Of ‘Cyber-Coolies’ and Globalized India: Representing the Cosmos of Call-Centers in Films from the Subcontinent and Abroad

Abstract

In today’s globalized India, not only has the outsourcing sector generated employment for some two million people, but it has also promoted the mesmerizing idea of a ‘new India’ of foreign investment, global markets, economic growth and expanding middle class. Drawing its workforce from an urban, college-educated Indian youth who receive training in ‘accent neutralization,’ the call centre industry offers the hope of rapid upward mobility, even if this involves working grinding shifts and faking an American name, accent, location, and time-zone. As against the somewhat cultish belief that ‘pretend-Nancy’ or ‘pretend-Bill’ (Susan Sontag) can reap the benefits of the corporate search for cut-rate labor, critics such as Harish Trivedi and Siddhartha Deb have proved highly critical of the ways in which the call centre industry results in creating a generation of ‘cyber-coolies’ and cultural emulators. A “public spectacle,” in Shehzad Nadeem’s words, outsourcing can be seen to promote an Indian fantasy landscape of high tech, virtual lives, and consumer culture that is reproduced and/or resisted in a growing number of cultural productions. Investigating TV series (Outsourced, Mumbai Calling), blockbusters (Slumdog Millionaire, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), and documentaries (John and Jane Toll-Free, Bombay Calling), this paper will explore the cosmos of call centres from a cross-cultural perspective