Bibliofile

We've heard of doctors and engineers working in call centres. But a novelist? The Guardian commissioned Siddhartha Deb to join a call centre in Delhi and report on life there. Posing as a schoolteacher from Shillong, Deb managed to get the job and was put through the paces by a Scottish instructor. Life in call centres, says Deb, is far from rosy. "I'd been told by those with greater experience that the British were prone to be sarcastic when angry, unlike Americans who had a reputation for shouting 'F*** off'." They weren't wrong. Deb found himself "putting my phone on 'Not Ready' frequently to empty my head of the angry voices". But judging by the flood of e-mails his recruiters sent him asking for workers with "neutral accents", writing in English is just the right training for a call centre job.

Yet another Indian novelist debuting abroad, Siddharth Dhanvani Shangvi, was asked by a newspaper, 'What is home?'. Shangvi's reply tells the sad story of our IWE: "It is where your suitcase is."