ONE DAY WITH "one night at the call center"

There are omens, good omens and bad omens. In my view, the type of the omen depends on the way you interpret the appearance.

#1 The first of them was seen on the very first day of the year. At the 33rd book fair held at Chennai, my friend Vijay was very eager to find a publisher to help him publish a book on a collection of interesting CHESS games. His belief was that if something constructive happened on the very first day of the year, it might create more positive vibes through out the year. As we were enquiring one publisher after the other, I shared with him my idea of the basic things to do before you get your book published. It was then that it happened. He wanted me to write a book and get it published. He gave me a deadline of an year. I told him that it wasn't possible as I had already got my hands full with more than what I could afford, and we returned home without much of a quarrel as to who should get his book published first.

#2 The second one was seen on the third day of the year. I had cajoled my sister into visiting the book fair for the first time promising I would get her any book she wanted. After picking one by Sidney Sheldon and a few other books, we came to a stall which had displayed works by contemporary Indian writers in English. I described that the movies "Hello" and "3 idiots" were based on his books "One night at the call center" "five point someone" completely oblivious of the controversy which would start a few days later. As most of us know, controversies sell like hot pan cakes. So she picked this author and rejected the first and the third because of the former's relation with IIT and the latter's relation with cricket. Ambiguous reasons and choices!!!

P.S. I hadn't read any of the author's books until this omen was seen.

#3 This one was seen on the ninth night of the year. My sister wanted to watch "GODS MUST BE CRAZY" movie, but I rejected the proposal citing some work on a busy weekend. In return, I asked her to start with the Chetan Bhagat book. But the devil was laughing its heart out because after completing my work, I had some time to kill, hence I started reading this novel. Now, that required me cajoling myself into reading this one because I had planned to write a novel some day before I turned seventy based on my work experiences. I also didn't want to get influenced by a similar novel paving a way for similar(if possible) piece of fiction. So, what started as a brief session to find the possible similarities between mine and Mr.Chetan Bhagat's novel was extended over a major part of the next day as I found the novel, its plot and the sketching of the characters quite interesting. All ideas of finding the possible similarities went out of the window as I lost myself in the novel, but as I started reading the 30th and the last chapters of the novel , there were some good and bad news.

Yes, I was completely let down by the involvement of GOD in the 30th chapter and the so-called reasoning given by the narrator in the final chapter. Adding fuel to the fire was the mysterious disappearance of his co-passenger.

I felt that the writer was caught in no man's land because I felt that
i) the introduction of the GOD was just to create an 'edge-of-the-seat' effect in the readers' minds.
ii) the reasoning given in the form of the 'Military uncle' in the final chapter was some sort of a cover-up work for having introduced a supernatural character into a novel which was very rational and practical otherwise.
iii) the disappearance of the co-passenger was the weakest ever part of any good novel I had read. It is like a veteran batsman failing to hit a single of the last two balls to secure a famous win.

Now, the good news was that I felt that my ideas were no way near to Mr.Bhagat's. Be it the dexterous characterization, the clever handling of the plot( until the 30th chapter of course) or the way he narrated the whole novel as the set of incidents over a single night, I felt the difference between chalk and cheese between the two of us. You can't eat chalk, but you can't write with cheese either. So whatever you choose Mr. Bhagat's work to be, my work( if it ever sees the light of the day) would only be the extreme opposite.

The interesting part is that one of my former colleagues hinted that this novel impressed him more than 'five point someone'. Interesting!!! now, I might not start reading 'five point someone' in the next 12-15 months, so I'll have to wait and see if what he said is true with this novel to...