Beyond fear, lies freedom!

Facing fears.

“Do you understand Mr. Kumar, we are not even closer to accomplish our backlogs and next month we have an audit!”

“Yes Sir, we are now dealing with a huge backlog at department level” replied Kumar with a hesitance, “Actually Sir, before your posting this post was vacant for good four months and we didn’t had clear directives to act upon.”

“This is the first and the last time I am hearing this Kumaaar!, you are a senior supervisor, start taking the decisions. I need a plan on this by lunch hours.”

“Sure sir”, Kumar was about to leave the “Department Head’s” room but suddenly he heard “Kumar, don’t worry, pull 7 people from interns pool and assign one supervisor for a week, after that make them responsible and assign a night shift on roaster basis.”

“Sounds great sir, Thank you!”, Kumar replied and left the room with a sigh of relief.

Heavy backlog was piled up specially for “Record section”, lot of digitalization was pending and time was the one thing which no one had. This record section was situated on 14th floor with only 3 rooms, out of these, one room used to be close all the time and need a special permission from Department head to open the locks, second room was filled with files, files and files. There was one big window which usually have to be open for some fresh air, seems to be closed since months. Only one room left for being operated. One more thing before we go ahead, no one was keeping the records since last 4 months.

Selected interns are now getting trained for tasks like how to scan the documents from physical files, push them on centralized server etc.

During lunch hours cross departmental colleagues get together and share foods and thoughts. In one of the similar session, all interns overheard another group who was loudly sharing “Experiences” of record section, they came to know that 4 months ago a record keeper suicide by jumping out of the window of a room filled with files, since then the window is closed, and no one agreed to work as record keeper thereafter.

That was a horrible lunch which interns had. By now a seed of fear get soiled in the young minds. They can’t say no to work as they need to be hired permanently and this task is one of the major measure, with such ill thoughts all interns went back to the training department and resumed there sessions.

In the evening when session get over, Interns returning back to the hostel rooms and then some one shouted.

“Mr. Kekli…Mr.Kekliiii”

“Yes Sir”, turned and stopped Mr Kekli with surprise to see Sr. Supervisor “Kumar”.

“Mr. Kekli, Next Wednesday and Friday, it’s your turn at record section. You will get the official letter by Monday!”.

“Sure sir, Thank you!” and both went back on there directions.

Kekli’s assignment was from Wednesday so he did the day shift on Monday and Tuesday. Everything was good till Wednesday morning until a news came to the section that the “Interns” who were on Monday and Tuesday night shift, experienced some activity, they reported that it seems somebody is “typing” continuously , also the light was switching on and off automatically. Of course not a good experience to have and due to which they got into a sort of shock and hospitalized.

This news never reached Mr. Kekli as Wednesday was his turn for night shift and he was at his room during day when this news broke. Wednesday evening he reported to office before joining the record section for a night shift and then he came to know about this incident. He was suggested by colleagues to refuse the today’s shift and ask to transfer in another department. While all this was going on, Mr. Kumar came and all were silenced, he asked “Kekli, Department head wants to see you before you leave to the record section” and he left the room back to be noised with discussions and suggestions.

Kekli knocked the HOD room..

“Yes, come in”, he entered the room and found Mr. Kumar and HOD both in the room.

“Sir, he is Mr. Kekli..” introduced Mr. Kumar..

“O boy!! Good to see you, come on take a seat” greeted HOD.

“So, how was the training”

“Good Sir” replied Kekli. Meanwhile Kumar left the HOD room for some urgent work.

“Okay, coming to the point, its not that we all haven’t heard the recent incident and we are not concerned for your safe deployment, its more like a myth to me but I don’t want to take risk on this. If you wan’t, we can shift you to other department BUT my personal suggestion is to face it and unearth the truth behind this. I am not leaving the office tonight, Kumar must have shared my direct contact number with you. Feel free to call me anytime you want tonight.”

“Thank you Sir!”, with no other option Kekli turned and approached the gate but he heard again. “Kekliii” and he turned back to HOD.

“I know your father and also aware about the struggle of your mother too, I am proud on your decision tonight” this statement left the Kekli with a great surprise and he just murmured “Sir…How?..”

HOD replied, “Tomorrow, at lunch we will talk son” All the best.

Kekli’s father left him and his mother when Kekli was 7 years old and married another lady, since then his mother struggled a lot to raise him and no one in the office or in his personal current life knows this side of his life.

He came to 14th floor, it was around 10 night by now, he had a good dinner but with bad vibes so its clear that he is frightened tonight.

He remember his mother and his promise to give every single happiness in life which she deserved. He indulged himself in opening files, scanning them and placing them in the server, good couple of hours passed.

Around 1 in night, he was busy and suddenly the silent atmosphere become noisy with the sound of “typewriter”, it seems some one is typing in another room. This chilled Kekli and for good couple of seconds he was still with no thoughts in his mind, by now the light also getting on and off which made it more scary for Kekli.

Kekli, left all the activities and gently start moving to the room from where the sound was coming. Meanwhile he was moving, the sound of type writer stop and started couple of times. He finally reached the room and started searching for the “Type writer”. For good 15 minutes he searched beneath each pile of files and failed to find the typewriter and by now sound stopped. He was standing and looking at the closed window with a fear and suddenly he heard the sound again, this time he somehow followed the sound and found the tube light which was switching on and off automatically. Though the room was big and this tube light was on the extreme corner of the room it took time to diagnose the sound and light. By now the sound and lights were off automatically.

Suddenly, light is on. Kekli saw up and here he was encountering straight in the eyes of the fear with the sweated forehead. He called HOD in that moment. Night passed away, and Kekli was asked to report hospital for routine checkup after this incident. His Blood pressure was not normal but in control, he was asked for a rest by prescribing some generic medicines. Meanwhile HOD asked Kumar to gather the department at cafeteria in lunch time.

Sharp at 1 after noon, HOD and Kekli both came to cafeteria full of departmental colleagues. HOD congratulated Kekli and asked him to tell what happened in night as every one were anxious to know, those two interns were also in the crowd to know the truth.

Kekli started speaking, “I called HOD when I reached the source of sound and light, to my surprise it was “trapped bee” trying to escape from the broken tube light cover and when it was making an effort to come out of trap it sounded like a “Type Writer” and just because of that struggle it was disturbing the “starter” of the tube light which was loose and causing the tube light for switching off and on”. I then tightened the starter and helped the bee to escape from trap. This morning while I was leaving the office, somehow managed to open the window and found that there were many bees and it seems they homed themselves at the closed window area and seems to be many months old. When I looked out of window I found a river and with HOD permission inquired about the incident happened 4 months back when a person jumped from the window, some people witnessed who use to stay near the river and they told that they heard a noise and when they looked out they found a person whom they rescued and handed over to police.”

HOD took over from Kekli and continued, “Guys, we all are going through some or the other problems in our life, we have to face our fears. Whatever our fears are lets face them because they make us bold and once you face your fears you come to know that how big is your problem or its just a bee in your life humming around”.

Kekli conquers his fears and standing in front of us not only because he successfully handled the situation at night but also he handled his personal life as openly and gently as he handled the last night. Congratulations Kekli.

Now, we are free to roam around the 14th floor and I have ordered the files to be moved to another floors, lets make the rooms airy and not noisy.

The whole cafeteria filled up with claps!!

For me the takeaway is,

“Your success lies in your inhibition”

Inhibition is the biggest fear in life, if you conquer that, you win the game.

Thank you for being with me during this story.

If you enjoyed, feel free to share with your friends you think will make the difference.

Thank you!

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