How Bangalore Calling was written
By Suneetha

Life at call centres is fascinating, but still a mystery to many of the outsiders. Stanford Uni educated Brinda S Narayan’s debut novel ‘Bangalore Calling’ has a narration that introduces you to a BPO, but its fiction that evaluates the social cost of it all, to the Indian as well as the non Indian faces in the multi billion dollar booming BPO sector. Techgoss speaks to Brinda.

Techgoss (TG): Please give us an intro of yourself, education / career / home / family
Brinda S Narayan (BSN): I grew up in Bangalore and studied there till the 12th Standard. Then I did a Bachelor’s in Economics at Wellesley College and a Master’s in Communication at Stanford University. I worked for a small-town newspaper near Seattle for 7 months, after which I returned to India and worked for fifteen years in fairly mainstream corporate jobs. I currently live in Bangalore with my husband and two children.

TG: Please tell us more about your familiarity with the BPO sector, and how you zeroed in upon an idea for a book themed on this.
BSN: A few years ago I was working as a quality consultant with a few call centres and I was intrigued by the changes I was witnessing. It was disconcerting to walk into a call floor and encounter a medley of accents – some desperately striving to sound American, some actually pulling it off and some not bothering to mask their Indianness. Also, one of my tasks as a consultant was to filter accents on a scale ranging from ‘neutral’ to ‘high-MTI’ and like Yvette, the trainer in Bangalore Calling, I felt a vague unease by what we were doing as an industry. The gains – jobs and salaries - were clear and tangible, but I felt there might be less visible, but equally significant losses. So I took a sabbatical and conducted research at three centres. Bangalore Calling is the outcome of that study.

TG: Have you been writing before? How come the book is fiction rather than non-fiction?
BSN: Honestly, the book started out as non-fiction. But sometime during the writing process I started encountering these images. I wondered how the trainer would respond if she had a conflict with her mother. And I also wished that some of my interviewees had been more evocative in their responses, more expressive of what they were actually experiencing but were perhaps hesitant to articulate. So I started dabbling with a fiction version as well. And then I found I enjoyed the writing more and I felt I could incorporate my findings in a more accessible and entertaining format.

TG: The research for this book must have been intense, can you tell us more?
BSN: Yes, it was very intense. I spent about six months conducting research for the book. I met with 70 agents all over the city, at office cafeterias, on the call floor, at cafes, in their homes. I also interviewed several agent families. I transcribed an entire training program. I met with trainers, team leaders, managers and so on. I also ‘side-jacked’ or listened in live to hundreds of calls on the call floor.

TG: I can think of at least two more books about BPO life, one is Chetan Bhagat's and the other is Sudhindra Mokhasi's BPO Sutra... a compilation of real stories from BPOs…have you read either of them? Or any other book you can mention on Indian BPOs as preparatory to this book?
BSN: I have read Chetan Bhagat's book, and I'm not sure if it's necessarily preparatory material for Bangalore Calling. I think both books can be read independently, in any sequence. I haven't yet read BPO Sutra -- but I'm sure it must be an interesting read.

TG: How do you think the BPO sector has evolved?
BSN: I think the sector has evolved both in terms of kinds of jobs being off-shored as well as in the volume of off-shored jobs. And also perhaps, there is a greater acceptance of the off-shoring phenomenon so that agents are not required to feign names and geographic locations in the larger centres (though such injunctions still exist in smaller centres). And given that India is a rising economic power, younger generations are more confident about their “Indianness” though the larger changes (for example, the consumerist lifestyles) continue to seep in.

TG: Tell us about Bangalore Calling, how has the book been received? Any memorable incidents?
BSN: I think the book has been very positively received so far.  What I find most gratifying is when someone who has worked in the industry can relate to the stories. I’ve had a few call centre agents saying they can see ‘their own lives flashing by’ and I’m very heartened by that.

TG: The cover is one of the most intriguing and eye-catching things about the book. I am sure people have commented on it before, please tell us more about how and why you finalised this cover...
BSN: This particular image of Uncle Sam was most famously used in wartime posters to recruit American soldiers for World War I. Since the book depicts the consequences of globalization and of Americanization in particular, I thought the image was very apt.

TG: Are you writing another book? Can you tell us something about what’s happening next?
BSN: Yes, I am working on another book, a novel.

The publisher, Hachette India, is running a review contest at bangalorecalling.in. Send in an entry and you might be the winner of an exciting book hamper from Hachette. Also, there’s a short book trailer at YouTube