Rabindranath_Tagore_a_Renaissance_Man

------------------------------------------------- ENGLISH ------------------------------------------------- PROJECT WORK ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Book reviewed by RAM Dafe. ------------------------------------------------- Submitted to Mr. HU SIDDHIQUE. ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- One Night @ theCall Center BY CHETAN BHAGAT ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- REVIEW. ------------------------------------------------- One Night @ the Call Center  is a novel written by Chetan Bhagat and first published in 2005. The novel revolves around a group of six call center employees working in Connections call center in Gurgaon, Haryana. It takes place during the span of one night, in which all of the leading characters confront some aspect of themselves or their lives they would like to change. The story takes a dramatic and decisive turn through a literal deus ex machina, when the characters get a phone call from God. This is the second best-selling novel from the award winning author. ------------------------------------------------- Synopsis The book begins with a frame story which recounts a train journey from Kanpur to Delhi, During the journey, the narrating author meets a very beautiful girl. The girl offers to tell the author a story on the condition that he has to make it his second book. After a lot of hesitation, the author agrees. The story within the story, which comprises the bulk of the book, relates the events that happen one night at a call center. Told through the eyes of the protagonist, Shyam, it is a story of almost lost love, thwarted ambitions, absence of family affection, pressures of a patriarchal set up, and the work environment of a globalized office. Shyam loves but has lost Priyanka, who is now planning an arranged marriage with another; Vroom loves Esha; Esha wants to be a model, Radhika is in an unhappy marriage with a demanding mother-in-law, and Military Uncle wants to talk to his grandson; they all hate Bakshi, their cruel boss. Claimed to be based on a true story, the author chooses Shyam Mehra (alias Sam Marcy) as the narrator and protagonist, who is one among the six call center employees featured. ------------------------------------------------- Major themes The themes involve the anxieties and insecurities of the rising Indian middle class, including questions about career, inadequacy, marriage, family conflicts in a changing India, and the relationship of the young Indian middle class to both executives and ordinary clients whom they serve in the U.S.A. There is an aspect of self-help in the book as the author invites readers to identify aspects of themselves and their lives that make them angry and that they would like to change. One of the salient features of this novel is that all the characters experience a dramatic and disturbing event during the night when they receive a call from God, and all use this moment to re-examine their own lives. Shyam is very upset to learn that Priyanka is engaged to a person called Ganesh Gupta, who works at Microsoft in the US. To add to his woes, he is horrified to learn that Bakshi had cheated him, and Vroom, by submitting the Troubleshooting Website to the Boston centre as his own without crediting him and Vroom. Priyanka's woes Priyanka is first happy when she is engaged to Ganesh Gupta, who works for Microsoft but becomes furious when she hears that her parents have planned her marriage the very next month, which she feels is too early. Both her mother and Ganesh press her to agree to this proposal. She is even more saddened by the fact that Shyam was eavesdropping on her conversation with Ganesh. When Vroom and Shyam show her that Ganesh had forged his pictures to hide his baldness, she disapproves Ganesh for having cheated her. Esha's woes Esha had earlier done a compromise by sleeping with a designer to get a modeling contract. However the guy turned out to be opportunistic as he betrays her by telling her she can't become a model due to her height. He also tries to console her by sending her some money. Esha feels terribly betrayed and tries to suppress the mental pain by inflicting herself with physical pain by purposely cutting her skin. Vroom's woes Vroom is shocked to learn that Bakshi has cheated him and Shyam by submitting their work as his own. To add to his miseries, he overhears Esha telling the other girls that she had slept with a designer to get a modeling contract. Radhika's woes Radhika, who loved her husband very much, is shocked to learn about his dark side. When Vroom calls up her husband portraying as a radio jockey and asks him to dedicate roses and a song to someone special, he chooses his girlfriend Payal over his wife. Radhika who listens to this gets terribly upset as her husband has betrayed her. Military Uncle's woes Military Uncle tries to be nice to his son and grandson. But when he sends some pictures via mail to his grandson, his son loses his cool and asks him to keep out of his life. This leaves Military Uncle heartbroken. Phone call from God The phone call from God is one of the salient features in the novel. The author has represented god as a friendly figure rather than a boss. He is shown as speaking in modern English rather than the stereo-typical pure English or Latin that one usually encounters God saying. The circumstances in which the characters of the novel get a phone call from God is discussed in the next paragraph. In order to cheer themselves up, all the lead characters of the novel decide to go and enjoy at a night club. After enjoying for a while, they leave for office. Midway through the journey, Vroom starts to feel nauseated after drinking alcohol and so they stop and venture out. Vroom throws up and also breaks the window-pane of a shop thus spreading an alarm. They rush out of the place in fear. While returning, they face a life-threatening situation when their Qualis crashes into a construction site hanging over a mesh of iron construction rods. As the rods began to yield slowly, they started to panic. They are unable to call for help as there is no mobile phone network at that place. In this situation, Shyam's mobile phone starts ringing. The phone call is from God. He speaks to all of them and gives them suggestions to improve their life. After that, God also advises them on how to get their vehicle out of the construction site. The conversation with God motivates the group to such an extent that they get ready to face their problems with utmost determination and motivation. Meanwhile Vroom and Shyam hatch up a plan to throw Bakshi out of the call center and prevent the closing of Connections call center, whose employees are to be downsized radically. When they emerge out of danger, they have clear-cut goals in their mind. On returning to the Call Center, they carry out their plans with dexterity. ------------------------------------------------- Translation This book has been translated into Hindi and is published by Prabhaat Prakashan [1]. ------------------------------------------------- Film adaptations Noted Bollywood film director Rohan Sippy had bought the rights from the author Chetan Bhagat, but later Sippy let the rights pass on to director Atul Agnihotri, brother-in-law of Salman Khan. The movie version of the novel is titled as Hello starring Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Amrita Arora, Katrina Kaif, Gul Panag, Sharman Joshi. Hello was released on 10 October 2008 to average to bad reviews and did poor business especially in multiplexes of big cities an was declared flop as it did 5 crore business in the first 2 days itself. Hello is Atul Agnihotri’s second directorial venture after the 2004 box office dud “Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa” (starring Salman Khan and Preity Zinta). The movie stars Sohail Khan, Sharman Joshi, Isha Koppikar, Amrita Arora, Gul Panag and Sharat Saxena in key roles with Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan and Katrina Kaif in special appearances. Can Atul make an interesting watch out of an interesting read' Can the writer of the bestseller draft the screenplay of a movie with dexterity' Let find out.. Hello revolves around six call center agents; Shyam (Sharman Joshi), Priyanka (Gul Panag), Esha (Isha Koppikar), Varun aka Vroom (Sohail Khan), Radhika (Amrita Arora) and Military Uncle (Sharat Saxena). There are two things common among these agent friends, one is that they work for the same call center and the other is, all their lives are clobbered in its own respective ways. The movie is about these six agents and an event that changes their perspective of life and their life as a whole.. Overnight! In the movie “HELLO” Atul Agnihotri and Chetan Bhagat, credited together for the screenplay and dialogues of Hello, fail to do justice. Atul needs to work on his craftsmanship and do some good amount of homework before he gets down to direct a film. Chetan Bhagat is not so much of a screenplay writer as a novelist that he is. Hello requires another proof reading. Its story has worked magic as a book, but not so much as a movie. The problem with the adaptation is, its not been penned well and the sloppy direction adds to the misery of the viewer. The plot line is too thin for a movie. Defining each character over pages and pages sounds good for a novel, but using the entire first half to do so, in a movie is absurd and quite tedious to sit through. Although the characters are very common, someone who you have seen or heard off in your daily lives, they hardly connect. Also, the call from God scene lacks impact to be a life changing moment. THANK YOU