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 :)