Who’s That On The Line? Bombay Calling Film Review

Have you ever gone to watch a movie and thought “I’m pretty sure I know what this one will be about”…only to realize, by the end, that it was more than you had expected? Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal’s film Bombay Calling is a documentary that induces more than just entertainment based on the title. The viewer gets their money’s worth for entertainment value and a bonus value-add of thought provoking insight into current Indian lifestyle choices, global commerce and Bombay’s urban social scene. This is the duo’s second film (the first one is Discordia) and for its viewers it brings light to young-adult, urban culture in India as it is today as well as a peek into the evolving social culture of India.

Initially, from the title, it would seem that Bombay Calling is a doc film that takes an insightful look into call centres that have been developed as a result of western outsourcing to India. The film does delve into this on the surface and by following a group of young Indians who work in a call centre created through the international outsourcing boom, it depicts the lifestyle choices and challenges that these individuals face.

This film has elements that illustrate how outsourcing has created a job market for young and freshly educated Indians, allowing them to make about twice the monthly salary they would initially have earned working at a regular, professional job that their ‘graduate’ status would grant them in the current Indian job market. The young adults are trained at honing their sales skills and English accents to sound believable enough for the person on the other end of the receiver, whether they are in the UK or Massachusetts. In addition to this, the film correctly depicts the vigorous sales pressures, relentless pace, and the ‘love-the-money but hate-the-job’ culture that exists in call centres.

Presenting the world of long and odd work hours, seemingly positive job prospects and drastically increased monthly salaries is an interesting enough take for a film, but Bombay Calling plunges deeper to show the lifestyle choices and challenges individuals face when moving to an urban centre like Bombay as well as touching on a shift in cultural ideology. One of the call centre reps named Sweetlana Dias (Sweetie) is a daughter of a rural Indian-Catholic family who is the only youth from her town to leave the city to work and settle in urban Bombay. This seems fairly progressive, considering the fact that she is female, her parents are supportive and proud, and she is an example of upward mobility for this small town in rural India. On the flip side, another perspective is the opinion of the family Sweetie stays with in Bombay (who are also Catholic Indians). When interviewed by Mallal and Addelman, the couple grabs to opportunity to voice their opinions on how “The youth is getting too strong,” and that “It’s going from bad to worse.” Perhaps there’s a cultural and social shift taking place rapidly in India, but only for or a specific generation.

Office romances are also depicted as a regular thing in Bombay Calling as Sweetie takes her boyfriend, also another call centre rep from the Epicenter call centre in Bombay, back to the small town where she’s from to see her parents. Baljit and Wendy are also another couple from the same call centre. For extra entertainment value, pay special attention (not like you can ignore his car salesman-eque attitude) to Sam…the manager at the Epicenter call centre. Though entertaining to watch as he imitates and tries to explain the different nuances associated with American accents from state to state, he also makes sacrifices such as missing a religious right of passage ceremony for his infant son and his wedding anniversary, all in the name of climbing the corporate ladder and making money.

Bombay Calling is not a film that makes an outright statement about globalization; nor is it a film that labels the direction of this new yuppie culture being fuelled by western outsourcing as positive or negative. This movie is a snapshot of India’s evolving urban socio-economic culture, and it is worth picking up. At the least, it’ll put somewhat of a face to those annoying telemarketing calls we all get around dinner time on weeknights.