It is not often that God is associated with the night but in Chetan Bhagat’s tome it is purported that the Lord manifests himself at night to a group of call centre executives who seem to endure unending hardships to make ends meet. Between a megalomaniacal boss Bakshi at Connexions call centre and irascible American customers the protagonists are forced through trying circumstances, altough the end of the book seems to work in their way after all.
The story starts with the author meeting an attractive young lady who coerces him to write a book on the story she tells him and he proceeds with the narrative through the character of Shyam.
The agents of the call centre have very human characterizations. This is the beauty of the narrative. No where is there an overdose of sentimentality and the stoicism of the characters is evident to the reader from the onset.
The main characters in the book are : (indian names)
Shyam, Vroom, Esha, Priyanka, Radhika and the somewhat middle aged character - military uncle.
Priyanka is the love interest in the story.
I think the main strengths of the book are its low price (Rs 95/-) - mentioned by earlier reviewers and reiterated by myself, and its capability to capture your interest till the very end.
The cons of the materialistic mindset that is driving todays youth, particularly in cities like Gurgaon, where the story is set, is the central theme of a story that postulates a philosophy that the debasement of the soul is far worse than debasement of the body, a line of thought that particularly impresses me.
I think in sum total this book is an excellent read by a very talented author who I believe is an investment banker to boot.