by Leena Nandan
‘This is an occupational hazard all you ambitious ladies face when you step out of your homes to be able to stand on your own feet—are those dainty feet now getting cold?’ said Aakash, his tone flat and hard.
Tina drew in a sharp breath of anger at his callous words, but Deepti, Shelly and Rita remained quiet. ‘That’s extremely insensitive,’ she said in a low tone.
‘Forget it, Tina, and get to the point,’ said Vijay curtly. ‘What has the response of the general manager of the credit card company been like?’
She hesitated uncharacteristically, which gave Tony a chance to butt in with, ‘Bet he’s trying to take her out on a date, guys.
Everyone has designs on our Tina.’
There were sniggers, as they all recalled how a fashion boutique owner had become so captivated with Tina that all his feedback forms talked only of her and not about how he rated the call centre.
Tina would normally have been more than ready with a witty comeback, but she only said, ‘I’ve been too busy filling out the questionnaire given by the bank on the cyber fraud matter and there are still some details…’
Vijay’s face suddenly became mottled with anger. ‘What exactly are you trying to prove, by the way? You’ve been cosying up with the cyber crime chap for too long, and we’re the ones managing your tasks. I’ve spoken to Neil and he’s going to take the fact that you’re giving an inordinate amount of time to the cyber case up with the CEO.’
Tony added, ‘And management is furious because we’ve lost two bids, but it’s no skin off milady’s nose.’
‘Oh, are you implying that our resident angel, Tina may actually be losing her halo? That’s a hit below the belt, man. Tina’s responsibilities always come first and she makes sure she gets all the kudos too,’ sneered Aakash.
It was so unlike Aakash to repeatedly join any conversation and that too with such overt hostility, that everyone fell silent.
Tina lost her cool. ‘Look, Tony will have to do some handholding and appease the bosses about the lost contracts—this fraud is a serious matter and I can’t do a perfunctory job. The guy from the cyber crime cell is breathing down my neck.’
‘Sweetie, we’re all in the mood for heavy breathing. Or I can sing, “I wanna hold your hand” if you like,’ drawled Tony. Deepti nudged Rita, enjoying Tina’s discomfiture. Shelly said nothing; she was busy admiring her glittering nail polish.
This was getting completely out of hand, thought Raghav. It was a virtual intra-team war, and Tina was being too restrained whereas she normally would have defended herself with consummate confidence. He could make out there was something she was holding back, but before he could probe further, the guard came up.
‘Madam, the cyber cell officer wants to talk to you urgently.’
She picked up the folder and with a brief wave of the hand left the group.
He watched her go, and the look in his eyes would have made her blood run cold.
TWO
31 January
Shelly was late as usual. She had been undecided about her dress for the day and at the very last minute, decided to change the accessories. The cab driver would be waiting with the three others who travelled on that shift, but their convenience was of little consequence. Shelly had got through life making calculated decisions about who was of import, and who didn’t matter. She took after her dad in terms of being hard-nosed. Things had never been the same for Shelly after her parents separated, but she had learnt one major lesson from her mother’s failed marriage—one had to shrewdly manipulate people rather than openly confront them. But still, things did not work out her way sometimes, and then her fury was worse than anyone could have imagined.
She was surprised to see only one occupant in the cab. ‘Where are the others? Late?’ she asked with a frown as she got in.
Paresh Ahuja, the office administrator, shrugged. Everyone knew that the training had whittled down the number of execs, but trust Shelly to not register anything that did not impact her own pretty self. He found her self-centred and vain, and her looks left him cold. While generally small talk helped in whiling away travel time, he was in no mood to chat with Shelly. He had heard a tale from an old classmate of hers which hadn’t endeared Shelly to him at all.
When Shelly was a student of Class 11, her claim to fame was being the local sex symbol. She was going out with the best-looking guy in town and all the other girls were horribly envious. At the end of the year, when her report card came, it was crystal clear that she had flirted unsuccessfully with Lady Luck. Undaunted by this minor setback, she erased the marks and did some nifty over-writing, so ‘Failed’ was substituted with ‘Passed’ and all was well. Till the time her mother met one of the class teachers in the bookstore and asked how her dear daughter was coping with the pressure of studies in Class 12. She was duly informed that the apple of her eye was still adorning the former class. The next thing was a raging fight at home with Shelly screeching that she hated her parents and her father shouting in the background at both of them.
Shelly had always been terrified of her mother’s anger. On the best of days, it took the form of a cold, silent rage and then there were days when it boiled over into red-hot fury that was almost incandescent in its intensity. That day, her mother had lunged at her with a pair of scissors, and the nightmare ended only when Shelly ran to her neighbour’s house, screaming that her parents were going to kill her.
But that was still not the end of the story. Shelly went to the principal and complained that the math teacher had made a pass at her and when she rejected his advances, made sure that she did not clear the exam. It didn’t explain why she failed in almost all subjects. What mattered was that the teacher was fired and he left in disgrace. Claiming mental trauma due to harassment, she took a re-exam and cleared Class 11. Her triumphant expression for days together was a chastening sight for all the other teachers who had ever toyed with the idea of pulling her up for studies.
Everything was a power game to her…
Paresh decided to carry a book to read in the cab till the day the other teams returned. For today, he gazed determinedly out of the window, avoiding even the most desultory conversation. Generally there were a good number of people in the cab, both trainees and executives, and their lively discussions helped while away the time. Once they’d got talking about the latest Bollywood hit numbers. They made two teams and sang songs all the way from office, enjoying themselves hugely, and no one seemed to mind that the traffic jam had delayed their arrival home by an hour.
Shelly didn’t notice the silence. Taking out her little vanity mirror, she checked that the lipstick matched her pink blouse which had ruffle at the neck, and then proceeded to spray some perfume on herself. The cab suddenly screeched to a halt and she looked up startled to see what the matter was. The driver had been staring at her in the rear-view mirror and had slammed the brakes at the last minute when he saw that a group of elderly women was crossing the road.
‘Are they blind as bats or what?’ Shelly exclaimed angrily. The driver let out a string of curses in his native language.
Paresh remained quiet, but made a mental note to speak to the transport-in-charge—the lecherous look in the eyes of the cab driver staring at Shelly rang a warning bell in his head. He recalled some of the new trainees talking about one of the drivers who always leered at the girls, especially in the late night shift. The terrible incident with Ruby meant that everyone had to be on full alert. He did feel that the company was too laidback regarding security checks of the guards and drivers, and seemed to prefer paying less for raw recruits, rather than going in for the very best. The problem was that the security and transport contractor had both been selected centrally, to cater to the needs of both 24x365 and Future Insights. The security guys had handled it all, not leaving it to admin, and there was always a cloak of secrecy over the exercise. Plus, Future Insights seemed to get priority, which meant better staff. It didn’t make sense to Paresh, so he tried to take up
the matter with S Benoy, the chief security officer of Future Insights, and got an acerbic response for his pains.
The cab was crossing Future Insights, the research facility that was a sister concern of 24x365, but looked more like a poor cousin than a sibling. Where the call centre was a lively hub of activity, with bright lights and a jazzy environment, the research facility was drab and uninteresting. The complex was surrounded by electrified barbed wire fencing and X-Ray machines, including body scanners, for the staff scrutinised everything to make sure that not even a pen drive was smuggled out. It was always still and cold as death; everyone crept around on rubber-soled shoes, heaven alone knew why; the look and feel of the place was like that of a morgue. No one could bring anything onto the premises, not even lunch boxes. All meals were to be eaten on campus and though the food was good, the soulless atmosphere of the cafeteria made the taste buds shrivel up and die. In short, it was far from a carnival atmosphere, and capable of rendering even the most robust temperament joyless.
Future Insights was set up for the sole purpose of developing software with an edge. They would cater to their own call centre clients—pharmaceutical giants engaged in developing wonder drugs, consumer companies making sophisticated appliances and a host of others, all of whom were paranoid that their Research and Development would be stolen by a rival. It was here that Future Insights planned to make a killing. Their team was burning the midnight oil, trying to put the finishing touches to a programme that connected the data base on the employees’ mobile phones to a search engine that ferreted out the details of everyone exchanging phone calls or messages with the employees. The spyware would be embedded in an innocuous official message about a forthcoming meeting, and would burrow deep into the recipient’s phone without being detected by any anti-virus. Shailendra Prakash was the CEO of both companies, but Future Insights was really his baby. He was certain that with the humungous investment he had made in state-of-the-art security, more business would come their way.
It was big money and top secrecy. There were a select group of researchers in Future Insights, who had been working on their project for innumerable hours and countless days. Sadly, each time a consolidated report went for validation to the chief scientist, Dr Ranjit Maken, it came back with queries in red, underscored several times, often with rude annotations in the margin. Dr Maken worked in the huge hall on the ground floor, but none of them had the temerity to approach him directly and ask what precisely the shortcomings were. His personality was too intimidating and he had the reputation of being short-tempered and sarcastic.
The team was thoroughly demoralised; only the newest recruit Harish Sinha still held on to his faith. And that was because he knew what none of the others did—that the ongoing project ‘Ice-breaker’ was for none other than their own call centre, 24x365. They were actually spying on their own colleagues, because someone had leaked their latest program to a rival company, making them lose face as the upcoming software wonder kid—and billions too in the bargain.
That night, Harish felt completely out of sorts in his one-room apartment on the outskirts of Delhi. The sky was overcast and the stars, seemingly in a bad mood, refused to twinkle. He had not written home in three weeks and just this morning had received a letter from his mother, written in her characteristic dry and emotionless style, narrating sundry developments. But she hadn’t asked why he hadn’t gone home to Bhopal for Diwali. That rankled. Everyone expected to be missed by folks back home during festivals. But, of course, he was just fooling himself. They would light the obligatory diyas in a perfunctory manner. Mother would cook a dish or two in her usual methodical way, and with her usual lack of enthusiasm. The three of them would sit down to a silent dinner, attempting to shut out the sounds of celebration. Father, ever morose, would curl his lip in contempt at the absurd excitement of their neighbours. Living was a purely mechanical process; little wonder that Harish had grabbed this opportunity and opted to leave home for a godforsaken research centre where the veil of secrecy at least lent a semblance of importance to his life.
Harish had always envied those living in large, nuclear and extended families. The closest he had come to being part of a closeknit, warm circle of people was in the final year of the Information Technology Institute in Allahabad, when he became friendly with Raghav Kumar Bedi. Raghav had a devil-may-care attitude towards everything, including studies, and had been content to breeze his way through college with below average grades. He was as lively as the town was staid. Of course, Allahabad had an undeniable old world charm. More known for its religious heritage, the town initially held little fascination for Harish, except for the Sangam area, where three rivers merged seamlessly to lose their individual selves, content to flow on as the eternal Ganga.
Harish could sit and reflect for hours on the sands that slipped out of your grasp even as you tightened your hold. He enjoyed meeting the members of Raghav’s joint family even though their boisterous friendliness inevitably rendered him tongue-tied. They lived in an old rambling house and there were always sounds of laughter and banter that floated on to the road, even the noises of childish voices raised in anger. Though years had passed, just the memory of Raghav’s numerous aunts, uncles and cousins, all talking at the top of their voices, invariably brought a smile to his face.
One particular story had always enthralled him. During family get-togethers, they used to have full-scale programmes comprising plays, songs and the like. On one such occasion, Raghav’s band of sincere cousins was presenting a song about a boat rowing out to sea. The lyrics were serious, exhorting all on board to ably man the vessel. Though the tone, tenor and tune made it sound suspiciously like a poem being recited, the enthusiastic girls had rehearsed it for hours, with unabated vigour. Sadly for them, an adorable Raghav, all of five years old, decided to sit on the steps and present his own version, with actions to match the words. The audience was thoroughly captivated by the cherubic performer and the group warbling onstage received scanty applause.
The highlight of the cultural programme was the magic show. An upturned table was kept on the stage, its four legs draped with a sheet, below which Raghav sat, concealed from view. The sheet had a hole in its middle. His elder brother, the conjuror, dramatically plucked out flowers and other such stuff from thin air, the items being passed up through the aperture by Raghav. Thunderous applause greeted the performance and with graceful bows to the highly appreciative audience, the magician withdrew from the scene. His assistants—perhaps smarting over the damp squib of their group song—were clumsy in removing the table, and a wail rent the air. ‘I got hurt,’ said a quavering voice from under the sheet and Raghav leapt into full view, tears coursing down his cheeks. The cloak of invisibility was not so invisible after all.
Harish had laughed till he was in tears the first time he heard the story. It was embellished with every narration, but he enjoyed it hugely each time. It made him forget his own loneliness and he felt almost as if a part of Raghav’s family, simply because he knew all their names and the fascinating tales about them. Having grown up as a shy individual without a close circle of family or friends, he was singularly ill at ease doing anything that required the minimal self-confidence. He and Raghav had become friendly, but all that seemed to be in the distant past.
Even though Raghav worked just next door in 24x365, they hardly had occasion to meet. Once they ran into each other while both were waiting for their respective cabs. Raghav was so dashing and witty that the contrast in their personalities made Harish even more tongue-tied and awkward. He had started talking about his project, but though Raghav looked keenly interested, he got a call right then, which seemed to demand all his attention. Harish felt embarrassed about being such a crashing bore that people had to take calls as a pretext to avoid him. Quietly, he boarded his cab and resolved never to engage anyone in a lengthy conversation.
Harish shook himself out of his reverie, and came back to the present, to his silent apartment. Out of the blue
, the transceiver in the iron trunk under his bed beeped and he sat up. There was a burst of static which, to his thudding heart, sounded like gunfire. What he was doing was completely unorthodox. One of their clients had been a mobile service provider and he had wangled the list of mobile numbers used by the call centre executives.
He had put tracers on the numbers to see whether they could hack into the directory of the cell phone. The transceiver had just made a breakthrough and was right then recording all the numbers in the contact list of one particular cell phone user. Tomorrow, he could present his findings as an actual successful test case and win the admiration of his colleagues! The very thought made his heart beat faster.
Suddenly, there was a whispering sound. It seemed the cell phone was being used and his transceiver was picking up the radio waves too! He could vaguely make out two voices conversing in a low tone. Abruptly, the conversation ceased. He played back the transceiver after disconnecting it from the mains, and listened to the words several times. It didn’t need a rocket scientist to discern that there was something clandestine about the call. It was an underhand deal being made by one of the call centre executives. But how would he identify the person whose number it was? And more importantly, how would his company react to the information that he was doing his own experimenting? The thought made him giddy. There was no point running after ghosts at this odd hour. He would file a report in the morning.
1 February
In the cold light of day, Harish was less sanguine. No matter who he spoke to, he would get the short end of the stick for unauthorised action, which in crude language amounted to spying. What if he lost the job? But should he do nothing? The dilemma had kept him awake all night, till he finally came to a conclusion. He would turn over his findings to the security people and then it would be their problem. All he needed was to pinpoint someone senior enough, but who, given that they were practically a bunch of nameless, faceless people? Finally, he decided to take the plunge and establish direct communication, so he sent a mail requesting a meeting on a personal issue.