Hello readers,
This blog is part of my thinking activity on One night @the call center by Chetan Bhagat. This is interesting novel by him. In the novel there are following chapters.
1. Shyam Mehra - narrator of the story
2. Priyanka - an intelligent and a practical girl who is too pre-occupied with her mother who was an extremely important person to her
3. Esha Singh - wants to become professional model
4. Radhika Jha - who struggles to fulfill the duties of an Indian wife
5. Military uncle - who was thrown out of hid home after a clash
6. Varun Malhotra (Vroom) - much different then other characters
The novel based on the life of people of middle class family in India and their problems. Basically the story moves around six main characters. All are working in a same group in a call center. This is a story about one night at call center which change the lives of all the characters. call center is a symbol of India's rapid globalizing economy. The plot contrived deus ex machina and the author's hokey spiritualism.
"My English is not that great" says the narrator Shyam Mehra.
In the novel there are following themes.
1. Contemporary issues
2. Globalization
3. Popular literature - concept rather a them
4. Self help - Genre
5. Nationalism - anti American sentiment
6. Cyber punk - Genre
Popular literature :
The word popular is meant as a synonym for "successful". There are bestseller books and literary fictional book. People like to read the book which is not hard to define or to understand. For example, when you read "To the Lighthouse " by Virginia Woolf, you find it difficult to read as well as to understand because this novel is written in stream of consciousness technique which is very difficult to read or to understand. Language is also difficult to understand. People may not read this book because it is not easy to understand. To understand one sentence you have to go deep and people don't like it. But if you read one night @the call center by Chetan Bhagat, the language is very simple and you can finish it in 2 hours. His all books are very easy to read and to understand.
In literary fiction, the more focus is on language and technique, style and technique. You can find poetic lines or sentences. Popular fiction is not deal with abstract questions such as not asking questions, accepting the things, not asking existing questions, etc. For example, when you read Chetan Bhagat, you may not raise any questions and accept everything which is said by him. Popular fiction is love by masses because you are giving them what they want. We can also include television films and web series as a popular literature.
Bates and Ferri mention even a broader definition of popular culture:
“Popular culture is the television we watch, the movies we see, the fast food, or slow food, we eat, the clothes we wear, the music we sing and hear, the things we spend our money for, our attitude toward life. It is the whole society we live in, that which may or may not be distributed by the mass media. It is virtually our whole world”
There are some series that are not accepted by people. For example, Laila series. This is very interesting web series but not accepted by people. Why? Because they may don't find it interesting or not understand what this Laila wants to say. Basically, this series is about search for her daughter. So here we can see that what people or mass like or not.
According to Cawelti, conventions are elements which are “usually quite specific to a particular culture and period and do not mean the same outside this specific context.”
When you use known metaphors or characters that you see around us, you will accept it.
Self help Book :
The self help books are one which instruct readers to solve their personal problems. One Night @ the Call Centre also falls under the category of self help books. When you read the beginning part of one night @the call center, you can find one activity in which you have to give the answers to your self. The book asks readers to fill the worksheet before starting the reading of story. So this is very interesting beginning done by Chatan Bhagat. I found it interesting. There are interesting questions but the purpose of doing this activity, is not told by author before. But while the story reaches to its climax and leading towards the end, we got the answers of our questions or rather solutions of our problems. This is very good technique use by author. When god call them, god is not helping them but telling them to find own. So this particular scene, motivate readers to solve their problems. For example in the movie, OMG – Oh My God!, god is not give him solution but God just give him way of thinking in a different way. Rather asking to other, we have to solve our problems.
Narrative structure of the novel and its comparison with 'Life Of Pi' :
In the beginning, both novel have somewhat similar narrative structure. In one night @call center, we can see that one woman telling real story about a few friends working in a call center but in ''Life of Pi" the protagonist himself telling the story. At the end of the novel, when Call from God come, all characters accept that yes he is god but in life of pie we can find the logic behind it. The protagonist told writer that God saved him, hence, Yann Martel used the faith and belief of the protagonist in the beginning that the characters grown with idea of God. At the end he say that he survived by the God so the readers can easily digest the idea of God. This is good technique used by Yann Martel.
When I read the summary of this novel, I found it interesting because you may compere your character with the character of the novel. For example, priyanka's character. Esha's character is also interesting one. When you decide something which is not good according to other, then they will find your mistakes. They will trying to tell you that you have not that abilities. This is happen with Esha in the novel and I think there are characters like Esha in our society as well.
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