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Bringing Back Grandfather
Call centres have become almost a household term today. However, these are not looked upon as an ideal long-term career option, at best treated as grooming centres, stepping stones to better avenues elsewhere. There is also a lingering feeling among the ambitious that a job in a call centre is not exactly a passport to high social status – after all one is performing a job that no one in the West wants anyway; it’s drudgery appropriate for a cyber-coolie! The author feels otherwise. In an autobiographical account he shows how it can be turned into a highly satisfying career. Some of the dos and don’ts mentioned in this book are equally relevant to life in general.
This book is a medley of recollections by people from different walks of life, as narrated to Hiro Shroff. Born in 1926, he was a PTI correspondent for years, the first bureau chief of UNI in Mumbai, personal secretary-cum-PRO of the redoubtable Rukmini Devi Arundale, the then head of Kalakshetra in Chennai. Having lived a kinetic life, as a reporter he had covered Pakistan, Afghanistan, West Asia and China when a fresh chapter in world history was being written. He had interviewed Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Nehru, Sukarno, Ho Chi Minh, Ayub Khan and Norodom Sihanouk as also Pope Paul VI and assorted kings. Through his immensely popular Down memory lane column, not only did he take readers to the events, sounds and sights of more than half a century ago, but also provided keen insights into the persona of different celebrities from political, social and other fields. The present book is a compilation of all those articles and interviews. One remembers doing a detailed review of its earlier edition a few years back.
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WHEN they lose someone
they’re deeply attached to, children get emotionally traumatised and
often choose to escape to a make-believe world. Something similar
happens to Anu in this novel when his grandfather, Siddhartha Ganguli,
suddenly dies in a freak accident in the woods where the two had gone on
an owl-watching trip. Anu blames himself for the old man’s death.
However, he realises that the grandfather’s spirit is with him. Thence
starts a fanciful and highly readable tale saw set in the post-9/11
Seattle. Snide remarks like ‘Osama Bin Laden’ for the bald ‘n’
bearded grandpa, or ‘little Islam’ for Anu, betray both prejudice
and ignorance on the part of common Americans while giving the story a
realistic and contemporary touch. Anyway kids will love to read this
book more for its imaginative plot than anything else.
Winning @ Call Centre
Down Memory Lane