Representation of characters in movie ‘Hello’ on the basis of novel ‘One night at the call center’

Assignment Topic: Representation of characters in movie ‘Hello’ on the basis of novel ‘One night at the call center’

Paper Name: The New Literature

No: 27

Batch Year: 2013-15

Paper No: 13

Enrolment No: PG13101036

Email Id: Sejal.vaghela43@gmail.com

Submitted to: Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction:

          ‘One Night @ the Call Center’ Novel is written by Chetan Bhagat and ‘Hello’ Movie directed by AtulAgnihotri. One Night @ The Call Center was first published in the year 2005 is a novel that follows a group of six friends who work at a call center in India. The story expands events that occur during a night at their office, radically changing all their lives. The book asserts that it is based on a true story. The six characters in the book are deeply disturbed by their own troubles, but rather than finding solutions to their problems, they just get more intertwined in them due to their refusal to deal with their issues. An unexpected phone call stirs up feelings of motivation and enables them to face their difficulties. The characters are well fixed and Bhagat scatters the novel with his trademark humor.

                 The novel has a Prologue, in which author Chetan Bhagat encounters a beautiful woman on a train trip. She offers to tell him a story -- but will do so only on the condition that he uses it for his next book. It's set at a call center, describing the events of a single night-shift -- and she warns him to expect at least one unusual occurrence:

          Hello is a 2008 Bollywood thriller film directed by AtulAgnihotri, starring Sharman Joshi, Sohail Khan, GulPanag, IshaKoppikar, Amrita Arora and SharatSaxena in the lead roles. The film is based on Chetan Bhagat's novel, One Night @ the Call Center. It also had cameo roles from Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif who played themselves in the film. It was released on 10 October 2008. Hello had an 'Average' performance at Indian box-office.

These are the major characters in the movie and Novel:

Ø Sharman Joshi as Shyam (Sam)

Ø Sohail Khan as Varun (Vroom/Victor)

Ø GulPanag as Priyanka

Ø IshaKoppikar as Esha (Elizabeth)

Ø Amrita Arora as Radhika (Rebecca)

Ø SharatSaxena as Military Uncle- Col.ArvindTripathi

Ø DalipTahil as Bakshi

Ø AnushaDandekar as Shefali

Ø Arbaaz Khan as Anuj

Ø Rishi Nijhawan as Ganesh

Ø Suresh Menon as System's guy- LokeshChandaramani (Loki)

Ø Salman Khan as himself in a special appearance.

Ø Katrina Kaif as Mysterious story teller-Angel of God, in a special appearance.

Salman Khan is a Bollywood actor, who is on a live tour nearby Delhi, where his private jet has a crash. Luckily, he survives and in a lounge, he meets Katrina Kaif. She tells him a story, about six friends and their boss who all work together at a Mumbai-based call centre. They are instructed never to reveal their location, and speak with an American accent by a Boston-based company. There is Shyam (Sam) (Sharman Joshi), Priyanka (GulPanag), Varun (Sohail Khan), Esha (IshaKoppikar), Radhika (Amrita Arora) and Military uncle (SharatSaxena). Their boss, SubhashBakshi (DalipTahil), attempts to further his career by plagiarising software, agrees to lay off 40% of the Indian workforce, and re-locate to Boston. One night, at a party, they all get drunk and decide to head back home since it was late. The six are on their way home, until they approach an accident, and are stuck on top of a cliff in their car, and if anybody tries to move, there would be chances that the car will lose its balance and fall off the cliff. They all remain calm, and when one of the friends tries to call someone, he finds his phone battery has run out, therefore, in rage he breaks his phone and throws it on the floor of the car. Later on, still trapped in the car, the broken phone receives a phone call; six surprised friends answer it, only to find the caller is God. God tells the six, they should keep calm, and just believe in themselves and all will be well. They do as they are told, and find that the fire brigade is here to save them. They all get saved. After the story, Khan asks the woman who she is, and she replies "if you believe in yourself, you will know the answer". She walks out of the lounge, and as Khan follows her, he seems to witness she has suddenly disappeared. He believes in himself, his jet gets fixed, and he flies back home.

·       Shyam Mehra:

First of all the author introduces us to Shyam, The narrator and the most important character of the book. Hero of the book along with his close friend Vroom.The separated family life of the retired Military Person.Individual fighting to get peace. He is a person who lacks self-confidence. Shyam was earlier attached with Priyanka but after some years he broke up wih her. Despite having feelings of her, he is in a daze when he comes to know she is getting engaged to a NRI named Ganesh Gupta. He is a high-Flier who works in Microsoft. That time Priyanka asked to shyam “ Are you Okay?” Apart from this, shyam seems to have lost all his esteem and self-confidence through the nature of treatment he receives from others and constantly degrading remarks from his evil boss, Bakshi. Bakshi is portrayed as a selfish boss who takes full credit for other work, only concentrating on his own self-improvement but not the call center company.

·        Priyanka:

Priyanka is an intelligent and a practical girl who is too pre-occupied with her mother who was an extremely important person to her. For her mother’s sake she had decided to break up with her boyfriend Shyam and marry NRI Ganesh. Priyanka is initially happy about her new engagement. However, she is unhappy about her parents’ haste in marrying her the coming month itself. She feels is not yet ready for marriage and considers over this. Meanwhile Shyam and Vroom are good friends, unveil that Ganesh hid his baldness from Priyanka by showing her some online photos of Ganesh. This further saddens Priyanka. However, things turn out to be different in the end and Priyanka chooses her love over her mother’s wishes for the sake of her own happiness.

·       VarunMalhotra (Vroom):

Vroom is a fun-loving guy who has many aspirations.Who loves speed and wheels. He is the most carefree person in the book. He stays with his mother. However, He works in the call center, subduing to everyone else, just to earn enough money to keep up with his rich friends and their hobbies. In the midst of the night, Vroom gets to know that Bakshi has taken credit for all the six months of hard work.He has a soft corner for his colleague Esha.Vroom is the one who saves “Connexions” call center from a major problem using his skills. In the end he gets along with Shyam and starts his own web based company. He and shyam has put in to develop a customer service website. This angers him greatly, but he is unable to avenge his anger due to fears of losing his job. Meanwhile, He overhears Esha pouring her guilt to her other friends. Vroom loved Esha but after know that he feels sickened after this.

·       Esha Singh:

Esha is an attractive girl, whose dream is to become a model. However, to achieve this, she went to cross the limits of sleeping with the designer to get the contract.She was pretty and had been struggling quite hard to get modeling assignments but perhaps her short height is a barrier for her choice of career.  The designer however, cheats her by saying she is an inch shorter than expected, and compromises by offering money.Since that incident she had formed a guilt within her which was one of the reasons of her not accepting Vroom’s proposal. Esha feels deep guilt and hatred over herself for her actions. She is unable to accept herself anymore. In the end she decides to give up her dream to become a model and continued to work at the call center.

·       Radhika Jha:

Radhika Jha is already married, who stays with her husband and in-laws. She had married her husband against her parents’ wishes and had transformed herself completely in order to adjust herself into an orthodox family. She has great trust and love for her husband. She endures all the trouble her mother-in-law gives her and succumbs to the traditional roles that her mother-in-law expects her to do, even preparing the daily milk with crushed almonds for her in the morning when she is rushing for work. Though Radhika does not complain about this, her mother-in-law is still unhappy and complains all the time to her husband.She had been working very hard to manage her house and work. Later on, Radhika accidently comes to know that her husband has cheated on her. This greatly shocks and hurts her. He had a affair with another woman and, Quits. After that she decides to give him a divorce. In the end she quits her husband’s family and goes to live with Esha. Divorce, Frustration

·       Military Uncle:

He works at the call center to earn some extra money apart from the pension that he gets. He had some misunderstanding with his Son and daughter-in-law but in the end he realizes his mistake and decides to apologize and go back to them. Military uncle broke up with his son’s family some years ago. When he tries to maintain contact with his grandson by sending some photos, he receives an email from his son, asking him to cut all contact with the family. Military uncle gets deeply saddened by this. He lives his life in loneliness

While all of them have their troubles, something unusual makes them realize the importance and appreciation of the life they are living. Facing some systems error, all the agents are unable to take calls. Vroom decides that they go out to a bar to relieve their stress. While on the return journey, Vroom decides to take a shortcut to reach office quickly and the van is left dangling precariously on the edge of a some steel rods above a abyss when all hope seems lost, they receive a phone call in the no-reception area. The call was from god. The rest of the story follows what happens after God speaks to them stay true to their heart and promise that they will do what they will do what they have to do to achieve that.

The film takes away a lot of criticism for adapting the original episodes that reveals in the book. For example, the example in the book, where Ganesh's photos are found on the net and revealed to Priyanka by Vroom, is missing from the movie, making it difficult to understand why Priyanka comes back to Shyam in the end. There are many such instances which reveal the weakness of the script. The cast also doesn't justify the original characters in the movie. Vroom, in the book is described as a lean tall guy, but is played by Sohail Khan, who is a complete contrast to it. Same applies to the characters like Esha and Priyanka.

The themes involve the worries and uncertainties of the rising Indian middle class, including questions about career, insufficiency, marriage, family conflicts in a changing India, and the relationship of the young Indian middle class to both executives and ordinary clients whom they serve in the United States. There is an aspect of self-help in the book as the author invites readers to identify aspects of themselves and their lives that make them angry and that they would like to change.

Conclusion:       

          A phone call from God is one of the salient features in the novel. In order to cheer themselves up, all the lead characters of the novel decide to go and enjoy at a night club. After enjoying for a while, they leave for office. While returning, they face a life-threatening situation when their Qualis crashes into a construction site hanging over a mesh of iron construction rods. As the rods began to yield slowly, they start to panic. They are unable to call for help as there is no mobile phone network at that place, but Shyam's mobile phone starts ringing. The phone call is from God, who speaks modern English. He speaks to all of them and gives them suggestions to improve their life, and advises them on how to get their vehicle out of the construction site. The conversation with God motivates the group to such an extent that they get ready to face their problems with utmost determination and motivation. Meanwhile Vroom and Shyam hatch a plan to throw Bakshi out of the call center and prevent the closing of Connexions call center, whose employees are to be downsized radically. When they emerge from danger, they have clear-cut goals in their mind. On returning to the call center, they carry out their plans with dexterity.