One Night @ the Call Center

Since you really can’t do too much on a monsoon day when you don’t have power, nothing is open, and all the streets are flooded, I picked up a popular fiction book here: One Night @ the Call Center. First, I’d like to make a spoiler alert right here.

Next, here are some interesting things:

1. The book is written in English. In terms of audience, it is probably looking for younger (teenagers and twentysomethings) audiences. By using English, it also is a book for upper class kids who have access to a good enough English education that they would be able to and would want to read the book.

2. The book is very clearly trying to convey a message, or have you learn something from it (almost like a fable). At the beginning, you are asked to write down something that you are afraid of, something that makes you angry, and one thing that you don’t like about yourself.

3. The book has an interesting choice of plot devices. While the plot revolves around a single night, there are many flashbacks to the past. It also keeps a surprising amount of unity of action, place, and time (insofar as we are referring to the sections about the actual evening).

4. There is also this interesting storytelling device. The author frames the book as such: he met someone on the train who told him this story and told him to interview all of the people who were involved.

5. A meeting with God- Of course, one instantly becomes more skeptical of a book when a God-figure just walks right into it. In this case, they get into a car accident and God walks right into it. Anyway, here are the lessons that God teaches them: In order to be successful, one must have moderate intelligence, imagination, self-confidence and the experience of failure. However, God also encourages them to take down a person “for the greater good,” which is achieved in a very mischievous way. While reading the book, it seemed to me that the God was definitely a Hindu-type god.

6. Nationalism- There are some very clear nationalist tendencies in this book. America (in particular) is hated on all the time. Here are some examples:

a. Saving the company- They save the company through preying on American fear- aka they convince Americans that their computers are broken and they must keeping calling the call center. Note that it is also phrased as such.

b. There is always the idea of a ‘strong’ India that comes from the actions of the common person. It also is similar to the idea of self-rule (aka hind swaraj) or independence.

c. Vroom and his merchandise- One of the characters, after talking to God, gives up some of his American things (like jeans and pizza) as well as his consumerist impulse.

7. Things missing in the book (potential contradictions if read through a Western cultural lens):

a. Diatribes about not swearing- in the book, there is tons of swearing, and no one ever says it is a bad thing at all. However, it could be in part because English swear words seem to carry a lot less weight here, in that people are very willing to drop English swear words, even in front of the children.

b. Diatribes against drunk driving- They get in the car accident because the driver was drunk, and yet no one says that driving while drunk. The closest that it gets is that someone else (also drunk) offers to drive instead, and nothing happens.