call centre crowd - MetroNow column

Today I want to write about the 3Cs, or C cube or simply CCC – call centre crowd – that has become an inherent part of the Gurgaon landscape. A potent group with immense spending power, they come from different parts of the country, are subsumed by the Gurgaon culture and become part and parcel of this township. Their individual traits are
smothered by big city habits and after a while they start to look and behave like one another, so much so that when you enter a restaurant or bar you can recognize them from a mile. But things have changed.

In 2003-2005, when outsourcing was India’s biggest find, the call centre crowd was just about finding its feet. Lured by the big bucks, many of them were getting paid handsome salaries to turn into Janes and Judes by night (all this is well documented so we won’t go there) and upturn their conditioned body clocks. But somewhere this was taking a toll and attrition rates were high. So the employers figured out that the best way to keep these guys hooked was to offer them more than just the money. HR heads were told to spare no effort in ensuring that these guys had a good time. Discos were hired out and there were all-paid-for parties nearly every weekend for some call centre or the other. In those days if you went to Sahara Mall, any of the discos, be it Odyssey, Last Chance or any other were overflowing with young people from call centres. Booze was free and obviously, some of them couldn’t handle it. I have personally witnessed a fist to fist fight between two girls -- who were abusing each other in Hindi while the crowd watched and cheered – fighting over a guy. From that day on, that particular disco started asking guests to remove kadas to prevent brawls. Many people I know started avoiding this mall on Saturday nights simply because the call centre crowd would be there. I was one of them.

But things have changed in the past few years. Just last month I went to Buzz in City Centre and while I could instantly spot a call centre group – still in work wear, door passes slinging around their necks, and the odd foreign boss around – the manner was distinctly altered. No loud hooting, fighting and drawing unnecessary attention to them. They were dancing by themselves and having a good time but no one was disturbed by it. I guess, with the passage of time, they’ve sobered up. The big bucks are now passé so they don’t feel the need to blow it up every Saturday, and they’ve been accepted as part of mainstream corporate India, which wasn’t the case some years ago when any MBA worth his degree would cock a snook at a call centre employee. So there’s no need for them to be boisterous and loud and show the whole world that they’re having a ball, irrespective of what you think of them. They have now gained respect, become comfortable in their midnight skin and even had popular culture devote a docu and a bestselling book to them.

Now, they’re just like any of us.