Outsourced, John Jeffcoat

Do you like spicy food? –

Well it depends upon every individual but for me of course I do.

Anyway, that is the introduction of my country India in this American movie “Outsourced”. It is quite popular outside India as it gives a complete idea about the Indian culture in brief. Those who haven’t been to India and would like to visit in future, it is one of the best films to watch before landing here rather than watching films like “Slumdog millionaire” that gives a vague perception of India.

Here in the film, an entire department of a call center in Seattle was outsourced, where Todd (Josh Hamilton), an American novelty products salesman, heads to India to train his replacement Puru (Asif Basra). Right from the Mumbai airport, the film shows how it feels to be in a place that is so different from one’s own motherland.

For us Indians, it is funny to watch our own way of doing things which is strange for foreigners to understand, especially for the people on their first visit in the land of Kali (goddess of destruction).

This film provides a lot of information about both the countries (India & USA) of how they are different from each other culturally and in many other aspects through funny conversations & very impressive way of story-telling. Though both the countries were ruled by the British, there is a huge difference of English pronunciation of Indian & American accent. Todd got frustrated of not being able to train the Indian employees to change their accent, so that the MPI(Minutes per Incident) level improves and they don’t get caught as Indians over the telephonic conversation with US citizen. Then Asha (Ayesha Dharker), a woman employee over there, suggested Todd to learn more about India.

Slowly things start rolling for positive results when Todd begins to learn more about the Indian culture, keeping in mind that a fellow American call center trainer told him “Once he stopped resisting India, it got better”. Impressed by the suggestion of Asha, he promoted her for the position of future assistant of Puru.

When MPI level improved to Todd’s target 6, his supervisor flew down to India, only to announce that the company has been outsourced to China & everyone is fired. Todd was given the same job to train his replacement in China. But at last he refused to go to China and instead came back to US leaving behind a complicated relationship with Asha. He discovered before leaving India that Asha was already engaged with another man by her family since she was only 4 years old. According to her, the intimate moment they spent together can be given a name “Holiday in Goa”.

Apart from Indian culture, we can also learn few American terms from this movie. I was not aware of some terms before watching it. So I am ending like an American way –

BREAK A LEG... ;)