One night @ the call center ..

Just finished reading 'one night @ call center' by Chatan Bhagat .. and I am sorry to say but I did not find it as good as the 'Five Point Someone'... In fact I did not like it as much .. If I have to rate this book, I would give it 2 (or if I am in a generous mood then 2.5 - 3) stars ...

Why ? well, lets see ... first and foremost, according to me, the writer has taken too much time to set the plot for this book. The story is far-stretched ... The romantic part does manage to get you reading more but then I feel a lot of the stuff is unnecessary and irrelevant to the story (which was not the case in Five Point Someone (FPS) .. ) The main punch line of the story is 'A phone call from God' ... but the phone call from God does not appear till the last few pages of the book .. secondly, according to me the character of Radhika is totally unnecessary and serves the only purpose of lengthening the short story .. and so is military uncle ..

OK. Lets talk a ittle about the story line. The story mostly revolves around the life of one person named 'Shyam' .. you can say he is the hero of the story, Priyanka being the heroine. Everyone else is just supporting actors like Vroom, Esha, Radhika, Bakshi, Military Uncle ... They have their share of the story but its not much .. its mainly Shyam and Priyanka who've broken up and Priyanka has agreed to marry some guy named Ganesh who works for Microsoft. (This is the biggest reason I didnt like the story ! why does the guy working in Microsoft get to loose ;) ? .. I am in the same boat as Ganesh at least as far as the job/marriage scene goes .. hell no ! I dont like that .. hehe .. just kidding :) ) Shyam is this guy who is talented but has lost his self-confidence on the way and has accepted his defeat .. In the end, like a hindi movie story, the heroine chooses the hero ... so the end isnt something great / different from what you would expect throughout the book ... so the book looses a few points there ... The prologue mentions that the book is gonna try to capture the life of Indian youth .. but I dont think it does anything like that ... it does not revolve around the life of an averge call-center guy ... so its still not a representative of Indian youth ... Also in the end, the girl in the train compartment should not have been God again ! I mean, that was just too much to take by the end of it ! ;) First I thought she would be Payal but alas ...

OK, enough criticism ... here are some good things .. Keeping up with the tradition of FPS, the one-liners in this book are great too ! The romantic scenes are very well described and bring a smile on your face ... So, heres the thing, emotionally this book does pretty well .. all different emotions, such as Shyam's jealousy, Vrooom's anger, Esha's depression, Shyam & Priyanka's romance etc are well described which is why I give the book 2 - 3 stars ...


But yeah, I can understand when girls like ON@CC better than FPS ... FPS is this naughty book which is very boyish and it does not cover emotions that widely ... However, ON@CC, is all about emotions and one's life ! (and not just life @ IIT ) .. But I havent yet met a single GUY who has told me that ON@CC is better than FPS ... and I totally agree !! FPS rocks but I cant say the same about ON@CC ... Sorry Chetan !