30 in the night. They all have messed up lives. <here, let me go one-by-one>.

Shyam: The narrator, he has lost his self-confidence. He just always thinks that ‘he is one big loser, good-for-nothing-chap’. His girlfriend has also dumped him, though he still has feelings for her. Add to this, he has a very disgusting, pissed off boss, Bakshi, who always want to take credit off from him.

Vroom: His actual name is Varun. He is a cool, hip n’hop guy but he has his own problems. His parents are separated. He is not satisfied with this job at all but he is doing it for money (to match up with his rich friends’ boozing life style). He has feelings for Esha but to Esha the priority is her modeling career. Vroom is interested in journalism as well.

Radhika: She is married to Anuj (His college-luv-interest !). Radhika tries her best to adjust with Anuj’s ultra-traditional parents. She works hard all day, (despite of having a night-shift-job), but, still her mother-in-law is not happy with her. Add to it, she later finds that her husband is having an affair with a girl called Payal.

Military Uncle: He is a retired Army officer. He has a son, daughter-in-law and a grandson. His son threw him out of his family (something of the sort, movie Baghban ! if u can recall). He loves his family very much, but can’t do anything except missing them.

Esha : An aspiring model, she is the hot gal of the group. In the daytime, she keeps looking for some modelling assignment and in the night, she works @ the call center. She is from Chandigarh, her family is against her modelling-ambitions. Her problems became manifold when she becomes the convict of casting-couch-syndrome.

Priyanka : Last but not the least. She is having problems with her mother. Her mother wants her to marry a NRI person. She founds Ganesh (and dumps Shyam!) and likes him too, but here once again her mother creates the drama by forcing her to get married by next month.

Now, getting back to the story. So, these guys, having messed up lives, are working together. Then there comes some problem with the systems(phone lines etc.). These guys then decide to go for a drive. While returning, they have an accident-sort-of thing and they got trapped in a situation where they could die any second. It is then, a call comes from GOD ! (Reader’s may not digest it, but it is the fiction-story dude). They all have a conversation with GOD, and then God suggests them a way to get out of all the troubles. This revolutionizes their mind-sets, they come out from that weird situation where they were trapped. Then, they return to the call center. Things then start to happen in their favour and they all ……come out HAPPILY. (Well, I do not want to kill your joy of reading by telling all this….so plz pardon me!)

MERITS

1. Funny, humorous novel with a dark side to it.

   
   




2. With dark side, I mean those aspects of life, which we never take care of !

   
   




3. Brilliant story telling. Writing style is very different and casual.

   
   




4. You can ‘connect’ to the characters very easily.

   
   




5. With a price tag of Rs. 95 /- only, it is quite affordable.

   
   




6. Hey, this book can serve as a very good GIFT to a friend or bf/gf ;)

   
   

DEMERITS

1. Content wise, there could have been more ‘twists’n turns’.

   
   




2. Second half (esp. when God comes into the scene) gets a bit dreggy.

   
   




3. Story gets a bit too predictive at times.

   
   

Novel-o-meter

(points given out of 10)

Content : 6

Story telling : 7

Pace : 8

Writing Style : 9

Character-connectivity : 10

Overall : 8

The CONCLUSION

The saying goes well for the characters of the book, ''Life is like a sweet melody, only lyrics are messed up ! ''

All’n all, a fundoo and cool book. Go for it !