My take on India's best selling English author, Chetan Bhagat:

It was after a long break that I actually got down to read a book and that book had to be ON@TCC(One Night @ The Call Center) by Chetan Bhagat. Spurring me on to read it was Chetan’s worthy credentials as a highly educated person who as one would think might have a really good viewpoint of things in general.
It's all about a night at a call center when God himself makes a call to a call center called "Connexions" where our protagonist works.
Well the book failed horribly in every aspect. Though he does touch a raw nerve on the subject of Call Centers some of the points which he raises I admit are almost as true as if GOD himself might have enlightened poor Bhagat, but it seems Bhagat did not get the message completely correct.
Hence a poorly conceived story line, things happening without any rationale and one event leading to another without any "connexion"(forgive me the pun).
I would rate it as a book fit for kids (around the age range of 10-15) but the story and the language used would hardly suit that.
The only thing that makes one keep on reading is that there must be some treasure at the end of the rainbow (which the blurb so enticingly promises) - turns out to be a mirage.
One fact, the rationale of which I could hardly understand was Chetan voicing Xenophobia or US- bashing through one of his more admirable characters, Vroom.
Could have been a good book.
After the editor edited and rewrote at least two thirds of the book
Any way best of luck Chetan.
You might get better at this stuff someday. Keep trying.
***

It seems I have been moving from Chetan Bhagat's (India's most widely read English author according to TIME magazine) less promising books to the better ones. I started off with One Night at the Call Center; on which I commented because I felt I had to, on his take of Indian Call Centers, since I am familiar with the BPO industry; moved on to his latest book, The 3 Mistakes of My Life, which I felt was utter trash and did not deserve comment, but finally discovered a gem in his first book, Five Point Someone - a book which he describes as, what NOT to do at IIT.
This book is well written so I wonder how I missed reading it in the first place. The plot and storyline of his book comes out as pretty realistic which describes life in the IITs but could pretty well be a scenario in any one of our Indian colleges.
The college where I studied in fact had many similarities to what he describes in his book.
Our college principal's daughter, was something of a college starlet and there was not a single desk in our college classrooms that did not have her name inscribed on it with pen or carved out with a blade by some daydreaming Romeo in the middle of a boring college lecture. Chetan Bhagat's character Neha, who is Professor Cherian's daughter in the book could pretty well be her equivalent.
Then I know a close friend of mine who never wrote a single exam without having a nip of whisky in him (just to loosen up his tension as he said!). But unlike our protagonist, Hari, in the book who found that vodka in him before the college vivas was an utter disaster, this friend of mine passed every exam that he wrote with flying colors!
The book pretty well captures how domineering, intimidating and bookish college professors can be, except for the rare one who truly inspires and will go to any lengths to help out a hapless student. He pretty well describes how boring college life, with inane lectures would be, without some of the colorful characters you would find around any campus.
The book is pretty well a mish mash of romance, comedy, dark humor, passion and a lot of laughs and he uses language pretty well to his advantage, sometimes resorting to Indian English. His mastery over description is captivating. For instance there is a scene in which Chetan describes Hari's interest in Neha's bare legs against her car's brake pedals on their first encounter- writing "how erotic a girl's naked feet on metal can be"!.
On the whole, a pretty wholesome book and I can say one of the good books that has come out of an Indian author without being too academic or classic. I would say populist literature without being too cheap. Worth a read, once, maybe twice.
****

Well, here's another review of a Chetan Bhagat Book. Excuse me, but I never get tired of writing on him. This time it is "2 states", a possibly semi autobiographical part-fiction novel about an inter-state marriage - Punjabi vs Tamil.
The fact that the book is about the contrast between two states and not two religions is something that could well have avoided Chetan from being in the midst of a controvery and the probability of his book being banned -a la Taslima.
Chetan takes a hard dig at South Indians - in particular Tamil Brahmins, their traditions and their mentality, but I find it not a least bit offended, inspite of me being South Indianer. He balances this by making fun of Punjabis too - he has a Punjabi background.
You can of course take his opinions expressed through the book in good spirit, as he makes it known that he himself is married to a Tamil ex-classmate and expects his writings to be taken that way.
That Punjabi women come in two sizes - the overweight, obese elderly Pujabi women who tend to push wads of notes down their cleavage; and the young anaemic Punjabi girls who go for the zero size salwar kameez, is funny to read.
The strange rituals of Tamils, and South Indians in general is sometimes really weird, I agree, for I myself had the experience of being served water poured from a tumbler into a glass reserved for visitors, when I visited a Tamil Brahmin friend's house - to prevent the home from being desecrated by a non-Brahmin, probably a meat eating one too!
Chetan says South Indians have a love for rules, and feel safe when there rules to adhere too. I agree to that, but I also want to note that North Indians in general have a disdain for not only rules, but also the law and experience strange satisfaction in bending them, even breaking them.
That elderly south Indians tend to speak in monosyllables while addressing the not so old, and their great love for newspapers that they read from end to end, is a non-dispuatable fact. In fact Malayalees, be it the auto rickshaw driver or the filthy rich, go for the newspaper and do some heavy duty reading on local politics first thing in the morning.
And in fact I have several uncles, who when I go a visiting, say "sit", "come", "eat" - as if they were addressing an alsatian dog!
In all, a very wholesome book, that would satisfy a regular reader as well as an occasional one, thanks to the simple way in which he writes, and the fact that he writes not for a global audience, but an Indian one, who can relate well to what he writes, and have a good laugh at his black humor too - he claims he has sex with his wife for the sake of national integration! He brings out pretty well the contrast between South Indian vs North Indian culture and the mutual disdain these two groups have for each other.
Chetan is a man to watch out for, particulary after "5 point someone" was made into a box office hit, recently. ( )