One Night At The Call Center - Book Review

This book is by Chetan Bhagat, a most happening Indian youth writer. The book will definitely keep you glued to it until you finish it. A must read for people in IT, BPO kind of jobs. Though it has a few "out of the world", "unreal" moments unlike the other stories of the author, it still manages to have some real moments that many of us can feel very close to our heart. The characters in the novel are sketched in detail with uniqueness in each.

The story is narrated by Shyam an aspiring team leader in a call center. He ends up with a call center job as result of a lot of pressure from his relatives who look at him as a 'good for nothing' chap who could not get into a decent job after his studies. The night shift job detaches him from his family. When the whole house is in a party mood getting ready for a cousin's marriage, he had to get ready for his night-shift job. The whole novel is about the happenings of one night at the call center, though it travels back and forth with Shyam's dates with Priyanka, his team mate and ex-girl friend. Shyam decides to rebuild his broken love after his promotion to team lead. And this promotion depends upon a website project he has been working with his friend Vroom  for two years. Things start collapsing when Priyanka announces her marriage proposal with a Microsoft guy in US. It becomes worse when Shyam's boss Bakshi takes credit of his website project thereby getting a good impression from his foreign counterparts who offer him an opportunity for a long-term onsite project. Then they get an information that the management is going to fire 40% of their staffs in the call center. After a lot of twists and turns (including their encounter with God Himself) Sriram manages to become a revived confident young man who quits the call center job and wishes to start his own web site company with Vroom as his partner. He also teaches a good lesson to Bakshi and dramatically saves the jobs of 40% of the call center employees.He also gets back his lost love. All is well that ends well :)

This novel gives a feeling of peeping into a call center for one night. It even includes the technical difficulties they face, the infrastructure set up in which they work, their feelings for each other, their personal life, etc. It comes as a package and the readers will definitely like the wonderful flow of the novel and this is the area in which the writer is an expert.

Waiting For the Mahatma - by R. K. Narayan - Book Review

This story is about a youth who is volatile and unsteady minded and doesn't know whether he is really patriotic or just acts to be patriotic to be in the presence of his sweet heart. If he is patriotic, does he support non-violence or violence to achieve independence? Does he consider Gandhiji or Subhash Chandra Bose as his leader? The protagonist Sriram has no answer for these questions, as his mind keeps swinging between thoughts and is easily influenced by people around him.

 Sriram has no father and mother and is brought up by his granny who belongs to a well-off family. One day when he goes to the market road, he finds a  beautiful young girl Bharathi and falls in love with her. Later he finds that she is an activist in Gandhiji's non-violence movement against the British in the Indian freedom struggle. Sriram manages to meet Gandhiji with the help of Bharathi who is extremely brave and witty. When he proposes to marry her, the girl though interested in marrying him, prefers to get Gandhiji's permission before making a decision. Sriram elopes out of his house without informing his Granny to participate vigorously in freedom struggle. But when Gandhiji requests every one of his activist to surrender to the police and fill the prisons, Bharathi readily accepts Bapuji's request but Sriram isn't interested. He stays in an old ruined temple where he meets a photographer who influences him and makes him join the violent freedom struggle with Subhash Chandra Bose leading their way. He performs a few immoral acts that swallow the life of innocent people. Then he goes back to his home to see his Granny whom he hears is very sick. But there he finds her dead and dramatically the events fold up when his Granny is found to be alive when they were about to burn her. Before his Granny could recover completely, Sriram is being arrested by the police. He stays in the prison in the company of other prisoners for a really long time, without the knowledge of date, day or time. Finally after the independence he is released from the prison. He finds his house occupied by another family who were paying rent to Granny. He is told that his Granny had left to a distant place to visit temples and lead a peaceful life during her last few days. He then manages to meet his old sweet heart Bharathi in a distant place in India taking care of several abandoned kids. They wish to get married but were seeking for Mahatma's permission. Somehow they manage to get his permission and Bapuji is more than happy to conduct their wedding. But before the event, Gandhiji is being killed in a gathering where the novel comes to an abrupt but an appreciable end.

Sriram is definitely not a super hero or a big inspiration to anyone. He is just a boy next door who has his own flaws. The reader is sure to take pity on Sriram at any point in the novel. The Granny's death plot and her recovery is a dramatic but a wonderful twist in the tale. Granny's attitude towards Gandhiji and his movements is being told with a very honest approach in the novel. Any old woman of that era would have had that notion and is portrayed in an upright way. Bharathi's portrayal definitely deserves a mention. Any reader would feel a lot of respect for Bharathi for her wit, bravery and dignity. She contradicts timid Sriram in all her thoughts and behaviour but still they are attracted to each other which is justified in a compromising way. Overall this novel is a must read for all R.K Narayan's fans and people aspiring to be one :)

The Dark Room by R.K. Narayan - Book Review

I am slowly becoming an ardent fan of R.K. Narayan and his writing style. I have read several of his books, but this one turned out to be a very different book among the others. Though there are a few hilarious moments in the book, it is mostly about the male chauvinistic society, and how timid Indian women choose to stay with an arrogant husband than to come out of it and lead an independent life. It becomes nearly impossible especially when the woman in question has children and is meek minded.

The protagonist Savithri, accepts her husband's rudeness in all situations but bursts out her emotions when he is found guilty of an affair with a co-worker. She decides to come out during a mid-night quarrel with him in spite of her fearful timid nature. She tries to take the children with her, but her husband would not allow her to do so. She leaves her three children, Kamala, Sumathi and Babu and steps out of her house in an odd hour. She walks straight to the river and tries to drown herself, but is saved by a poor part-time burglar. Soon she finds herself in the company of the burglar's wife. She strongly develops the feeling of being independent and to earn for her living and refuses to eat anything unless she gets a job. Finally she becomes a care-taker of a temple. Her determination and anger lasts only for 3 days, after which she feels home-sick and wants to go back to her children. She leaves the job and returns home. She is received happily by her children and there is not much of approval or rejection from her husband. The couple exchange conversations  as though things have been more than normal, the past three days.

I have an odd habit of reading the last chapter when I am in the middle of the novel. This book gave me a jerk when I read the last chapter when I was actually in the middle. In a single page the writer convinces the readers on how Savithri changes her mind to go back to her family.

The characters in the novel are very real in their own way. We can still see several Savithris living among us. Though the novel is set in late 1930s, the characters are not out-dated. Even after several centuries there will still be Savithris and Ramanis where the novel succeeds in winning time.

How she started to speak...

I am wondering how my little one had learnt to start speaking. During her initial days of learning, she used to talk a lot of sentences together which made no sense. It looked more like a Chinese language to us. She didn't mean to express anything. It was just that, she wanted to move her tongue here and there and try to make noises similar to the way we all speak. Slowly a few words like "athai" (aunt), thaathaa (grandpa), amma (mom), appa (dad) started coming out. Until that point I remember her learning process. After that it was a jet fast learning. Before I could even realize that she has started speaking, she came up to a level of learning numbers, alphabets, rhymes, colours, fruits, vegetables, months, days etc. etc. with no effort of ours - thanks to the latest technology of smart phones and internet. Every word that comes out of my mouth is very keenly observed and remembered by a cute little pair of ears. So I am becoming very conscious about the words I say. She imitates most of our words, but the surprising part is that she uses the words at the right time and instance.

For eg: I was refusing to play her the Noddy cartoon in the laptop as she was refusing to eat. I was insisting that I would play it only when she eats her dinner. She pleaded several times and found that she could not convince me. She ran to her grandma (my mom) in an intention to raise a charge against me. I was eager to hear what she was going to say. She said "Paati, Amma is torturing me!!!" Me and my mom were dumbstruck. She is just going to be 3 and she talks about "torture".

I was sure that I had used this word some time in front of her. Though she doesn't ask for the meaning directly to me when I use it, she understands it in such a way that she uses it in her own sentence during similar situations.

That day, I learnt an important lesson in parenting. Kids are more like our own mirror image. We must change our own make over and appearance so that the mirror image meets our expectation. :)

The Park

Every week end started proving to be very lazy one for me and my husband. It was getting worse week after week. Waking up late was the last thing we wanted to do. But somehow our three year old would not let us get out of the bed until it is really late. So we had planned to wake up early and choose one of the beautiful parks in our locality to go for a fresh walk. My daughter would readily sacrifice her morning sleep and jump out of her bed if we would take her out. We chose Natesan Park in T Nagar as our destination.

We were all excited about the next day's event and happily slept earlier than usual on a Friday night. The next day we were all fresh and ready at 6:30. It was a ten minute drive to the park. My daughter looked very happy and had imagined all about the slides and swings she was going to take charge of. Little was she aware of the disappointment that was going to come her way. The park was a huge one crowded with a lot of people during such early hours. People of all ages were seen there, but definitely not as young as my daughter. Soon we were a part of the frantic lot who were desperately working out to sweat off. The park had a very huge walking area with lots of trees and beautiful plants around and with spongy lawns. All types of colorful birds could be seen. It was quite tidy compared to many other parks. They had tried to put up a children's play area. The slides and swings were available and were very new but were yet to be fixed. When we were nearing that area my heart palpitated. I realized that my daughter was going to become unruly. The only weapon I use during such a situation is, "threatening". I would say that a man with a strange looking face, wearing a black dress, having a long bag in his hand would come and put her in his bag and take her away if she shouts/cries and he would always burst crackers (a thing that frightens my daughter the most) near her ears. She would keep quiet when I uttered the word "Poochaandi" (the man in black dress). But this time she was desperate, she wanted to play the slide at least once. She was least bothered about the "Poochaandi" now. She said "Let him come. I want to play the slide now!!". We were unable to convince her that her favorite games were yet to be fixed and she would fall down if she climbs on an unfixed slide. It resulted in a loud cry which made many faces angry. We could understand the message conveyed by those faces - "Why the hell do you bring your child out when you can't manage her!!!”  We had to show her some cartoons we had in our mobile phones which always proved to work out during such emergencies. She looked convinced after some time. We sat on a park bench watching the nature and people around. People of all ages were walking around completing several rounds proudly. Even a few familiar faces we see in television soaps were seen. They all had the same goal of becoming slim and healthy.

When we reached a huge lawn we saw a strange sight before us. Around ten people (a mixture of old and young) were standing around forming a big circle and were laughing aloud. It looked extremely humorous. It is called laughing therapy and is believed that the more we laugh the more we become healthy and sound. All of a sudden I remembered my little one. She has a loud voice and usually talks unmindful of what others would think (she is after all just 3). She carefully looked at the people laughing aloud. "Amma why are they laughing like crazy people?" She could not have done anything worse than this to us. One among them heard her say that and looked at us with a long red face. One could never believe that this person was laughing aloud, a second ago. No wonder he had come for a laughing therapy. He was about to say something to us, but we almost ran away and reached a farther point where we would not hear him.

As we were walking through the long stretch, all of a sudden a man running in the opposite direction bent himself to his right almost near my daughter's leg and made an action as though he was picking something from the ground. He gave all of us a big shock. He was unmindful of our shock and continued his action alternately to his left and to his right. I gave a puzzling look at my husband. Then my husband explained me that he should be practicing for a cricket match and his action was similar to a fielder's and he was trying to pick up an invisible ball. He could easily explain this to me. But how about my little one? He will have to explain what is cricket? Who is a fielder? What does he do? And every back ground information without which my daughter would not be happy with the answer. Thankfully she was busy watching a wood pecker making a hole on a tree and she was not aware of what had happened near her.

And then we encountered a middle aged lady exercising in the park. My little one had not known what “Exercising” was. So it looked very strange for her. She kept asking me what the lady was doing. I was trying to explain her by all means but was unable to satisfy her. She convinced herself and came to a conclusion that it was similar to playing a peek-a-boo game. As we were having a brief talk about exercising, my husband was suddenly hit hard on his left shoulder. A hefty man had hit him hard as he walked his way in the reverse direction. He was walking backwards, perhaps suggested by some noble man that walking backwards would make your heart, body and soul pure and perfect. He did not wait for my husband to react. He kept continuing his journey backwards. I thought, definitely he was going to be blasted by someone especially if it were a woman.

After all these adventures, it was 8:00 AM and was becoming sunny. We were prepared to leave the Park having enjoyed the fresh morning walk. Nature provides enormous things for us to refresh and step out of our regular schedules. We felt guilty that we had wasted our time lying down on bed missing all of these. We made our mind to visit the park every weekend and we had been following it as our routine.