One Night @ the Call Center

After the spectacular success of Five Point Someone, Chetan Bhagat is back with his second book, One Night @ the Call Center, popularly called ON@TCC. ‘Five Point Someone,’ was about three friends unable to cope with their lives at an Indian Institute of Technology. As for One Night @ the Call Center, it is rather self-explanatory.

ON@TCC deals with the issues faced by the lifestyle of the employees in call center – a chaotic relationship, a bad boss and a phone call from God. The book centers around a group of six call center employees working in Connexions, a call center in Gurgoan, Delhi, where the employees are facing a layoff...all due to a stupid Boss.

The novel starts with the meeting of Chetan Bhagat and a young lady in a train and she tells him the story of a night at the call center in Delhi on the condition that it would be his next book. The characters are -- the self-doubting Shyam, a team leader; his ex-girlfriend, Priyanka, whose mother would go to any extent to see her married to a rich NRI; the hasty and rash Vroom; Esha, who is frantic to make it big in the world of fashion; Radhika, a dutiful wife whose relationship with her husband takes a catastrophic turn and a Military Uncle, who is obsessed with the sorrows of his own life. The story is how a night in their office changed their lives forever. It is filled with a lot of drama with unpleasant things happening to all of the leading characters.


Bhagat's writing is all about offering inside views, simple and clear, via plots intricately tied to the novels' settings. The stories move quickly, and he writes in a comfortably natural style. The dialogue is without complicated words, never stepping out of the colloquial thus keeping the narration lucid and easy to follow. His writing is also loaded with subtle humor, especially the one-liners.

The book is aimed at the young generation. Chetan tries to tell the Call Center jobs are no better apart from the attractive pay pack and cozy ambience. A job in which the youngsters can just keep gossiping, bitching, planning for a night out to a club for relaxation just because their computers are down. Eventually, everything in this world comes with a price tag. Just that, here the benefits are better, that is it! .

Having said that, if you want to really have a peep into the new generation, their jobs, life, attitude, values and their dreams please do not miss ‘One Night @ The Call Center.’ What’s more is that, it is really cheap at rs.95.

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