A few blogs ago, I bemoaned the current trend of writers writing about writers and auto-biography thinly veiled as fiction. "One night at the call centre" by Chetan Bhagat goes a step further, in that the author himself features in the prologue and the epilogue. While I could forgive that - well, almost - I cringed when he addressed me as the reader and interacted with some of his characters. Talk about not suspending your disbelief!
The book’s blurb promises a call from God, which in itself is a clever idea, alas, not very cleverly executed.
Apart from that, the actual story was all right. Not terribly good, what with its amateurish writing style and thin moralistic plot, but it was interesting enough to keep me going. What the book has going for it is the setting: a call centre in Delhi, which, while not exotic to those in working in call centres or living in India, was nevertheless riveting to me.
The book also made me feel extremely grateful that I was born in the low-IQ decadent West and that I don’t have to dream about catching a husband who’s an ex-pat working for Microsoft.
Now for some cardamom chai and samoosas!
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