May 01, 2006
One Night @ Bad Fiction HellLiterature
You may have heard of One Night @ the Call Center, an Indian novel attempting to ride the call center trend. 
It’s sold multitudinous copies and is being made into a movie. The script will be penned by the same author, an i-banker whose author’s voice brags about not being a writer.
He’s right. The story has an interesting premise, but it’s one of the worst-written books I’ve ever read, falling somewhere between bad high school love poem and sixth-grade book report. You’ll laugh out loud. The hilarity will be entirely unintentional.
The best review of a book this bad is to quote from it liberally. Enjoy the stank. Spoilers below.
The author writes groaners rivaling the one from Notting Hill:
‘Deep inside, I am just a girl who wants to be with her favorite boy. Because like you, this girl is a person who needs a lot of love.’
There are even more lines straight out of a Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest:
‘It is time to face the real world, even if it is harder and painful. I’d rather fly and crash, than just snuggle and sleep…’‘Do you have a dark side, Shyam?’ … ‘I have so many—like half a dozen dark sides. I am like dark-sided hexagon [sic].’
Then he pats himself on back for minor-league wordplay:
‘Sorry, but calling is not my calling,’ Vroom said. I thought his last line was quite clever, but it wasn’t the right time to appreciate verbal tricks.
Telling, not showing — the author can’t write action, so he grasps at a voiceover:
‘We’re hanging above a hole, supported only by toothpicks. We’re screwed,’ Radhika said, summing up the situation for all of us.
He stoops to the cheap, Hardy Boys suspense close:
Like a drunk tramp, the Qualis stagggered down and into the site of a high-rise construction project. [Chapter ends suddenly.]
Here’s a vague generality (‘gross’) with a dangling antecedent (what’s outside the entrance: the toppings, the pizza or the puke?):
‘Unnh…’ Vroom said as he threw up. Puke spread around like a 12”-thin crust pizza with gross toppings outside the entrance.
He shares his deep insight into female psychology:
The effort it sometimes takes to make women speak up is harder than interrogating terrorists…When girls call a guy a ‘teddy bear’, they just mean he is a nice guy but they will never be attracted to him. Girls may say they like such guys, but teddy bears never get to sleep with anyone…
The prose drips with sexual repression:
It is never easy for a guy to work with a hot girl in the office. I mean, what are you supposed to do? Ignore their sexiness and stare at our computer? Sory, somehow I don’t think men were designed to do that…
Here’s the no-good, really bad insult which sets a character off on a bout of tremendous violence. Oooh, severe:
‘Yeah, I’ll change the dust bag. What about you guys? When will you change your dusty country?’
He includes lots of anti-American racism:
‘Remember,’ the instructor said to the class, ‘a thirty-five-year-old American’s brain and IQ is the same as a ten-year-old Indian’s brain. This will help you understand your clients… Americans are dumb, just accept it…’
The novel does have a few highlights:
Apart from blonde threesomes, hitting your boss is the ultimate Indian male fantasy…According to Priyanka, a door-bitch is the hostess who stands outside the disco. She screens every girl walking in, and if your waist is more than twenty-four inches, or if you were not wearing something right out of an item number, the door-bitch will raise an eyebrow at you like you are a fifty-year-old aunty.
But maybe he should’ve just unconsciously internalized something created by a writer.
fofatlal on May 1, 2006 03:49 PM in Literature · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
¤ Ultrabrown said: Beware Indian mass-market fiction
Please stay on topic. A gentle hint: you can set up your own blog, free, in 30 seconds here.
The movie premise sounds similar to "Bombay calling" -a movie which premiered at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (2006). Didn't get a chance to see that so I can't claim if it's any better or worse.
Ah sad, I really enjoyed five point someone when I was in India. It was a fun, quick read.
Yay, Fofatlal!
I'm going to see Bombay Calling tomorrow at the Hot Docs fest in Toronto. It sounds good and apparently has a great soundtrack so I hope it doesn't turn out as DUSTY as this awful book. Oooo diss.
I really enjoyed five point someone when I was in India.
Yeah, I heard his first book was better. One of the things I didn't like about this one either is that a key plot point revolves around mislabeling a feature in Microsoft Word. In Word, you can type =rand() and press Enter to generate boilerplate text quickly. I worked on the Word design team and was present when we discussed the feature.
The author calls it a bug and has a character call it a virus. It's no such thing. It's a shortcut left in because we figured nobody would stumble into it accidentally, and those who knew it found it useful.
Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You slurred my product. Prepare to die :)
This got published? There's hope for me yet.
omg, i read this while i was in india last winter. it was all the rage and truly bad.
Manish, that is the funniest comment I have read in weeks. Could you possibly be any geekier? Adorkable, I say!
Five point someone was a horrible stereotype of life in the IITs, or for life in any college in India for that matter. It reads like an after-school TV special and borrows it characters from the worst in that genre. It's about 1) Smart but slacker genius guy, 2) average joe, 3) poor guy and 4) fucking awesomely wealthy handsome stud getting stoned and drunk in college, and coming out of it with a profound learning experience straight out of a life-coach case-study.
Sin, as venial as this particular verbal vomit is, it would appear that there is hope for everyone on this blog :) Write that novel, and put me on your advance sales list.
Methinks Fofatlal is Manish's nom de plume...
ha... but really - guys - just to take this a little deeprer- linked to manish's comment on the market in india - the language, the humor, the double entendre, the pop culture references that are so clever this side of the pond - would fall just as flat - in the indian context, this is probably very funny and high quality writing to someone who normally gets to read the likes of TOI.. from this and a yahoo article i wrote earlier, the author seems fairly articulate and very astute - he isnt a poseur and seemed to genuinely want to cater to his audience - it isnt that much different from a dickens or a dostoevsky meeting their weekly deadlines to the newspaper by offering populist fare... so i wouldnt judge harshly by the excerpts - this is an indian novel catering to indian senses and sensibilities - a genuine made in india potboiler - we're out of it - grins - do i sense a trace of envy among the bhadraloks this side of the pond that their presumed mastery of the sophisticated angrezi isnt worth two red pice in the old country.
this and a yahoo article i wrote earlier,EGAD!!! Gadzooks!! no! Ahr!! Pannch..!! my asslobe seems to have switched places with my cranial lobe... I've never written an article, even an a, an, or the in a professional capacity - at least for the yahoo... i take that back.
:do i sense a trace of envy among the bhadraloks this side of the pond that their presumed mastery of the
:sophisticated angrezi isnt worth two red pice in the old country
well said! exactly my feelings....Why you guys hatin so much...
Methinks Fofatlal is Manish's nom de plume...
{Snorts} The Vij isn't even a pimple on Fofatlal Popatlal's pumpernickel!
from this and a yahoo article i wrote earlier, the author seems fairly articulate and very astute - he isnt a poseur and seemed to genuinely want to cater to his audience - it isnt that much different from a dickens or a dostoevsky meeting their weekly deadlines to the newspaper by offering populist fare...
Yes, and Geraldo Rivera is Leonardo da Vinci... Did you just compare these execrable novels to Charles Dickens? A Tale of Two Shitties is more like it.
A Tale of Two Shitties is more like it.Haaa, amazing. Simply written, clever, and funny as hell...Fofatlal, I've read you before somewhere (by somewhere I mean here), I think I know...I feels it in my bones...!
Do you have a dark side, Shyam? I have so manylike half a dozen dark sides. I am like dark-sided hexagon [sic].
Methinks somebody has been playing too much D&D ...
I guess that the book is mainly catered towards young indians (living in India). The western audience will surely find some of the passages "out of context".
dhaavak - People in India don't set TOI as their standard. You might want to read the last few lines of this article:
Qouting:
Public schools in India woo British Asian pupils
Meeting Indian public schoolboys made him nostalgic for a vanished world. "In some ways, the Indians are more British than the British,"....
"It is astonishing, but the boys I have met speak better English - beautiful English - than people in England."
That's priceless.
I was told (showing off time) by someone whilst in America that if anyone figured out who fofatlal was it would be me. Some praise indeed. Entirely justified as it happens, as I was right from fofatlal's entrance. Yes, I'm that good. You can touch me if you like.
"so i wouldnt judge harshly by the excerpts - this is an indian novel catering to indian senses and sensibilities - a genuine made in india potboiler - we're out of it - grins - do i sense a trace of envy among the bhadraloks this side of the pond that their presumed mastery of the sophisticated angrezi isnt worth two red pice in the old country."
Dhaavak, that sounds fairly patronising to me. Indian writing in English in India isn't held to lower standards. And mastery of sophisticated angrezi does count for quite a few pice, though I'm not entirely sure if that's good or bad.
Most Indian reviewers know that One Night @ CC has no high brow literary claims, but even within its fluffy, SMS talk genre, it's a particularly badly written book. Which is precisely why it was trashed by almost every reviewer in the country.
dhaavak - People in India don't set TOI as their standard. Youbrownfob - the link pointed to the elite schools... i wont go into the quality of 'english' in india - that's distracting - my point is that the genius of writers is in what they communicate, not in the language they employ - as an aside, i am a big fan of the likes of russian authors of a certain era in translation, because the translation was performed by Constance Garnett, the prose is simple and beautiful for the ideas - not for cunning linguistic feats (sic).
fofatlal - i do not have the credentials to critique writers on their art but even my humble opinion is that should a writer like dickens come to today's market with starkly drawn characters like uriah heep, pecksniff, smykes etc. he would be mocked as being trite, predictable and simplistic. my point was that dickens wrote often not to create enduring works of literature but because he had deadlines to meet - the christmas carol by dickens is a particular example of a piece written under great monetary pressure ; tastes change with time - the language in popular use today has to compete with multiple media in respect to impact, content and glamor quotient - what worked several centuries is definitely not a workable option today - i have a healthy respect for this person, for his business acumen and for his ability to write a book - to mock this chap is to mock his readers for being shallow just because their tastes steer clear of your own.
-grumble- where is amardeep, when we need his pov?
Indian writing in English in India isn't held to lower standards.my point is that indian writing in english is different from american writing in english.
I would watch the movie..if they cast GOVINDA SHAKTI KAPOOR and KARISMA....
btw..do we really want another Naipaul?
Fofatlal..... "Kuch jalraha hai"
Do you have a dark side, Shyam? I have so manylike half a dozen dark sides. I am like dark-sided hexagon [sic].
Why does it say "sic" ? That's what you use when you want to point out an error in the original. What's the error?
What's the error?
No indefinite article, blud.
This is off-topic, but how come there's been no SM post about the Indian guy on the Apprentice? What, we can only make fun of Toral?
hmmm this reeks a lot of the vibes found on the whole nabokov ninnington lahiri post...
i'm not sayin' its a good book, all i'm saying is if the people read writers who they think are 'terrible' so voraciously that they can critique their work to this extent...what's the point of it all?
are we so starved for books by desis that we have to spend that one night in bad fiction hell? let's get away, please please please. we just had the opal thing, c'mon!
hows about some of the amazin writers on this blog publish somethin *cough* ANNA *cough so we can get out of the perpetual bad night we seem to be stuck in?
just an idea, smart people...
ddiaustin,
i thought five point someone was a decent effort......it was simple and it just told a story that millions of desi graduates(including me) could identify with......it never claimed to be a naipaul or a rushdie.
Apologies Fofatlal. I should've known better.
.
.
.
maybe Turbanhead?
Five point someone sux
A night @ call centre sux profoundly.
(I never got to read the book, four pages were enough to warn me)
But I do think that Fofatlal is Mr Vij.
Regards
Sometimes you encounter smells which might not be very pleasant..but they remind you of some fond memories. People in general won't like that smell..but you (and maybe someone else) will perhaps be transported back to good old days for a while.
'5 point someone' is one such book...indian college students (who've lived in hostels) find it a 'cult classic'. People may not like the "style of writing"...but most of them like the memories it brings back. It is not targetted for a wide audience.
I hope this doesn't smell like fart :)
Brown_ Fob (30#)
Being a (former)college student and having lived in hostel, I found Five point someone very annoying.
I think as a material for writing IITs have been done to death.
Admin (1#)
I was wondering about the injunction, after I read other post I got it.
Boy, sometimes sepia mutiny does rub salt over the wounds (of Indians)!
Regards
Five point someone is a good book to read .You can read it in one go but one night at call center was too dramatic and i feel author has taken no effort to write ..he just scribbled ..
Look guys, I'm not going to give fofatlal's identity away but I'll give you some tips when trying to figure it out. You have to think outside the box, max the limit and push the envelope, you're on a three way street here so take a blue sky approach. Think big, think zeitgeist, think cloverleaf.
OK great.
BB (33#)
I got it. Fofatlal is Rishi Kapoor! Truly a magnificient custard.
Regards
You have to think outside the box, max the limit and push the envelope, you're on a three way street here so take a blue sky approach. Think big, think zeitgeist, think cloverleaf.
Migosh, I thought I knew, but now I'm totally confused.
Look guys, I'm not going to give fofatlal's identity away but I'll give you some tips when trying to figure it out. You have to think outside the box, max the limit and push the envelope, you're on a three way street here so take a blue sky approach. Think big, think zeitgeist, think cloverleaf.
Er, Fofatlal is a management consultant and works for McKinsey or one of the other top-tier Strategy Consultancies ?!
Or is Fofatlal a former guest blogger who was also anonymous? Albeit partially so. You know, not what he seems because he is really a she, outside of the box, winkwink nudgenudge? She graced us with an eye? No? BB? No?
You know, the fact he puts quotes in bold instead of blockquotes to feign unfamiliarity with the interface. The only other person that does that is Pattie Kaur and I think we can safely say it's not her because fofatlal hasn't posted forty articles about Sikh beards. The way he occasionally, and obviously, tries to sound deliberately different. It's not fooling anyone. Or is fofatlal even one person? Hmm...you decide (geordie accent Jai).
Whoa, Neha - if that's true then not only am I spectacularly wrong but cica is also an astonishingly good actress. Or actor, whatever you're supposed to call it.
Waitron - I love that word.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
Will make the whole world blind, yet full of truthiness.
As Arthur C. Clarke said to me when I was young
Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies
Coddleston, Coddleston, Coddleston pie
Some people call me the space cowboy
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice
Cause I speak of the pompatus of love
People talk about me, baby...
Cause I'm a picker
I'm a grinner
I'm a lover
And I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't wanna hurt no one
could it be that Fofatlal is an amalgam?
Perhaps Fofatlal could be.....Punjabi Boy.
Bring back PB. I need some backup for my occasional British-desi jokes (apart from Bong Breaker), and DesiDancer has obtained a restraining order against me so my hands are tied there too.
could it be that Fofatlal is an amalgam?
I'm picturing a desi Voltron here. Head of ... Cicatrix! Legs of ... Desi Dancer! Arms of ... Jai! Torso of ... Punjabi Boy! Together, these intrepid commenters form ... Four Foot Lal! [Thunderclap and theme music]
Is it wrong I find Four Foot Lal quite arousing?
Or maybe it's Pearl Jam Fan, and the whole one track uncle act was just an alter ego designed to throw the Lois Lanes of the world off the scent.
Bong Breaker,
Is it wrong I find Four Foot Lal quite arousing?
It depends on which part of Ennis's hybrid creation is turning you on. Don't go all Ang Lee on me.
"Brokeback Call-Centre: Bangalore Bad Boys".
Smoother than a Lexus, now's my turn to WRECK thisBrothers approach and half step, but ain't heard
HALF of it yet, and I bet you're not a fuckin vet
So, when you see me on the real, formin like Voltron
Remember I got deep like a Navy Seal!
ha! wait..I think I'm in the wrong thread...
Five point someone was a good, breezy read. it brought back memories of college life and was a fun book to read. On top of that, it was a very "in" book to read so people read it. it sold a lot of copies and Mr. bhagat became famous.
Fame and the smell of more dough is a heady combination. Rupa must have told him, "You're famous. Write something, anything that we can publish and make a quick buck." After all "Everything's about the money, Honey."
so he wrote or rather hastily scribbled a bunch of absolute crap called one night at the call center. it sucked but people bought the book because it had Mr. bhagat written all over it. People hoped that it would read as well as five point someone, but were very disappointed, myself included.
Some of you guys behave as if you are a superior race because you moved to the US. You somehow know better english. Trust me, the "desis" I know speak way better English than some of the British and the Americans that I know.
Say it like it is. You guys are jealous of his success. I mean, how can some stupid desi who barely speaks english write a book and be published when you, the superior human being did not? Well, he made the effort to write and spent agonizingly long hours writing something that appealed to the people.
write something and hope to get published one day if youre half as good as his first book was. Stop putting up sassy comments here and junking someone's work just because he's successful.
You guys are jealous of his success.
Nobody's jealous of a turd.
you said it gupta!
RAJAT:
if people felt superior to others from the same ethnic group they wouldn't be on sites like this one. just cos someone's brown doesn't mean their crapalicious writing should be supported or appreciated.
i'm not knocking it cos i haven't read it, but would just like to let you know that there is a middle ground between blindly accepting culture-lovers and pretentious people who hate other FOBs:
it's called thinking for yourself.
ha ha ha. the envy can be smelt in the post. show me some funny lines of your dudes, while u state punchlines out of context.
btw, i have a friend in random house uk, and they are raving fans of bhagat. they paid close $400k for intl rights for this one. were they stupid?
or maybe ..the entire world is stupid..apart from u bloggers of course..
grow up. why didn't u stop reading it?
I'm late to the party, but my 2 cents anyways. I am having a little bit of the "fofatlal complex", so I don't think I will write under my real name. I should say that I registered a certain level of annoyance, even shock, when I read the book, mainly because of its somewhat casual use of religion and God.
It seems to be a bit of a stretch to have "God" endorse the sort of plan that Shyam comes up with. What is worse : it is made amply clear that the religion being referred to is Hinduism, and that it is a Hindu God herself who has endorsed the entire course of action. Now, I think a lot of people would find the plan utterly deceitful : the plan is to call up customers in America and tell them that their systems are messed up because they all have a certain "bug", the one referred to earlier. It is premised on what is quite casually referred to as an American "culture of fear", and the idea is to prey on such fear. It really annoys me that religion, of all things, should be used to validate deceit, extortion and patently loathsome behavior.
the envy can be smelt in the post.
That stench you smell is from the prose. If you don't smell it, your literary judgment probably froze at an age where you thought Readers Digest was lit. But Readers Digest was far better written than this crap. Sadly, you won't recognize that for the putdown that it is.
Oh wait, you read this book and thought it was good? No wonder you're wearing a brown bag over your head.
I don't think this has much to do with being born in India, really, as many have pointed out. I am desi-born myself, and I read both the books. Aside from the point I raise above, I would say that Chetan Bhagat does have talent, but I think he could do with some discipline and some effort. You know, take a class on creative writing and so forth.
He does do a good in getting the conversational English right. What he needs to do is to polish up the rest of the prose. I really do think Chetan Bhagat is capable of devlivering better. And in the future, he probably will.
Damn Good Book ... i'll remember the experience for long time ... Thanks ... Chetan
The critic encuorages us to "Enjoy the stank." This is exactly what I was doing the moment I opened this site and had my senses utterly intruded by the critic's brave mix of poindexter specs and pterodactyl collared Rainbow Pop clubwear. Is that a gold chain or is it a baited trap being set to kill that shirt? I hope it succeeds.
Seriously .... nice shirt.
I think I'll go buy Chetan's new book now. I'm definitely watching the movie when it hits the big screen in the States!
