Sherkhan Says

“Sherkhan Says” is a regular column in Bharat Today (BT), a daily which has risen from the ashes after it started publishing this column regularly.

One of the Directors of BT was clearly heard saying “I was planning to quit, just then the tide had turned in favour”.

Responding, another Director said, “me too, decided my shares had sunk. Got a new lease of life now.”

Sherkhan Says (SS) has been closely followed by Income Tax and IB sleuths, besides, a large following ftom among the bureaucrats. This column was beyond comprehension for any normal BT reader as it had contained cryptic clues of an impending transaction or traces of a variety of undesirable activities of a scale and intensity that is of huge significance and value.

Immediately after reading the column, some phones would ring, validating whether what they deciphered was right.

“Paddu, I see the Transport Secretary Bikram in today’s game. How do you read me.”

“I too strongly feel so”, came the reply.

“I am calling a meeting this afternoon”.

“Keep me posted on the progess”.

Any random pick, when valued, would not be less than twenty to twenty five crores in terms of impact – if not blinded by the face value of the transaction perse.

SS has literally been a nightmare to many middlemen, contractors, politicians and many corrupt government officials from across industries and various geographies.

“These news articles are written by and for hypocrites” said a politician, who could not comprehend SS or “read between lines”.

For many readers, “It is like a unsolved sunday puzzle. A lasting obsession, but I cannot fathom.”

Some discarded it as “Hype beyond Hope”; “empty farts”; “Gas”.

What does SS report in the column. Typically, it would read something like “Yellow clad playboy of yester years will travel ten miles north with eight kilos in his pocket.” Such messages will be intertwined in a nice story, aptly and adequately wrapped inside the story, which goes well with any normal reading. While the trained eyes find the message, to decrypt and act upon, the very subjects of such messages will never make out that he or she is being nailed.

Many readers were trying to solve the puzzle tracing from effects to its cause. Such as, taking the news clips on the recent arrests and trying to relate them to the SS article that could have been published days or months earlier.

Thus, readers kept themselves away from grey cells, while opposition to governments continued to derive meaning – but continued to fail in drawing inferences – as ever.

From day one, Sherkhan had been ‘saying’ only through emails. In the beginning BT wasn’t concerned about the identity or the source. As nothing was evident enough to hold BT culpable of any crime, including defamation, blasphemy or even plagiarism. Messages stood so strongly veiled under a very original and creative story. Payouts would always be in form of Purchases of different products and varied locations, which did not point to anyone in particular.

As the circulation improved and BT had factored in SS as an important contributor, management too grew curious of SS’ identity. One of the interns had even taken it as a project to nail SS. Went through many trails but could prove nothing. SS had been very security conscious and tech savvy too. Trails lead to different countries but never to any one site, ever.

Some from the Police wanted to “Find the B******”. Many among the fraternity “discouraged” such attempts.

“Don’t kill this source”, they would say. “Afterall, these leads are useful and accurate.”

“Besides, we too can use some discretion and continue to ignore the source”.

A senior official clearly stated, “I am sure it is not a difficult task to find this source. I wouldn’t do it, because it is like killing the goose that is laying Golden eggs.”

Some from “intelligentia” tried taking up the challenge but soon gave in to such distractors.

Who is this SS, has been a question burning bright in the hearts of one and all.

SS had been very resourceful in saving humungous amounts of monies for the country, usually running in a number of crores. Saved the administration from serious embarrassments. Besides, a number of tragedies were averted as a byproduct.

Dalquer Salma, fondly known as DS, had spent twelve years of her career as a sales professional. She was in her late thirties. She liked the travel, interactions with people and the leniency offered to sales professionals. As long as they were close to the aspirations of Business, the perks are plenty too.

DS had studied engineering in college. Like every other student in the country, she was christened to Engineering. As always, wherever she went, DS made a mark and topped in studies. From her heart, she was a people’s person. Concerned about the ways adopted by authorities, administration, governance, democracy as a whole. She did accept that democracy is the only civilized form of government. Wished that there was more discipline and better ways of governance. People be more people-centered in all their endeavours, rather than hooking on profits and running on selfish motives. She was pained by corruption, that marred every fabric of civilised living.

She was fond of meeting people and loved talking to them on various aspects of life. Her projects too involved NGOs and tools and services that could provide better state of living, especially to the less-fortunate.

While she excelled in her technical knowledge, DS chose to sell the software, her company made. She studied engineering and sales came naturally to her. Being the best from both worlds, she soon came to be regarded very highly in the profession. Since fewer women took up sales as a career option, DS found great advantage in this dominantly male profession.

DS had a decent house. She lived with her parents and three younger sisters, who were in their late twenties. DS had been a strong but sensitive lady, who had earned the respect of all whom she worked with. Though not very fair or beautiful, she had her inner beauty and charm to engage any one in a conversation. The essence of any sales professional. She had been content with limited progress in her career and wished away many offers of promotions, besides handsome hikes and perks.

DS had rejected some marriage proposals, from her colleagues, who had approached her with sincerety and respect. She was considered to be content while continued to take on challenges of ever-increasing business targets.

Only during one of the initial customer visits did DS come across a big-shot who held sales people in very poor light, and ignoring her presence, had continued a very sensitive discussion over phone. From this evesdropping, DS plotted a career path. Thus began SS from DS.

She stared at the email message on her computer, her mind racing so fast that the words blurred together and no longer made any sense. Just three lines, but enough to make her life- the life she’d worked so hard and sacrificed so much to build-began to crumble around her.

“Dear Sherkhan,

Greetings. Want to know more about Dalquer Salma, write to me.

Regards,

DD, Missisippi”, read the mail.

“Who could that be?” DS pondered.

“Where did I leave my traces?”

“What would he or she be expecting from this?”

“Has this come to an End?”

“Have I lost this game of hide and seek?”

DS was down and deep in thought. She lost her nerves and couldn’t come with a convincing answer. Lost her sleep and apetite. She got worried and couldn’t express. Angry at herself for having left a trail somewhere, wrecklessly.

After two days of turmoil, the third day morning, she sought to look at the mail once again.

Started working on its source, like the way she built on SS – brick-by-brick, she re-constructed the traces of this mail.

It was very cumbersome and in spite of the dangers ahead, offered thrills on each milestone of success. On the seventh day, in her house, DS shouted “What the f***!”. Much to the disappointment of her parents, who weren’t trained to such language, they had least expected such things from their offsprings. DS had laughed aloud. Going around her parents and hugging them one after the other. Her laughter dropped their doubts and made them smile at her.

She had tears of joy, literally.

After all, she had found out that the source was a mail-bot, used by very popular online retail, Missisippi. Fancied by big-data, AI (artificial intelligence), combined with cost-savings, had deployed quite many of these and had reduced most of their men with actual-intelligence. DS wondered as to what use can this mail be to their business. In what way can they “convert” her into a customer.

This bot, to DS, was a boon – not a bane. With her trained knowledge, she can now remove the traces of this mail from all of its sources, including the algorithmic logic traces. Before getting noticed and alerted by any human intelligence, if any of them were still left; and if they did have the time and impulse to catch this one in a million mail, being The Least in probability.

“Sherkhan roared aloud with laughter”.