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 Trojan Horse

Avi’s bag, awkwardly perched on the couch in the living, finally fell to the carpet below, dislodging some of its inanimate occupants. One of them was a small, square, blue plastic package. It had, printed on it, an ancient Greek warrior helmet and the words in bold white “Trojan - Extra Pleasure”. Sampath, Avi’s doting father was witness to this entire scene and the dreadful blue package that emerged from among the books, knicknacks and the IPod that fell out Avi’s bag. The saliva in his mouth dried up. Million thoughts came rushing to him in the brief 5 seconds he must have taken to react. He quickly gathered up the contents of the bag and restored them to their rightful place, inside Avi’s backpack. Sampath, normally quite a cool customer found himself having a mild anxiety attack, right there in his living room. A condom had emerged from his 17 year old’s backpack and it was something he or anyone from his world had never experienced before.

His face turned white as he grit his teeth, half with rage and half with fear. One half of his mind told him to lash out and give the boy a hiding with a cane or some other implement, a thought which he quickly put out of his head as he could be arrested in this country for executing it. The other half of his mind told him to discuss this issue with Avi now and when Savitha would be home that evening, they could have the family meeting and perform a ‘root cause’ analysis of the entire situation. This seemed more appealing to Sampath Kannada Brahmin sensibilities. After all, the boy was 17 and any physical abuse would land Sampath straight in a correctional facility, something that he feared ever since he landed in the US 12 years ago.
Avi was still showering, freshning up before leaving for his carnatic violin lessons with Ganesh. It was Sampath’s turn to drive him to Ganesh’s house in Redwood City, California. The place was quite a distance, 23 miles from their their house in Cupertino, but Sampath felt good that he and Avi could have some “alone-time” to discuss this very troubling issue. Avi emerged from the room, hair neatly combed, wearing a neatly starched kurta-pyjama, violin box in hand, ready to leave for his lesson. As he admired his handsome son, Sampath quickly got up from the couch and said “Shall we leave?”, smiling ear-to-ear, clearly failing at concealing his bubbling anxiety about the mystical contraceptive.

They pulled out the driveway in the Honda Civic and drove towards Lawrence Expressway. Sampath was nervous about opening the topic. Kids had changed so much since he knew. He recollected that his friend Ramesh’s daughter had shooed away her father out of her room citing reasons of “privacy” as she spoke to her boyfriend on the mobile phone. Ramesh was crestfallen that his daughter had spoken to him that way and lamented at his decision to move to the US and deal with an “American” daughter and her tantrums. Sampath had made sure that Avi was as Indian as possible, carnatic violin, Bhagawad Geeta lessons, the works. But, as he recollected Ramesh’s sorrow, Sampath was half-sure that he didn't want to bring up this issue with Avi, lest he face the same consequences. But this was too much to ignore. After all there must be some explanation for such a vile object to land in hands of a 16 year old. He couldn’t hold it in any longer and as their car pulled into US-101 N Interstate, he enquired “Avi, how was school today?”. Avinash replied with a honed North California accent “Good Appa, the usual. There was a surprise pop quiz on History today. We were expecting it sometime next week”. “How did you do?” asked Sampath quickly. “I did well. Actually, I had finished studying this chapter last week, so I think I will ace it” Avi said matter-of-factly. Sampath felt a jolt of pride. His son was always an academic achiever. But he quickly got back to the point “Avi, there was one thing I wanted to discuss with you...” he trailed off as he slowed down with the increasing traffic. “Your backpack happened to fall down today and some of your things scattered around. Among those things, I happened to see.....a c-condom.” he said. He wanted desperately to see the look on Avi’s face, but an idiot in an SUV was honking behind him, signaling that he move. Avi’s response was not the delayed one he expected. “Oh that, Appa, I dont know why, but in the senior year of school, they have a Physical Education class and in that class they give us some sex education tips. My coach gave it to all the boys telling us to use a condom if we ever had intercourse” Sampath was not entirely convinced. After all, he was a financial auditor. He wanted to probe deeper, so he asked with a little more confidence “Avi, what are you trying to tell me? How can someone from school tell you to use a condom for intercourse, that too at this age? They should be telling you not to have intercourse in the first place.” Avinash quickly added “But, Appa I am telling you. Coach Gardner gave us these and a talk on safe sex. The prom is approaching no, appa? Obviously they will know guys and girls are likely to hook up at prom and the least they should have is a condom.” Sampath was a little angry now at this incredulity “Avinash, are you seriously trying to tell me that your school allows you to have sex? Safe or not is not the question. If your school is teaching you such nonsense, then I will come and talk to your teachers and tell them that this sort of immoral behaviour should not be taught to students” he said firmly and muttered “least of all Indian students” But Avinash was calm, “Appa, I understand your concern. I know you feel that I am at a vulnerable age right now. I know that a condom in my bag does not exactly give out an innocent vibe. But believe me Appa, I have done nothing wrong. You can check with my coach. But I know you will believe my word. This Sex-Ed stuff is standard procedure. It is given to every senior in high-school. I am no different. But I have been raised right. I know you know that too” Sampath could now see Avi’s face as they had stopped because of a traffic build-up. The boy was like an open book. Sampath looked into Avi’s eyes and remembered the first time he saw him in the maternity ward at the Mission Hospital in Mysore. His joy and pride knew no bounds at Avi’s statement. He was overcome with emotion as he said, “I am sorry, Avi. I dont know what I was thinking. I was so afraid seeing that...that thing in your bag. I was afraid that you had made a big mistake. I know we have done our best with you.” now smiling “I dont think I have told you this, but your great-grandfather was a Diwan in the Mysore Maharaja’s court.” Avi replied fondly, “No Appa, you have told me and I am proud of our heritage.” A few minutes later, they reached Ganesh’s house for the violin lesson. Avi got out of the car and Sampath said, “Bye, Mum will pick you up later. Call her” Avi said, “Yeah, I will. And Dad, I dont think you should tell Mum about this. She was unnecessarily get worried.” Sampath nodded and drove off.

Avi’s pocket rang as he dug into to retrieve an Nokia mobile phone that displayed “new text message.” He clicked to open the message and saw that it was from Debbie, it read “Avi, baby. Thanks for the wnderfl tym. It was amazin! Lve u.” Avi thought of texting her, but he decided to call her later that night. He had the most amazing experience of his life that afternoon and she had made it happen. Of course, he had forgotten all about the Trojan that coach Gardner had given him last week. He walked into class and sat down to learn the new keerthana that his tutor was teaching him.