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(Bhagat)
Works Cited
Name:
Joshi Riddhi
Topic:
Globalisation in One night @ the call center
Roll
no: 30
Paper
no 13: New Literature
M.A:
Sem-4
Enrolment
no. : 2069108420180028
Year:
2017-19
Submitted
to:
S.B.
Gardi Department of English
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar university
Introduction of Author:
Chetan Bhagat
is one of the great Indian writers. Chetan Bhagat in his books always writes
about the young India. In his books he always writes about the problem in
Indian society. Chetan Bhagat also who is a best seller of his books.
Bhagat
is also columnist for newspaper such as “The Times of India” and “Dainik
Bhaskar”, where he writes about the youth career development and current
affairs. “The New York” times called him as “The biggest selling English
language novelist in India’s history”.
Time
magazine named him amongst the 100 most influential people in the world and
fast company, U. S. A. listed him as one of the world’s 100 most creative
people in business. In the novels he uses very simple language so that reader
can easily understand and prefers to read more.
Bhagat’s
novels have been adapted into Bollywood films like, 2 States, 3 idiots, Kai po
che!, Hello, etc.
Chetan Bhagat’s famous works:
1)
Five Point Someone (2004)
2)
One Night @ the Call Center
(2005)
3)
The 3 Mistakes of My Life
(2008)
4)
2 States (2009)
5)
Revolution 2020 (2011)
6)
What Young India Wants(2012)
7)
Half Girlfriend (2014)
Let’s see the Globalisation in One night @ the
call center.
One
night @ the call center was made into a movie in 2008 with the title Hello,
directed by Atul Agnihotri. Novel follows a group of six friends who work at a
call center in India The six characters in the book are deeply disturbed by
their own troubles, but rather than finding solutions to their problems,
they just get more intertwined in them
due to their refusal to deal with their issues. Shyam Mehra is a narrator and
the most important character of the book. Hero of the book along with his close
friend Vroom (varun malhotra). Varun is the most carefree person in novel. He
has a soft corner for his colleague Esha. Esha is an attractive girl. She wants
to become a model. She went to cross the limits of sleeping with the designer
to get the contract. Radhika Jha is already married. She stays with her husband
and in-laws house. She has great trust and love for her husband. Priyanka is an
intelligent and a practical girl and loves shyam. She broke up with him.
Priyanka is initially happy about her new engagement with ganesh Gupta. After
all the conflict and facing all the problems she chooses her love shyam and
marry with him. Last Military Uncle lives alone so he works at the call center
to earn some extra money.
What is Globalisation:
Cities and the urban zones are at the core of
development strategy of globalization. They are the grounds where all the
factors condusive for globalization can handily come together and show results.
In order to attain socio-economic and politico-cultural integration of the
world's population, well developed cities are the demand of the time. Bhagat's
fictions reflect the scene in globalizing cities in India. In his One Night
@ the Call Center we come across fast growing city structures like Gurgaon
(Haryana), where now massive apartments and commercial malls are under
construction, where people feel that they are moving through the maze of
construction sites. Here there are long and broad highways, making journey easier.
A number of efforts to remove infrastructural constraints in order to
facilitate the process of globalization are underway. The BPO sector rapidly
developed in urban India and could create lakhs of jobs by the mid of first
decade of 21st century (M.G. Basava Raja 1015). This BPO industry makes itself
felt in Bhagat's Gurgaon. Here there is a BPO, 'Connexions Call Centre', People
travel all the way from their homes in Delhi over to Gurgaon, because it offers
jobs to them. Here from the calls of the customers in America are answered, and
the ball is kept rolling in America and down here in India. Virtually the
economy of two countries seems to have integrated at a point. Gurgaon keeps
awake 24/7. It is a picture of a reality that almost all the Metropolitans and
the cities on the way to follow in the footsteps, keep up likewise. The story
of 2 States takes us to Ahmedabad, Delhi and Chennai, the cities which
are among a selected few as preferred career destinations in India. Ahmedabad
along with traditional educational institutions, houses the institutional
campuses such as; IIM and IIT, helping people avail themselves of global
opportunities. This mushrooming of such institutions resulted due to
liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation (LPG). Metropolitans and the
potential urban zones are the places where Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as advocated
by international community is being attracted, and provided the proper global
atmosphere. For example Citibank in 2 States makes its business here in
India, hiring labour and resources from here only.
Globalization has increased the pace of movement of
people, goods and the economy across the national lines. Bhagat very
comfortably depicts this atmosphere in the above cited works. Therein we see
people moving about quite frequently. The six people working in ON@CC are
picked up by a call center's car every night from their respective homes in
Delhi, and are dropped at their work place at Gurgaon, and vice-versa when
their duty hours are over in morning. This commuting consumes near about five
hours of their daily life. The Manager of the call centre, Bakshi, is almost
dying to be promoted to work at Boston. The Protagonist, krish Malhotra, and
his beloved Ananya Swaminathan in 2 States, working in multinationals
(MNCs), find out reasons to travel from Delhi to Chennai, and vice-versa in
order to serve for their organizations. Both the fictions show us the relatives
living in US, and often visiting India for some family events, mostly for
choosing their prospective brides. Even the parents look forward to marriage
offers from NRIs for their daughters. In both the books we see businesses of
one country doing quite well in other ones,
The young
generation shown in both the fictions possesses a sense of competition, at the
same time it is quite ambitious and wants to do everything that is possible to
climb up the career ladder as higher as possible. In ON@CC the protagonist, Shyam Mehra, named
in office as Sam Marcy, as it sounded to be a globally suited name, earlier
worked in an ad agency but due to low payment he left the agency, and joined
this call centre. Now Sam aspires to become a team leader from being merely an
agent, so that he could prove himself as having guts and also become worthy to
marry Priyanka. Shyam is a fine web designer. For the main bay of his company
that dealt with the computer related problems of the US based customers he
designs a trouble-shooting web site. Vroom an ambitious youth, is also a
trouble-shooter. In an effort to save the endangered job positions of the call
center employees due to slack in computer and software industry, Vroom subtly
strikes upon an idea, that he could scare the US based customers into calling
them. Only that the customers were to be told that their PCs were hit by some
virus, spread by evil forces, and only the experts of this company could save
them out of this. Thus he buys time from the company authorities, and succeeds
in saving the call centre from closing down. By the end both Shyam and Vroom
decide to start their own web designing firm.
Growing awareness of technology and
the use of it have definitely exposed India to a new environment. This change
has come about due to strong wish of youths to participate in the technological
revolution that is going on all around the world. Both the fictions of Bhagat
show techno-friendly youths, participating in the development, use and the
spread of it. All the people working at the call center in his fiction handle
the calls and computers easily. Through certain episodes, Bhagat has underlined
a palpable difference between the young and the old generation where the young
generation in comparison with the old one is technologically more
participative. Vroom and Shyam develop a trouble-shooting web site that could
be helpful for their company. They tell so to their manager but the manager
being an opportunist presents the said web site in his own name, however by the
end he is taken care of, as the new generation is sharper than the old one. In 2
States Krish helps his manager of Citibank in preparation of a Power Point
Presentation. Likewise he also helps his would-be father-in-law to make a PPT
to be presented at his job place.
Along with being competitive,
ambitious, and techno-savvy, the generation in Bhagat's fiction is trendy as
well. The global trend has not left the society untouched. Due to free incoming
of values, costumes, dresses, and the living habits of western world, the basis
of Indian culture has been greatly influenced.(P. Sam, and G. Sam. 1051) In ON@CC
Esha wants to be a model that is why she maintains herself in figure and
outlook, she has even worn a navel ring. Vroom for keeping in touch with the
ongoing time logs onto net, and makes his choices based on it. These six
people, when they go through a very troublesome night, visit a disco which is
kept open even at dawn. There we see girls, carrying themselves in zero figure,
clad in meagre clothes. A fully-clad female is scanned scornfully by others.
Here young boys and girls dance to the tune of European music. In 2 states Krish
is made to go out with a girl by his mother, so that they could get acquainted
with each other, and consequently would agree to marry. The girl even though
only half-educated is a humble trend-follower in dress, design and manners. The
female cousins of Krish, when they are in their family marriage event, secretly
want to drink Vodka and other alcoholic drinks. They are
In
Bhagat's fiction the attitude of youths towards love, marriage, and sex is not
at all emotional, on the contrary it is quite casual. Love, as it is an
instinctual feeling, the young generation feels the vibrations of it every now
and then but the expression of it and the carrying of their love relationships
have definitely changed. As we see in his fictions, there are love proposals
and rejections of them but everything is taken quite healthily or say in a
matter- of- fact way. Vroom in the call centre loved Esha, and proposed her
three to four times, and she kept rejecting him all these times. Even though it
is so, they work together and maintain quite a healthy friendship. Shyam and
Priyanka had been in relation ever since their college time. When they thought
that they should break up, they formally come together and put a break to their
relationship. Ultimately after all said and done they come together, and decide
to marry but the things that happen in between show us the changed relation
equations of our time. Shyam as he says wanted to 'move on', a new terminology in the subject
'Love', develops a casual love relationship with another girl at the call
center. A marriage proposal of an NRI working in Microsoft, entertains
Priyanka's fancy for the time being but when she learns about the baldness of
the guy, her affection turns once again towards Shyam.
Krish and Ananya in 2 States fall
in love with each other in a strange way. At IIM Ahmadabad, they started
studying together in Ananya's room. Krish could not concentrate on his studies,
as every time his attention would be caught by Ananya's looks. Out rightly he
told her so and the relationship got started quite surprisingly. Particularly
in this work, Love marriage and sex in case of Krish and Ananya come together
in a more mature way. They love and want to marry each other because they share
a mutual understanding, one of the major components in marriage. They look at
sex as a but- obvious thing in love. That is why they indulge in sex every now
and then. Thus both the fictions depict an urban reality that the young
generation is more in favour of love marriages than in arranged ones. The
attitude of this generation towards sex is not laden with guilt. They look at
sex as a way of expressing their love for their partner. While depicting this
acceptable reality Bhagat also shows us nonsense sometimes committed by
fickle-minded youth. People are so much fancied by the word love, that
sometimes love relations get started even between the people calling and
receiving wrong numbers.
With growing urbanization and
globalization a number of opportunities have opened up all around. Men and
Women are no more seen through the old spectacle which marked men as superior
and women as inferior. In this global atmosphere, so far belittled women are
given their due place and respect. With their own intellect and abilities they
are seen to be working shoulder to shoulder with men. Thus this 21st century is
of all, men and women equal. Even in case of marriages, now girls assert their
own opinions and choices. In ON@CC the number of men and women working
in call center is equal. Women work even in night shifts. They earn their own
living and make career choices. For example Esha for getting in Modelling left
her home and came to Delhi to translate her dream into reality. Priyanka is a
good daughter but in case of marriage she makes her own choice. Ananya, in 2
States in order to marry Krish tries to convince her parents till the end.
In her case her parents deserve a round of applause for their open-mindedness
who show the heart to
This new
environment along with multiple boons has given birth to certain curses also,
that are listed and discussed below:
Consumerism: With the ever growing global scene,
among various offshoots of globalization, 'Consumerism' came out as one of the
major sprawling things. In Bhagat's Call Center novel consumerism is criticized
as an unjustifiable behaviour: a kind of craze to get hold of things, when you
don't even need them. To inject and promote this behaviour sometimes
advertisement agencies sell all kind of nonsense ideas. The subtle observation
of the writer at one point definitely makes us to reflect on the nonsense fair
that we have been wandering in. The six characters in the story, in order to
relieve themselves of troublesome and painful night experience, visit a night
club. On the return journey as Vroom feels like vomiting, gets down along with
Shaym, where they see several advertising hoardings along the road:
".... showing all kinds of
people: a couple all smiles because they had just bought a toothbrush; a group
of friends giggling over their mobile phones; a family happily feeding their
kid junk food; a young graduate jumping with joy, clutching a credit card; a
girl holding seven shopping bags and beaming. All the ads had one thing in
common. Everyone looked incredibly happy"
Upon it Vroom says, "What the
hell are they so happy about? .... Look at that toothbrush couple. My mom and
dad, they are never that happy." (Bhagat 211)
It is a reality, as Vroom says
further, that nobody cares for anything, The channels who say they are for
today's youth, say so, "....because they want the damn Pizza Huts and
Cokes and Pepsis of the world to come and give their ads to them ....we will be
happy. Like young people don't have a fucking brain" (213). In 2
States not so emphatically but at times we see Cola and other soft drinks
being consumed by new generation quite comfortably at the restaurants like
Pizza Hut and Barista.
Eroding values: With growing urban mindset a
grossly compromising attitude is seen to be sipping in human behaviour. Mr.
V.R. Panchamukhi in his essay, 'India vision - 2020' rightly says: "One
dimension of development process which is totally ignored in the recent years
is that of erosion of 'Values' in our society....As a result of excessive
emphasis on cut throat competition for maximum acquisition of materialistic
benefits, many cherished values of life are getting fast eroded....'value of
contentment', 'value of cooperation', 'value of self-restraint in consumerism',
'value of unbiasedness', 'value of independence in thinking', 'value of
providing ideal leadership', 'value of managing oneself before managing other',
'value of knowledge and commitment as prime movers of action', the 'value of
duties as against right' , etc., are all getting eroded in the highly
materialistic paradigm of development and structural changes that are taking
place around us with immense speed and complexity." The call center
employee Esha for getting modelling assignments, gets ready to sleep with an
influential person in the concerned field. When even after this compromise she
doesn't get a way-in, she realises the horrible mistake she made. This example
of hers reveals a disgusting reality in the world of modelling and fashion. At
the same time it shows us a limitlessly compromising attitude that has come
over today's youth.
Thus the
fictional works of Bhagat: One Night @ the Call Center & 2 States
reflect the changing urban realities in globalizing India. Through these
works Bhagat subtly portrays the fast growing cities and urban zones along with
all the global factors, affecting the life, experience, dreams, and attitudes
of today's youth. Bhagat very comfortably depicts women empowerment as one of
the positive effects of globalization, at the same time, consumerism, eroding
values, and rising fears and anxieties of urban Indians as some of the negative
offshoots of it can not escape his piercing observations. The works cited above
can be considered as the subjective fictional stories of the changing urban
India.
Works Cited
-Bhagat, Chetan. One night @ the call center.
2005.
-Anil Kshirsagar, Mrs.R.P.Bonde, Dr.Suvrna T. Shinde.
"Globalisation and urban realities in India in Chetan Bhgat's One night
@ the call center and @ states." The international Journal in english
(2012): 8.
Bhagat, Chetan. One night @ the call center. 2005.
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