The Ambivalence of Globalization: A Study on Chetan Bhagat's One Night @ the Call Center

Abstract

Chetan Bhagat's One Night @ the Call Center dramatizes the author's ambivalent attitude towards the recent issues of globalization in which the characters are heavily involved and trapped. They are attached with the global situation willingly or unwillingly. They possess either resistance or adaption that comes out of the nature and impact of the globalization. The characters remain in torn condition. These issues have particular effects throughout the lives of the characters that they share collectively. The central story revolves around the six call center employees who try their best to adopt the global cultures avoiding their own. Neither they can adjust their lives in the way of global culture nor are they totally uprooted from their local scenario. Thus, One Night @ the Call Center foregrounds the complex mix of attraction and repulsion that characterize the global and the local culture. In this respect, the very engagement of global culture with those local cultures over which it has domination, inevitably leads to ambivalence.