The seed of Indian Writing in English which was initially sown during the time of British rule in India has blossomed into a beautiful flower in the present time, which is witnessed through the independent status achieved by Indian Writing in English in the realm of World Literature. Post-Independent writings and recent Indian writing in English is different in that it tries to give expression to the Indian experience of the modern predicaments. Writers such as Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Arundati Roy, Meena Alexander, Anita Nair, Jhumpa Lahiri etc. are some who have rightly captured the spirit of the age dealing with issues such as the East-West conflict, multi-culturalism, social realism, gender issues, ecological concerns, magic realism, diasporic writings.
The notion of ‘New India’ based on the nation’s economic growth and prosperity clearly defines how India is a ‘global player’ in the world’s economies, especially owing to its success rate in BPO/call centre industry. And thus we find a new genre in Indian writing namely call-center lit, exploring the corporate lives in New India.
Globalization and the Call Centre
Globalization as we know means integrating one country’s economy with the world economy. One such integration that is witnessed in India is through the proliferation of BPO industry or in common parlance the call centres. Becoming the “symbol of India’s newly globalised workforce” (Tharoor 17), the young and skilled Indians earn and hoard money unimaginable by their fathers and forefathers. However, these young minds forget the fact that by assuming a false or a presumed identity as a ‘Westerner’ and by adopting a culture totally unfamiliar to him/her, he/she is in-fact losing the true identity as an Indian. It is this scenario that the paper discusses as portrayed by Chetan Bhagat in his best-seller One Night @ the Call Center.
Professional and Personal Crisis
The novel presents both the professional and personal crisis of the unsecured generation of the cosmopolitan city through the six call-center agents — Shyam, Varun, Priyanka, Radhika, Esha and the Military Uncle. All these characters aptly represent the yearnings of the youth of ‘New India’ in their denial of the typical Indian value system and embracing the Western identity and values.
While all these characters join the call-center with the intention of creating an identity of their own, they forget the very factors destroying their Indian identity under the pretext of globalization. For instance, the characters are forced to change their names to Western ones by their Boss Bakshi — Shyam becomes Sam Marcy, Varun becomes Victor Mell, Radhika becomes Regina etc.
The American Accent and Identity
Bhagat critiques the rule of the call-centre’s demanding their agents to use an American name and Americanized English. The frustration in using such an Americanized version of English is seen when Shyam is asked to give accent training to the new recruits.
Exploitation in the BPO Hierarchy
While the Boss controlled the agents on one hand, the American clients humiliated the agents on the other hand. The agents had to steer clear the silly or mean doubts of the American customers in the politest way possible however psycho the customer may be in his queries. Throughout the text, we find the characters realizing now and then that the job sucks their labour at a cheaper and humiliating rate, yet they do not display their guts until God opens them up to the ‘inner call’.
The Deus Ex Machina
The introduction of the technique of deus-ex-machina, in the form of telephone call from God solves the professional crisis and in-turn the personal crisis of the characters, by suggesting four ingredients necessary to evolve as a successful person. Following this, Vroom encourages his colleagues saying that the Indians are no less than the Americans, that they should not have taken up jobs just for money.
Conclusion
Thus Tharoor’s statement proves true that “If what India is doing is providing coolie labour, then today the coolies are scheduling the trains” (Tharoor 18).
Works Cited
- Bhagat, Chetan. One Night @ the Call Center. New Delhi: Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd., 2005. Print.
- Rodrigues, Joseph. “Chetan Bhagat’s One Night @ The Call Center: A Global Post — Modern Literature”. Journal of Higher Education and Research Society. Vol. 1, Issue 1. Mumbai: Lokmanya Tilak College of Engineering, Oct. 2013. Web.
- Southmayd, Stephanie Stonehewer. “India on the Line: Globalization, Resistance, and the Literature of Outsourcing”. Postcolonial Text, Vol 8, No 1. University of Toronto, 2013. Web.
- Tharoor, Shashi. The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2007. Print.