The Sine wave@Facebook- A short story

12 December, 2014

“You are under arrest”. A person in a regular corporate job does not hear this too often in a lifetime. And that too, first thing in the morning. Shruti was shell shocked, as this came straight from Sub-Inspector Ashok Malwe, standing sternly by her main door.

Her comment, posted late last night on Facebook, indicting Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, had created an uproar in the online media. She was told that her comment accused the minister of favoring his relatives in getting land at dirt cheap prices in the interiors of Nagpur. The comment was posted at 12:30 AM, the previous night, from her account.

Innocent Shruti had not even logged into her FB account since last couple of days, let alone post a controversial comment without any proof to back it up. But the Sub-Inspector could only play by the rules. She could get out only on bail, and summon an advocate to get her out of the mess.

The land scam and the related negative publicity was getting on the nerves of politicians. And, now her direct comment on the Deputy CM’s FB page got the attention from the topmost circles of power. Even her close friend Sakshi was not spared, and was issued an arrest warrant too. She happened to Like the forbidden comment.

It was only a few days earlier that her Gmail was hacked. A spam message was forwarded from her Id to a large number of random people. But, thankfully, that did not invite any trouble. And she also conveniently forgot about it. But, now as she was sitting in the police jeep, she tried to connect the dots. She tried to explain to the Sub-Inspector a possibility that the same person might be involved in both of these incidents. That she suspected of someone, possibly a computer hacker, who is hell bent in creating trouble for her. But the duty-bound sub-Inspector won’t listen. And she was bound to face the regular brunt of interrogation. And be made to feel like a criminal!

Sometimes, when you are in deep shit, your mind wanders to the recent splendid moments of life. That gives some hope, if nothing else. And that’s what happened with Shruti. The last month was nothing short of a roller coaster ride for her. She remembered her star studded night at San Francisco, barely a month back.

Thanks to Pepsi, that ran an online contest on the eve of Lady Gaga’s concert. The participants needed to sing one of the star’s hit number and upload the video on Facebook. One winner from each participating country would win a fully sponsored couple passes to the concert. Shruti knew she was a terrible singer, but a big Lady Gaga’s fan, nonetheless. And she took her chance in the contest, though, just for the fun of it.

And, to her utter amazement, she was the One chosen as the winner. She along with Andy, her fiancé, had the most amazing time. And, in the fun and excitement of those fabulous days, she never bothered to ponder as to how on earth she, being the pathetic singer she was, could be selected.

Coming back from the nostalgic time to the ugly present where she was sitting opposite Sub- Inspector Ashok Malwe. It was still some time before they reached the police station. As she checked her Facebook on her phone, she was surprised to see messages from Prem, her ex-boyfriend.

Prem-   “I am so sorry for your current state, my dear. But you should not have dumped me for this ass, also known as Andy.

You were quick to DELETE me from every spectrum of your world after I was fired from my job. And never took any trouble to find out about me in the two years that followed.

Shattered, cannot truly describe my state when I lost my job and got dumped by my girlfriend on the same day.

Believe me, it was extremely difficult to search for a new meaning in life. But as they say, Time heals anything.

You might remember, how fascinated I was with this hacking thing. And so, when I started on with life again, I pursued my passion and here I am, a Professional computer hacker.

My love, I do concede that I have spent some of the best moments of my life with you.

And so my dear, if you take a moment to think, I am sure you will be able to understand the Highs and Lows of your life, linked in some way to Facebook, could have been manipulated by some computer hacker like me.

All the best dear, as this Wave has just started!!”

Shruti was almost frozen after she read these messages. There was something insanely evil that she could infer from Prem’s messages as she read them over and over again.

It took her some time to decide her next move. She was relieved now that Prem had admitted his involvement in hacking her FB account and posting the maligning comment on the Deputy Chief Minister. She waited for them to reach the police station where she would explain in detail to the questioning officers and would be declared innocent.

To prepare herself with the latest information about Prem, she googled him. It did not take her long to zero in on the correct Prem from the search results. Her hands covered her mouth in shock as she read the news item.

“12 October, 2013

Prem Chopra,a professional Computer hacker, who was working in a high profile case with the CBI, met with an accident on the Pune-Mumbai Expressway. On reaching the nearest hospital, he was declared dead…”

She could not read further. If Prem had died more than a year ago, then who the hell was this Prem that she got the messages just minutes earlier? At once she checked for the messages that were her claim to innocence. But there was no message now.

On reaching the Police Station, she was sitting silently on a chair waiting for the proceedings to begin. As she heard the voice of Andy from behind her, she was relieved. But could not understand why there was a roar of laughter from the staff present in the room. As Andy turned, she knew why. There was ‘Ass’ imprinted in black bold letters on the back of Andy’s white T-shirt.

She suddenly remembered Prem mentioning Andy as an ass in his messages.  And she immediately became aware of a ghost’s power both in the Facebook and the Real world.