the forgettable journey - a preview

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Te Forgettable Journey



About Notion Press

Notion Press is a Self-Publishing platform to write, publish& sell Print books and eBooks around the world. To learnmore, visit www.notionpress.com

The Forgettable Journey is a product of the Notion Press Author Incubation Program.




Kiran S



Notion Press

5 Muthu Kalathy Street, Triplicane,Chennai - 600005

Published by Notion Press, 2013

Copyright © Kiran S 2013

All Rights Reserved.

This book is sold subject to condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or hired out, circulatedand no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (exceptfor brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may bemade without written permission of the author.

This book has been published in good faith that the work of the author is original. All efforts have been taken to makethe material error-free. However, the author and the publisherdisclaim the responsibility for any inadvertent errors.



To my ever supporting wife... to my two

sweethearts who endure my mood swings...... I love

you Addy and Khushi



Preface

I had wanted to write a sci- since a long time. It wasbrewing in my mind since many years, but it was only ayear ago that I got the time and much required patienceto convert it into words. e story was there in the mind,but only the beginning.

I sometimes wondered whether I was just not getting

anywhere. But then my thoughts, after a few days of restto my mind, would pick up pace once again. And gradually it transformed into a book. I hope you like it, I sincerely need the encouragement.



Acknowledgement

ank you my dear for bearing with me so long. ank youGod for giving me this idea. ank you ank you ankyou to the Universe and all its forces who brought me tothis unique website where I could publish my rst book.

And last but not the least, I thank with all my heart themakers of this website.



Prologue

How he reached here was the foremost thought in Nikhil’smind. As far as he remembered he was working in his of-ce and then… He tried hard to think, to remember howhe reached where he was right now. But try as he might,Nikhil was unable to recall anything that happened afterthat. And what was this darkness spread all around him?

As far as he could see, there was nothing but darkness.His head spun as he tried to get up. He groped about inthe dark but still found nothing for support to get up. Hesat there thinking of where he was and what he was doinghere. He suddenly remembered that he had to go home.His mom had warned him sternly that guests were expect-ed and that if he didn’t reach home on time she would stoptalking to him. e thought of his mother getting upset

gave him the energy he required to get up from the groundwithout any support. As soon as he got up, he realizedthat he couldn’t make out which direction to head in toreach his house. As he stood there, looking around, he sud-denly saw lights blinking a few meters towards his right.“Amazing”, thought Nikhil, “these lights don’t seem to belighting up any place but the building inside which they are!!” He looked curiously towards the lights trying to ndout the reason for the odd behaviour of the lights. And itwas then that he realized that they were the lights of hisofce. e rst thought he had was, “Good, now I knowwhere I should be heading for my home.” But as he startedwalking towards the ofce, something blocked his way. Hetried to get past whatever it was, but he just couldn’t. Itwas as if an invisible wall had blocked his way. He shiftedto the left and then to the right, but the wall seemed to beeverywhere. e only way he could turn was to his back,away from his ofce and, hence, from any which way thatled to his house. He sat on the ground, exhausted.



FAILING LOGIC

Nikhil was a young man in his early twenties. He startedworking in an IT company after nishing his degree. eowner of the company, Gurnam Singh, was a childhoodfriend of his father. He loved Nikhil as he loved his ownson. When Nikhil showed interest in seeking employmentin the company, his father was surprised because they hadtheir own well established business in the city. Nikhil con-

vinced him that he needed to work from the ground levelto understand business and in Gurnam Uncle’s company hecould learn more about the new technologies. is wouldhelp them use the technology in their own company, thusstrengthening their ties with each other. His father triedto talk him out of this.

“You could always learn it while managing our owncompany, Nikhil!”

“Yes, I can. But then, if I say something is wrongthey will take it as the owner’s suggestion, not a learner’s.I want to have a rst hand experience, Papa. Moreover,spending a little time with people at ground level will makeit easier for me to understand and work with them lat-er.” Although his father was not convinced, he agreed andtalked to Gurnam Uncle to let him join. e only condi-tion was that no one be told that he was the son of a

friend so that people did not gossip around. Gurnam uncleknew that Nikhil had just an ordinary college degree. Notsome high tech degree which would permit him to go to

join a high rank in the company. So he was appointed asa trainee after a small interview. ough he had thoughtthat working at ground level is necessary and it was of hisown accord that he wanted to join the company, yet hehated working on this post. In this company trainee meant

that he had to help out everyone. And nobody knowingthat he had a good relation with the owner didn't help himin the least.

"Nikhil, please take out 50 photocopies of these papers,would you?" one would say. "Nikhil, go and help Mrs. Ver-ma with her typesetting!!" another shouted. e errandsranged anything from 'helping' someone with his work(which actually meant that Nikhil would do all the work



and the other person would get the whole credit) to bring-

ing coee for the GM. He tried to convince his colleaguesand bosses that he was worth more than what he was un-derstood to be for, but to no avail.

Everyone there thought him to be a child - as only someone who has just graduated and wants to pass histime after having nished college. No one seemed to noticethat Nikhil is interested in the new technology to the ex-tent that he is willing to sit after oce hours and learnwhatever he could. Many times he would be the last per-son to leave. And that too when the peon, Ganga Kakachided him gently, "Beta, why don't you leave ofce at 7 oclock just like everyone else?" To which his response wouldalways be, "Ganga Kaka, I came here not for money, butfor learning. Since I barely get time to learn anything dur-ing ofce hours the only other way is to sit late and try to learn anything which I can. at is the only reason Itold Papa to take special permission from Gurnam Uncle

for me to be here till the time I want to." Ganga Kaka wasthe only person trustworthy enough to share the fact thathe knew Gurnam Uncle.

Nikhil had always been good at grasping. By the timehe completed three months in the company, he knew mostof the procedures of the oce and enough of the hi-techdevices to keep the work going on even when someonewas on leave. People gradually grew fond of him because of

his ability to learn and also because of his nature to helpeveryone and yet not emphasize that it was he who wasdoing all the work. ey started getting accustomed to as-signing him more responsible tasks. is gave him a chanceto get familiar with the more advanced programmes andthe codes used in the various softwares in them. By theend of the year, he was able to gain the trust of the peoplein the oce. ey were readily available to help him learn

new things. is worked in his favour. After all, that waswhat he had joined the company for.

One evening, when everyone else had left oce, Nikhilsat at the computer he regularly used. He was trying hishand at a new software that had been installed. is soft-ware was designed to connect to one of the major ally of Gurnam Uncle’s company. He was sure that it was safe touse the software at that time because the other company

2 e Forgettable Journey



was situated in the US and he knew that they wouldn't

start working till the next few hours. Nikhil sat at his deskand tried to start the software. As he waited for the com-puter to connect, he drummed his ngers in excitement.He knew that if he learns how to use this, he could quitfrom here and with the help of his father and GurnamUncle, set up the same kind of software in his compa-ny too. He was condent that he would be able to man-age his company in a better way, now that he knew whatthe employees wanted. His excitement was evident in thefact that he sat there completely oblivious to what washappening all around him. For the umpteenth time, aftersparing a eeting look at the walls, the ceiling, the AC,the fan, down to the wires going through all the comput-ers... he looked back to his own computer. He was underthe impression that after this much wait, the computerwould have connected. To his disappointment he saw thathe needed a password which only the regular employees

of the company had. Even though Nikhil was an employ-ee yet he didn't have access to such passwords since oth-ers thought him to be just a trainee. Gurnam Uncle wasout of town and anyway Nikhil didn’t have the courage toask him for the password for the fear that he might takeit otherwise. Nikhil’s frustration reached its limits and hekicked at the computer table before shoving aside the key-board and the mouse. He knew this was his only chance to

try the software. But he could do little other than sit therelooking at the computer. He couldn’t do anything just be-cause the other employees of the company felt that he wasnot mature enough to handle such information. What usewas their aection if they couldn’t trust him for THIS!

Nikhil sat there, grumbling to himself of how he wasbeing exploited by everyone but not given any opportu-nity to do anything worthwhile. “Stupid company, stupid

people!!!” He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling as if com-plaining to God about the situation he was in now. ink-ing thus, he decided to shut down the computer and goaway. However, as he shifted his vision back to the com-puter he saw, much to his delight, that the computer hadlogged on to the software. He was amazed as well as dis-gusted. “So much so for all the security hype around thissoftware. e computer has logged in without using the

Kiran S 3



password!!!! How could they be so casual about the securi-

ty of something which might be used to process nancialtransactions in future?” He was surprised at the lack of se-curity in the software. He pondered for a while whether heshould report this to the others before using it. But thenhe thought, "What the heck! I have a chance to use it. Letthe company policy decide afterwards whether this soft-ware is to be used or not. Who is going to nd out whetherI used the software...." Even though he wasn’t sure aboutwhat he ought to do, he placed the cursor on the "connectnow" button on the screen. “Of course I am doing this

just to test whether I will actually connect to the allies inUS. May be without the password it won’t get connect-ed. Well,” he thought, “even if it does, it is too early forthe team in the US to start working. If the connection isnot established, I would just shut down and leave. What isthe maximum that could happen? Anyway, if it connects Ican at least warn Gurnam Uncle of the breach in security.”

us convincing himself of the correctness of his actions,he clicked on the button.

Nikhil was afraid but he had pinned his hopes on notbeing able to connect without the password. But as it issaid, “ Man proposes, God disposes”. As soon as he clicked thebutton his computer screen showed the message "attempt-ing to connect". Although he was apprehensive, he againtold himself that he would logout immediately in case the

computer actually connects to some allied company. Heclicked on the name of one of the branches – "e PeterHumming-way connections". e process seemed to taketoo long. Nikhil was positive that the connection wouldnot be made as the company was in the U.S. and obvi-ously it would be closed till at least the next two hoursbefore they started working. However, he wanted to seewhat would happen in case it did get connected. His mind

wandered o to what would happen when he told GurnamUncle that he was able to connect even without the pass-word. “Good for the others. ey think I am worthless. Atleast Uncle will have some more faith in me after this.” Hekept staring at the computer screen. Although he wantedto go outside for some fresh air as he usually did after sit-ting for 2-3 hours inside, he didn’t dare get up from hischair now. Muttering under his breath about how unhy-

4 e Forgettable Journey

the forgettable journey - a preview

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