Screening at the New Directors/New Films Festival in New York City. Museum of Modern Art: March 27 at 6:00 PM; Walter Reade Theater: March 30 at 8:45 PM
Indians in international call centers often work 14-hour days with no time off for prominent religious festivals or national holidays in India. Because they are calling distant time zones, they usually labor at night, and their erratic sleep schedule throws off their entire lives. And that's just the physical part of it. They are also trained to address the values that are deemed to be important in America such as achievement and success, progress, patriotism, and the pursuit of happiness. Employees adopt American names and are coached in American accents; many of them wind up inhabiting these surrogate identities.
These fascinating bits of information are revealed in this astonishing documentary directed by Ashim Ahluwalia. Now, for the first time, people around the world will some idea of the kind of people at the other end of the phone in India.
Three o'clock in the morning at a Mumbai call center, and Indian employees are already hard at work trying to sell emergency center medical systems, phone services, or devices that can shape your pancakes into turtles if you heart so desires. The documentary focuses on six workers. Glen is an unhappy young man who hates his bosses and would rather be a model. Sydney is a dancer who does the best he can with the work and uses the money for clothes. Osmond claims that his job has transformed his life and given him a new purpose: to be a billionaire. He listens to confidence building tapes and while he sleeps, a voice in the background chants "you are wealthy." He dreams of living in a big fancy house.
Nikki, a former Hindu, has joined a church and feels close to God the Father since she never had much of a family. She is the only one who evidences a shred of interest in being kind to the people she interacts with on the phone. Nicholas has bought all the propaganda about America in the training program. His wife also works for an international call center, and they sometimes get to see each other for 20 minutes a day on her break. At one point, Nicholas says of America, "that culture has gone into me." The same can certainly be said for Naomi, an Indian who has dyed her hair blonde. She says her ideal man would be naturally blonde because with this shared value, they can have lots of fun together.
This booming Indian Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) industry is a way for corporations to Americanize the world. As a cultural document, it is quite amazing to see how these telemarketers are brainwashed into believing in consumerism as a passport to a meaningful and fulfilling life. Almost all of those profiled have erased their Indian identities and merged with the universal consumer who always wants bigger and better things.
