Yamadharmaraj survives.

This time around, with odds heavily stacked against him will he be able to wiggle out? Only time or Brahma can tell! These two sentences haunted Yamadharmaraj like ghosts in graveyards. He was well aware; no amount of self-incrimination would melt the ice-cold heart of his Boss.

Brahma kept ignoring him and his best friend Chitragupta avoided him, preferring Brahma’s company in extended meditation sessions. He rued his fault in relieving Chitragupta from official work and now, he cannot take action against him for deserting his workstation. He had further complicated the matter by intimating Brahma about the flagrant absenteeism.  He wanted to keep Brahma in the loop as Chitragupta did. It had backfired. The chasm of distrust kept widening, and the threat of isolation loomed large. He cussed himself.

The never-ending threat posed by the blackmailing nerds popped up often. The nerds granted with a new lease on life, started hanging around and once in a while floated across his path, mischievously.  This game of cloak and dagger was slowly becoming unbearable. Becoming paranoid, he thought the nerds had switched sides to stalk and spy on him.

Becoming desperate and desolate, he vigorously raked his brain to find a quick exit. Would he be forced to serve under Chitragupta? How to get back into Brahma’s good books? Will Chitragupta bury the hatchet for old time’s sake? Can he call in some favours from nerds? Taking stock of everything, he decided on carpet-bombing all the three. Who knows, from which tree the fruit will fall?

With emerging clarity, a rarity from his currently befuddled mind, he sat down to draft a plan of action. Now and then he looked around to check that none of the nerds were hanging around. Already a sub plan was poking its head to take care of these nosey nerds, but for later - after extracting some useful work from them.  He mused, “Why to show your hand even before the play commences?”

He chose, remembering in time that Brahma has four heads, to appeal to each one of them, separately. He fancied his chance of evoking sympathetic feelings, if only to confuse and yet strike a conciliatory chord in one of them. A small victory was better than a zero outcome. Brahma occupying a higher plane of consciousness might not be vindictive. With hope, he prepared his batch appeals in four formats- innocence, ignorance, ineptitude and guilt.

Unsure about what appeal to be submitted to which head, he invited the nerds to play a random game, to match - innocence, ignorance, ineptitude and guilt with the right receptive head. To help them along, he dumped a heap of notes he had laboriously compiled “journals” on Brahma’s heads. He did not give them any identifying clues. Feeling relieved of their hanging presence, at least for the time being, he left them alone.

The moment Yamadharmaraj started his “journals”, Brahma initiated protective measures, to defeat and confuse the compiler. He chose an asynchronous random switch mechanism to generate thoughts in one head and acted upon them from another head.  Brahma was eagerly waiting for the day to match his wit with the skill of any hacker!  

The nerds collated, manipulated and redacted data to get an overall picture. They had this nagging inkling - the thought threads running through the extracted document clearly pointed to a single identity. It did not take them long to make an educated guess.  Beyond this point, their analytical tools simply raised their bits and bytes in defeat. Taking an easy way out, they presented arbitrarily matched profiles to mask their failure. To lend weight to their conclusion, they decided to demand some more waivers – at least another fifty years of life extension. With nothing more to lose or gain, they decided not to milk the cow beyond its udder capacity.

Yamadharmaraj felt an accidental meeting - side by side or face to face, with Chitragupta might rekindle empathy in his long-time friend and associate. Somehow, the wall of meditation had to be breached. He preferred to catch up with Chitragupta and surprise him, near Brahma’s residence. Searching for a suitable tool, he chanced upon the nerds and asked them to hang around there and alert him when Chitragupta came out. He waited anxiously for the message and kept cursing the Time for standing still.

Lying in wait, he saw Chitragupta’s side profile and then moved out of hiding to stand in front of him. His long-time friend looked straight and right through his soul, making him wonder, “Oh, what a great fall I have had”. He decided to give his prepared speech, whether Chitragupta heard it or not. “Friend, I need your help”.

Chitragupta, not wanting to spend more time than necessary in his friend’s ‘august’ company, curtly asked him, “What do you want?” Yamadharmaraj blurted out, “I have four exquisitely crafted metal capsules. I want your help in ranking them in the order of your preference. Will you come to my residence now?” He did not tell Chitragupta that the capsules have engraved appeals to Brahma.

To get it over with as soon as possible, Chitragupta agreed to play along. He declined the offered food and beverages and wanted to get straight to work. He saw the capsules kept on a table supported by bones of animal legs. Cured leather tags with numbers 1 to 4 were placed near the capsules to be ranked. Showing scorn and disinterest, Chitragupta briefly gazed at the capsules, just picked up tags and placed them in front of them, without rhyme or reason. He did not want to waste any more of his energy, unnecessarily.

Yamadharmaraj thanked his friend profusely, tried to pat him on the back which was promptly rejected by Chitragupta. Though taken aback by this reaction, he did not want to linger on the insult, to see his friend off. Then taking a deep breath, he transmitted the appeals to Brahma to the respective heads, as chosen by nerds and in sequence selected by his friend. There was no way for him to know that Brahma and the nerds have already played their tricks on him.

Brahma finally decided to restore “status quo ante” much against his wisdom. He had sufficiently briefed Chitragupta about the pecking order Vis a Vis unbreakable divine rules. Appreciating his conscious integrity in not exposing the buried secret plans of Yamadharmaraj, advised Chitragupta to attend official works.

Though a brief ray of disappointment flashed across his face, he agreed to do so. Why not give it a spin? He knew that his constant presence in the workstation would drive Yamadharmaraj’s guilt deeper and deeper. Maybe this could be his chance to change Yama into a better Boss! 

Yam Lok revisited

Acts of anger has consequences. In his agitated frame of mind, Yamadharmaraj did not pause to think about it. He kept goading his ride to go faster and faster. The poor beast bearing the brunt of his anger, stumbled and regained its balance, all the while galloping. But this minor change made its hefty master to dangerously sway from side to side and in the process.... He did not even get an inkling that somebody might be watching.

Chitragupta found himself beyond the boundaries of frustration. He fumed at anything and everything around him, including his tormentor-boss, Yamadharmaraj. He had detected massive data loss and corrupted data in the latest B & D diary delivered to him. The projected birth rate went deep below South while death count shot up beyond celestial North. The displayed graph on his monitor mesmerised and scared him at the same time. He painstakingly verified the data sets and sent a red alert to his Boss, detailing possible unknown factors at play. If only he had listened to his early warnings and acted upon them.... Chitragupta released a long sigh.

He decided to keep Brahma also in the loop. He did not believe in "the buck stops here" and dutifully passed the buck upstairs to Yamadharmaraj Raj and Brahma. When the maelstrom starts to churn, the corridors will be flooded with litters of bruised egos - Chitragupta mused and paced. This wholesome mess resembled a stock market crash due to induced short-seller activity.

The red alert had its desired effect and set many events in motion. 

Brahma took to twiddling with his beard and simultaneously scratching his head in search of a plausible explanation. He cursed himself for the nanosecond inattention which might have lead to this fiasco. Falling hairs, bruised cranium and red eyes did not help. From the depths of deep meditation, he mentally reviewed the data to spot the errors. Every now and then he sent reassuring messages to Chitragupta, hoping to keep him on his side till such time the errors get corrected. He had the confidence that if any short cut existed, Chitragupta would certainly find and take advantage of it.

In spite of Brahma’s misplaced confidence, tallying the ledger at Yam Lok took a hit and all the blames were laid on Chitragupta's head. The traditional book-keeping process didn't measure up to the task dumped on him. Chitragupta was well aware that the Ledger entries cannot be made unless the missing data get updated - a faux pas! This prevented surreptitious entries and deletions –to guarantee transparency and tamper-proof. His problem was to circumvent this SOP which prevented employing any shortcuts. His boss simply lifted his hands and allowed Chitragupta a freefall into discredit and disgrace. 

Not the one to be intimidated easily, Chitragupta hit upon a brilliant idea. The more he thought about the idea, more and more he liked it. The beauty lay in its simplicity, and he knew where the needed resources hung -the ABED (Arrived Before Expiry date) cyber nerds! Rounding up and briefing them took tact and skillful handling. The speed with which this happened even surprised him, but little did he know that the nerds agreed to work expecting a "reprieve". 

Chitragupta prided himself for beating the system with modern technology to create a parallel electronic ledger, omitting the missing data of the old ledger. When completed he could convince his boss and Brahma on the merits of the new compilation, after painting a frightening bleak picture for their respective careers. He felt lightheaded and elated at the furious pace with which the nerds gobbled up data and set the ledger pages filling like piling of debt of nations on Earth. He even grudgingly appreciated Brahma for the vote of confidence in his abilities, which he had vetoed earlier as wishful thinking! 

Along with the red alert, the clandestine activities in and around Chitragupta’s workspace pinged, tingled and almost singed Yamadharmaraj’s survival antenna. Like an enraged bull he strode in, surveying, stunned and gasping for breath (lack of exercise!). He went on hyper-ventilation when he caught sight of an army of nerds, literally hanging over terminals, busily creating electronic records. A wistful smile started playing around the corners of his mouth. 

Chitragupta, who was disturbed by this dramatic entry, knew the reason for the smile. It made him to hate his boss even more. Why would he not? This ABED idea was his brainchild but owing to the superior position Yamadharmaraj would unabashedly adopt it as “his own”. Ever the optimist, Chitragupta counted his blessings too: Now Yamadharmaraj will fight tooth and nail for acceptance of the parallel ledger. The problem is getting solved without putting his head on the chopping block. A soothing bandage is all that is now required to heal his wounded pride. This is livable and better than loss of position. 

Yamadharmaraj decided to enhance his odds, to bask alone in the glory of success, was hunting for an idea to send-off Chitragupta for a while from the scene. A million-watt glow blinked in his mind like a pulsar. Even for his enormous brain, the wattage of the pulsating glow appeared to be on the higher side. He sidled up to Chitragupta and engaged him in small talk and gave him two options. "Use my office for a few days and I will take care of the Ledger work" or you tour the nooks and corners of our domain, of course with heavenly entitlements during travel". Chitragupta knew to spot a snake even when it is not hissing. He opted to use this second choice to further his own elevation, without seriously plotting his boss's downfall. 

Yamadharmaraj did not realise that he had happily walked into a field where mines are primed-and ready to explode. 

During one of his deep meditation, Brahma could dig out the root cause for the current turmoil. Yamadharmaraj, in a fit of anger goaded and urged his ride to go faster and faster. The heavily laden beast tried to comply with his master's bidding, though foam and froth started streaming from the nostrils like a comet tail. In an instant of inattention, Yama let loose some pages of the B&D diary. Unwittingly and inadvertently the hind legs of the beast trod over, rendering them useless. Updating of the main ledger came to a standstill due to the anti-tamper protocol. He decided to put Yamadharmaraj on the mat at the appropriate time!

Chitragupta, though upset, immediately sensed a positive outcome. Getting a free pass to roam at will - a chance to dig around buried secrets, with which he could twist Yamadharmaraj for future favours. In addition, letting his tyrant boss to sit through the tedious updating process would be ample   compensation for his ruffled feathers. He mused, "Who knows, I might even get a shot at his exalted post as and when an opportunity arises". In this frame of mind, he left his office without even bothering to take leave from his boss. Chitragupta gleefully, counted his lucky stars. 

Without much effort, he stumbled upon a rich cache’. A half-heartedly buried capsule beckoned him to take a peek. With a wry smile he mumbled to himself- what else did I expect from the lazy bones of my boss! Only he is capable of such an ill-thought-out scheme, which not even a newborn baby would think off, to usurp powers from Brahma! Now things became clear to him as to why the current mess has been created in the first place. 

During the extensive briefing by nerds, Yamadharmaraj let his mind wander among various forms of limelight that will bathe him in glory after submitting his project completion report. He failed to understand the significance and the intelligent trap laid by the nerds when they said,” You as the chief would be the only System administrator and one of us would have to log in to the ledger software”. Yamadharmaraj was totally blinded by his own imagined ‘basking in multiple’ lime lights. What all that mattered to him was the fact that Chitragupta had been sidelined. He envisioned the grudging smile playing on all the four faces of Brahma! Little did he realise that this self-glory picture he is busy painting would be hung in his memory to haunt him forever!

At this same instant, behind his back, the nerds too smiled for a different reason. They managed to form a caucus and hatched a scheme to avenge and benefit from the monumental error committed by Yamadharmaraj. They left a backdoor programme which automatically pops up with a randomly selected name from among the ABED nerds. Unless that nerd also signs in, the system will not respond and open the ledger. Till sign-in is completed, a warning message "do not attempt to alter the popup menu - the system will crash and go up in smoke" will keep flashing on the screen. 

After sufficiently softening him, they planned to make their demands - 

1. They get back to human forms till the day of the final judgement.

2. They get the right to decide the nature of punishment on that day!

3. Nobody would boss over them except the good natured Chitragupta! 

The nerds on second thoughts added one more point:

As an exemplary punishment, they should be given immunity from ageing and death for another hundred years.

Now they have found a taser gun and bullet points. They would fire at Yamadharmaraj to give him the shock of his “life-taking” life! 

In the past, Yamadharmaraj had managed to ward off the mounted attacks with deft handling – meaning doing lot of wriggle manoeuvres. This time around, with odds heavily stacked against him will he be able to wiggle out? Only time or Brahma can tell!

Nostrils flaring and eyeballs popping out of their sockets, Yamadharmaraj surfaced into the present from a deep meditation. Frantically he searched for and found Chitragupta diligently working on the familiar B&D ledger. Still, holding his breath he cast his eyes from the floor to the ceiling searching for the nerds. He found no one floating or hanging down.

He silently cursed himself for his foolishness to emulate Brahma's meditation techniques which nearly took the life out of him. He sensed Chitragupta's inquiring eyes on him which again gave him a fright. Gathering courage, he simply smiled apologetically at Chitragupta!