I have been curious about the 'Chetan Bhagat phenomenon for quite some time now. I remember a friend almost pushing the book 'Two States" into my hand but I firmly resisted it. The story seemed all too familiar and common. Seen it a lot in the family and everywhere around me. Anyway, so I actually picked up the book "One night at a call centre" from my library out of curiosity and found that it was not so bad at all.
"One night at a call centre" is Bhagat's second book after the best selling "Five Point Someone - what not to do at IIT". "One night at a call centre" is an interesting and fast paced book. I have to admit that I could read it really fast. I managed to finish it within two days which means that anyone who is reasonably fast in reading can read it in say 6-7 hours. Its easy to guess the story. It is about what happened one night at a call centre. Bhagat describes the lives, relationships and aspirations of the youngsters of today through the call centre set up. The situations and climax are quite believable. The beginning of the story was different and caught my attention. But I found the 'God factor' in the story quite unbelievable. Bhagat tries to pack everything into just one story, love, patriotism, spirituality and bring out a happy ending. Other than that, I thought it was a reasonably interesting book. It could have been a good short story too if he had tried it differently.
I really would recommend reading this book if one is bored, needs to fill time waiting or traveling. If you can buy a Jeffrey Archer or Sidney Sheldon then why not Chetan Bhagat. Atleast he is Indian. The criticism against the book could be that Bhagat is trying very hard to bring out the desh-bhakt in his audience. He is atrociously anti-US and anti-global capitalism. Ironic that he was a part of it while working for some investment bank in HongKong. The good thing about the book is that it is a positive story and actually quite funny at times. The language is something that could be heard in a college campus, it is filled with local slangs.
Chetan Bhagat is clearly not Arundhati Roy or Vikram Seth or even Upamanyu Chatterjee. But he is surely better than Sudha Murthy, Shashi Despande or Rohinton Mistry. At the end of reading the book I did think it was better than some of the other Indian books I had read recently, like "A fine balance" by Rohinton Mistry or "Ladies Coupe" by Anita Nair. I had to plough through the other two books that I mention here. " A fine balance" was long winded, sad and downright gross. I did not like "Ladies Coupe" for the same reason, it was just too bleak. I think I will devote a separate post to Indian English women authors. I need time and space to wonder why they write such bleak stories about Indian women.
The fact that Chetan Bhjagat has become a celebrity is just a consequence of the popularity of his books. I wish I didn't know so much about him before I read his book. But that is just crazy celebrity gossip that we are fed with everyday by media. I think Indian English authors like Chetan Bhagat will only increase in future. They might not all come up with Booker prize winning material. But they are needed for the literary scene to grow more local and original. The English reading audience in India is increasing every day. We need to see more Indian English authors targeting this audience. We need more Indian English horror stories, mystery stories, historic fiction and even pulp fiction.
"One night at a call centre" is Bhagat's second book after the best selling "Five Point Someone - what not to do at IIT". "One night at a call centre" is an interesting and fast paced book. I have to admit that I could read it really fast. I managed to finish it within two days which means that anyone who is reasonably fast in reading can read it in say 6-7 hours. Its easy to guess the story. It is about what happened one night at a call centre. Bhagat describes the lives, relationships and aspirations of the youngsters of today through the call centre set up. The situations and climax are quite believable. The beginning of the story was different and caught my attention. But I found the 'God factor' in the story quite unbelievable. Bhagat tries to pack everything into just one story, love, patriotism, spirituality and bring out a happy ending. Other than that, I thought it was a reasonably interesting book. It could have been a good short story too if he had tried it differently.
I really would recommend reading this book if one is bored, needs to fill time waiting or traveling. If you can buy a Jeffrey Archer or Sidney Sheldon then why not Chetan Bhagat. Atleast he is Indian. The criticism against the book could be that Bhagat is trying very hard to bring out the desh-bhakt in his audience. He is atrociously anti-US and anti-global capitalism. Ironic that he was a part of it while working for some investment bank in HongKong. The good thing about the book is that it is a positive story and actually quite funny at times. The language is something that could be heard in a college campus, it is filled with local slangs.
Chetan Bhagat is clearly not Arundhati Roy or Vikram Seth or even Upamanyu Chatterjee. But he is surely better than Sudha Murthy, Shashi Despande or Rohinton Mistry. At the end of reading the book I did think it was better than some of the other Indian books I had read recently, like "A fine balance" by Rohinton Mistry or "Ladies Coupe" by Anita Nair. I had to plough through the other two books that I mention here. " A fine balance" was long winded, sad and downright gross. I did not like "Ladies Coupe" for the same reason, it was just too bleak. I think I will devote a separate post to Indian English women authors. I need time and space to wonder why they write such bleak stories about Indian women.
The fact that Chetan Bhjagat has become a celebrity is just a consequence of the popularity of his books. I wish I didn't know so much about him before I read his book. But that is just crazy celebrity gossip that we are fed with everyday by media. I think Indian English authors like Chetan Bhagat will only increase in future. They might not all come up with Booker prize winning material. But they are needed for the literary scene to grow more local and original. The English reading audience in India is increasing every day. We need to see more Indian English authors targeting this audience. We need more Indian English horror stories, mystery stories, historic fiction and even pulp fiction.
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