The Topper

This is what 5:00 am in the morning actually looks like, he thought. He had never seen it before. He awoke groggily from his bed and sat in front of his Dell laptop. While he was sleeping, his laptop was doing overtime, downloading highly tasteful lesbian erotica, aptly titled 'Teen Divas.' Nothing could have made him happier than finding this rare film in some corner of cyberspace, waiting for him to get his eyes (and later his fingers) on it. But his happiness was short lived. Bryden called last night, frantically at 11:30 and told him the results were being declared the next day. He could feel his heart sinking. He had definitely failed physics and maths and he would be really, really lucky if he cleared Electronics. He knew that he would access the college website tomorrow morning, login with his ID and password only to find hurt bombs drop all over the computer screen. Mummy would be delirious. She had told Sheela auntie last week that he would be attending IIT coaching from the end of the month. Daddy would be crestfallen. Daddy wouldn't beat him or do the drama Mummy did, but his disappointed look would be torture.

He wanted to get the news early in the morning, so that he could plan his official parental statement. Preparation, he believed was paramount in such matters and time was always welcome. He opened up Mozilla Firefox and surfed to his college website. It was quite an eyesore. It was like the worst web designer threw up on it. An odd blend of colours and bad fonts reminded him of the confused 'temple of learning,' that was his college. He had to login and see if his single digit scores would show up on screen. He clicked on 'Students Corner' where he would login and witness history in the making. But to his surprise, he found the message 'This section is under construction'. He realized that they must be uploading the results and he should probably try later. He sat around on his chair and constantly refreshed the page, waiting for something to happen. Soon enough, he found the login page appear and he started to type out his username and password. He typed it quickly and hit 'Submit' on the page, only to be redirected to another page full of the results he so dreaded. He had failed in three out of six papers he had attempted and would bid adieu while the rest of his friends who would proceed 'onward and upward to greater heights', a phrase his father used when he chided him about not studying like his friends. He sat there dumbstruck, with his insides churning and the thought of having to work in some farm or mill. Thoughts of his parents going ballistic. Thoughts of Aditi leaving him because he was an academic failure. But in all these myriad thoughts bursting inside his head, he somehow managed to think about what Giri had told him last month. Giri had told him about a cyber-attack where one could enter some random characters in the input field ending with a ';' and some random password and get access to actual user accounts. SQL Injection, he had called it. He was crowing about how he had found it on some ticket booking site and how cool it was when he gained access to some other user's account.

He decided to give it a shot. He had nothing to lose. He opened up the login page again and this time entered the words 'admin' into the username field followed by a semicolon. He figured that the site should have an administrator and he had seen other devices with the username admin. He put the most random password he could think of, which naturally was dirty and something he believed, could never be tied to him even if he was caught. He clicked on 'Submit.' What happened later was something incredible. He was staring at a page called 'Administration Section.' His hands suddenly got sweaty and he felt a slight shiver up his spine. He had just hacked into his school's administration section, and if he knew the meaning of the word 'administrator', they could do a lot of stuff.

Even though his heart rate had gone through the roof, he managed to click on the link that read 'Student Data, ' which opened up to a simple page that one would be able to enter a student's name his/her class and section and a 'Submit' button. Unable to handle the curiosity of what lay beneath, he entered his name, class and section just to find his name appear below, after clicking 'Submit.' He clicked on his name and a new page opened up with his entire academic record. Attendance, test scores, exam scores, etc. He had just hit gold. He opened up the page that contained exam scores only to find that he could change his exam scores, after all, he was the administrator. So he promptly changed his scores for all the papers he had failed and those he had passed. He changed them to above average scores, in case someone suspected. He had never scored more than 60 in his life, and while he could have scored a few marks more, 80 and 90% was out of the question. He quickly changed the scores and logged out. He logged in with his own id, printed out his scorecard and woke up from his seat quickly and walked towards the kitchen, happily shouting out to his mother, "Ma, First Class!!!!!"

The Message

He sat on his grandfather's old rocking chair wearing his traditional morning costume, a slightly stained banian and an old dhoti of his father's. The only change today was that his father's old Nokia 1100 replaced the customary steel tumbler full of strong filter coffee, in his hands. His heartrate had way exceeded the pace of the rusty old fan from the ceiling. He was waiting for news, good or bad, he couldnt take the waiting any more.

It had been three months since he had been selected in a campus interview by this large software company. He had been impressive. He sailed through the technical rounds, with clearly superior knowledge of Java, XML and SQL. All his English training in the holidays had also paid off. He was able to spell 'believe' and 'receive' without mixing up the 'i's and 'e's. He was not very happy about his English speaking abilities, but for now it would have to do. Software Engineers dont really need to speak to too many people early on in their careers, he thought.

The company soon gave him the offer letter. The pay was good. Appa wouldnt have to bear the huge burden anymore. They could soon move out of this dump and go to a better place, if he saved up. Everyone at home was ecstatic and elated at these prospects. Then the recession happened. Two months ago, he got a call from the company saying that he had to wait for sometime before he would be called. He asked them what had happened, for which they replied that some 'corporate restructuring' was taking place, as a result of which new recruitments were being 'frozen' for the moment. This was bad news. He had to face two months of torture, staying at home and doing nothing. He tried applying elsewhere, but it was all useless. Same story, same result. He even tried working as a systems repairman in a computer store, but found himself completely dissatisfied and unhappy. Even his father's persistent visits to the Ganesha temple had not borne fruit.

In this period of fractured dreams, he had met her. She had moved to the house just next to his. Her father was a clerk in a Government Co-op Bank. She was having trouble with Maths in college, so her father had requested him to tutor her. He had accepted reluctantly. He hated teaching. Most of these students, werent motivated to study and they only did this out of force, he thought. Their waning interest was something he couldnt tolerate. But she had been different right from the beginning. Her curosity and inquisitiveness was positively refreshing. She challenged him at every front with questions and doubts that were vital, yet never raised. Her vivaciousness was so infectious, that for one hour a day, he used to forget all his troubles and bask in the joy of teaching her and find supreme satisfaction in successfully answering her questions. Although he fought the feeling for a few weeks, he realized that he had fallen for her. At first, he was shocked at himself. She was his student after all. He had been given a position of exalted privilege, not to be taken lightly or abused in any way. After a few weeks of shadow-boxing with himself, he realized that he had to tell her. So he did, one day at class, cooling all the
frenzied nerves in his body. He expressed his intent in a plain and simple way and left it at that. Her reaction had been unreadable as she got up and stormed out of his house. The next day, she had told him that she would think about and let him know.

Shankar, from the next street had told him that the software company was announcing recruitment calls today and that they would probably call him and formally announce that he could join soon. He hadnt told anyone, as he was quite sure that he would be disappointed. His father viewed him curiously when he had asked for his phone, before unfailingly heading towards the Ganesha temple close by. He didn't bathe. He sat there waiting for a call or an SMS to arrive. There were some text messages early on, which he frantically read only to find messages of "Pest Control" or "Stock Market Tips." He had sat there for 3 hours waiting patiently, before he lost hope. He wasnt getting any phone call or text message today. He was just fooling himself. As he got up to leave, the Nokia phone chirped its customary text message tone. He instinctively dived for the phone, and clicked on the 'Read' button. He read the message and smiled end-to-end. The message simply read 'I Accept' and it was from her. Suddenly, he felt a whole lot lighter. He prudently deleted the message from his father's phone. He walked towards the bathroom with a spring in his step and a firm confidence that things would only get better from here.