Chapter XVIII: Namaskara, Bengaluru.

1420hrs, 5 October 2013, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

"Bangalore is a brand the world identifies India with. It is also the single biggest reason why India has become such a hot investment destination." Manmohan Singh.

"Call centers are magnets for urban Indian youth, providing them with income sometimes greater than their parents,' and a chance to work in an environment filled with young people their age." Mira Kamdar, Planet India.

"Nakanishi Support Line, this is John speaking, how may I assist you?"

This was Sudhir "John" Reddy's life at the moment. He was a Customer Service Representative for Nakanishi Group, India, and all he did was field calls from America, dealing with one dumb question after another. At least he was on the day shift, and there weren't a lot of calls coming in. But there were some crazies on the phone though. The Nakanishi HQ here used to belong to another MNC before their building got bought out by Nakanishi, and now bright skylights and huge windows "helped" to improve worker productivity and make the workload a bit more tolerable.

"Hey, my computer fizzed out on me. Can you help me with it?" This was one of those dumb questions.

"Can you describe the problem in greater detail, sir?" It was taking calls like these that really tried Sudhir's patience.

"It…just winked out on me. I don't know what the problem is."

"It just winked out on me," meant a few things. First, "I was looking at porn and I got this virus/trojan/malware." Second, "I was torrenting something and I got this virus/trojan/malware". Third, "I clicked on one of those adverts that everyone on the internets knows NOT to click on and I got a virus/trojan/malware." More than likely though, it was the first one.

"Sir, I can't really help you if you don't describe the problem in depth."

"Look, it just went out on me, I don't know what went wrong, I can't really give you much else because I don't know a damn thing. That's why I called you!"

Sudhir sighed again. He looked at this watch. 1430hrs. Three more hours and he could be out of here. If he survived though.

"Alright, I'm going to perform a remote access from my computer to see what's wrong." At least he had the remote access tools that had been provided by the company when they sold the computer to that particular customer.

Just as he had suspected, the person in question had been looking at porn and using torrents. There was a lot of malware and trojans, which was probably the reason for his computer "winking out".

"Okay, I'm going to do a virus scan and remove all of this stuff from your computer." Sudhir just used Malwarebytes and that was it. Problem solved and he got paid.

"Thank a lot, it's working much better now."

"You're welcome sir."

The customer hung up and Sudhir took a deep breath. It was finally over…for now. He would probably get a call in about two minutes or so, but that was then and now he could relax.

"Sudhir."

A voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Shit, just when I was thinking about getting out of here.

"Hey, what's up Sudhir," his boss, Dilip Desai, or "D.D" as he liked to call himself. He was from Punjab, a state up north much to the ire of all the workers, who were hired from South India. He insisted on talking in Punjabi or Hindi at every opportunity and refused to at least communicate with his other workers in proper English, stating that "Why can't they speak Punjabi? A real man can speak it, so why can't all you?"

Most of the workers did speak Hindi and English, but they preferred to use Kannada, Telugu (in Sudhir's case, he was from Hyderabad, in Andhra Pradesh), Tamil or Malayalam, all of which were native languages to South India. South India, consists of four states, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerela. Each of them has their own language (Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam, respectively), their own culture, their own political parties, and their mutual dislike of North India coming in and forcing their own culture and language onto them. When Hindi was proposed as the formal language of India, Tamil Nadu threw a wrench in that process by backing Urdu, which is spoken by Muslims in India.

Although similar to Hindi, the only reason why South India backed Urdu was so that Hindi…Would. Not. Be. The. Official. Language. Period. And so, Hindi and English are only the defacto official languages of government (and with twenty two other languages reaching official status), with road signs and government offices being written in Hindi and English everywhere else in India but ohhh noo. No no no no. Not in South India. No siree, Kannada/Telugu/Tamil/Malayalam was coming on top of the sign, then English, then (maybe) Hindi at the bottom in really small lettering.

Speaking Hindi in the South will get you dirty looks, bad service, dropped calls, missing shoes and the inevitable response from someone saying in Kannada/Telugu/Tamil/Malayalam that, "We do not speak Hindi here." Although, some states (read, Tamil Nadu) have been more…enthusiastic about defending the purity of their own language than others, and that lead to more bickering and arguing in South India. And so the cycle continued.

"What do you want, D.D?" Other than annoying questions from inane customers, D.D was the other massive cog in the machine that was Sudhir's pathetic life.

"Yeah, well, I was wondering if you could come in this weekend."

"It is already the weekend, sir."

"Oh…is it?" It was really easy to lose track of days in a call center. "Well, um, yeah, I meant this weekend, as in tomorrow."

"This is because…?" Sudhir really did not want to work another full weekend.

"Yeah, ah, the boss of Nakanishi Asia, this, 'Jadeite' person, is going to be coming in to take a tour of the India operation. We need all hands on deck for this one."

Sudhir sighed. This is just what I needed. Some super patsy guy from Japan coming in to tell us how to do our jobs. Wonderful.

"Do I get extra pay?"

"Of course, two times."

"Fine, I'll do it." The extra money would buy some alcohol, which would dull the pain after work.

"Yeah, great. See you then!"

Sudhir watched D.D leave for the next cubicle, and then leaned forward, head in hands in frustration. There went another two weeks of his life, out the window. At least he was luckier than some of the other people who worked in the building; the janitors, the chaiwallas, the security guards. Most of them lived in some of the slum areas in Bangalore, right outside where he lived…probably. Nowhere was there a stark contrast as a slum next to a sky-rise apartment as in India. It was just how things went. And besides, in Bangalore, it wasn't nearly as bad as Mumbai or New Delhi.

"Sudhir," another voice taunted him.

"What do you want, Mercy?" Sudhir responded, a bit frustrated.

"Hey, we're all suffering here," his next-door…uh…cubicle-mate replied, cheerfully. She leaned back in her chair to see him.

Mercy Abraham was a recent graduate from Bangalore University. She was a very dark skinned person, from Kerala, and most definitely not in line with the image that many Indians wanted to see; a fair skinned woman with nice eyes and a little bit of curves. Not like how the Americans wanted to see their women, all polished and sterile, no life at all behind all the makeup and photoshopping. Nah, all Indians wanted was just to bleach the skin, soften the eyes a little bit, change the way that the woman stood, talked, and acted toward her husband and other men…totally not hypocritical at all. Nope.

Mercy's name also automatically marked her as a Christian (Syrian Orthodox, to be exact), although most people didn't have much of a problem with that in India. Not until it came to marriage time.

"So, you get more porn watchers today?" She twirled a pen around.

"Yeah, three or four. I wonder how they find time to watch such things if they can get laid so easily."

"That's just TV Sudhir," Mercy joked. "America isn't like that."

"Well, you would know, Ms. Smartypants," Sudhir shot back. "You've been there."

"Hey, it was only once, and that was like, three years ago when I went on a study abroad trip."

"To where?"

"Some college in Minn…Minn…uh…Minnesota, yeah, that's what it was called."

"Minnesota? Isn't that in Canada?" Sudhir didn't really know U.S states very well. Then again, neither did most Americans.

"No, I'm sure it's in America. It was really cold there. Like, negative forty and such, you know?"

"Forty what? Celsius, or Fahrenheit?"

"When it's that cold, it doesn't matter."

"That's true."

"Hey you two." It was D.D again, looking from the observation room on the second floor, where all the bigwigs lorded over their subjects. He had pressed the push to talk function on his phone when he was communicating with workers. "Get back to work."

"I'm going, I'm going," Sudhir replied. He gave one last glance at Mercy, who smiled and leaned back to her desk.

Jadeite flew into Bangalore International Airport a couple of hours later.

"Please make sure that your entrance forms are all filled out and handed to the immigration official as you leave the airport," one of the stewardess said as they filed off the British Airways Boeing 747.

Jadeite had always had problems flying, especially on those 747s; they gave him a bad case of motion sickness and he spent most of the flight knocked out under the effects of Dramamine. He had only been woken up by their landing and the reminder to have his entrance forms all filled out.

He sighed and checked his shirt pocket. Passport, immigration forms, everything. Thank god. He really hated coming to this country. It was so dirty and loud, compared to Japan or even China. But it was a growing market and they had to have an operations center here for their business in America, or else they would fall behind. Beryl would not like that at all. Besides, many American companies were leaving and taking their operations to China, Thailand, or even the Philippines, where the colonial legacy of America still held sway. More space for them, and none of the competition, at least from them. That just left the native Indian industries, protected by law and tariffs, and maybe that would hold off the tide of international trade for awhile, but sooner or later…

"Are you here for business or leisure?" the customs official asked.

"Business," Jadeite replied. The official looked at the passport a little bit more carefully. The visa was good until next year…no alerts on this passport…everything checked out.

"Thank you, have a nice stay here."

Jadeite just smiled and put his passport away. He couldn't wait to get out of here.

The chartered car was waiting outside by the pickup terminals, past police officers armed with ancient Sterling submachine guns. It was almost kind of pathetic, really. After some more shuffling, Jadeite went to a man holding a sign that said, "Mr. Jadeite." They finally spelled the name right after all this time.

"Sir," the man said, saluting. He was wearing a khaki uniform, neatly pressed and ironed. Indians liked doing that in formal settings, even if they weren't military. They did it British-style, yet another colonial legacy, palm facing outward, unlike the Americans or Germans, whose salute was palm down, slightly angled. "Are you Mr. Jadeite, sir?"

"That's me." He showed him his passport.

"Of course, sir. I'll take your bags." He reached for them and put them in the trunk of the Hindustan Motors Ambassador that they driving to the Hotel Atria, in downtown Bangalore.

Jadeite climbed into the backseat, and they started off for the hour long journey toward the middle of the city. If this were any other country, the journey might have taken about thirty minutes, but in India? Forget about it. It might take hours to drive ten or twenty kilometers.

Thankfully, this was not one of those days. In two hours, Jadeite was safely in his hotel room, ready to start a new day.

Suddenly, his mobile phone rang. He swiped the screen to answer.

"Yeah, this is Jadeite."

"Jadeite, this is Beryl." Her voice was silky and sexy, but there was a hint of urgency in her voice. "How was your flight?"

"It was good Beryl. As good as coming to this infernal country can be."

"Now now, don't be a downer," Beryl said. She did agree with him, but there was business to be done and wherever the money was, she would go. "You're visiting our operations at Manyata Tech Park. A driver will take you there tomorrow at 0900. They'll be waiting for you there. Make sure that they're all doing a good job, I know that some of these Indians can be lazy and not be as efficient as us Japanese. But cost is cost, and paying one Japanese person to do the work of five, ten, maybe fifteen well educated, motivated and trained Indian employees was an opportunity that we cannot pass up."

Jadeite sighed. Beryl was right on this account.

"Of course Beryl. Have a nice day."

"You too!" She hung up.

"Fuck."

"Okay, here he comes." Sudhir looked out of his cubicle at the man stalking down the rows of employees. He was a nice looking man, with short hair and a commanding presence.

"What do you think of him?" Mercy whispered over the cubicle wall.

"Dunno. He looks like all the other Japanese men that have come through here." It was always Japanese men, never women.

"He's kind of cute."

"…and this is part of our call center." D.D's heavily accented English penetrated the hustle and bustle of the workers.

"They seem…very busy." Jadeite, for as smart as he was, couldn't catch a hint sometimes. What D.D wanted Jadeite to say was, "Yes, this is your call center, how is your performance here, etc". Instead, Jadeite and D.D were walking around in awkward silence. Awkward to D.D anyway, but not to Jadeite.

"So, boss," D.D said to Jadeite. "What are you thinking about the recent attacks on CEOs?"

Jadeite looked at D.D, but said nothing.

"Sorry boss."

It was a couple of minutes before they came over to Sudhir's cubicle. Sudhir pretended to do work, instead of the solitaire that he usually played on a slow day.

"Excuse…me." Jadeite's English was better than most Japanese, but still a bit hard to understand.

"Yes sir."

Jadeite examined Sudhir's cubicle. It was a standard one, with one and a half meter high walls and measuring about eight cramped square meters. There were few personal items there; company policy forbid most of those items anyway.

"What…do you do here?"

"I answer calls from North America, diagnose and fix any problems that they might have with our products."

"Which products do you get the most complaints about?" Now that was a legit question, and it surprised Sudhir for a second before continuing.

"Well, we get the most complaints about our PCs and Laptops. Most of the time though, it is user error rather than the fault of our company. Sometimes it is dealing with software, but those are mostly companies and those calls are few and far between."

Jadeite stared at Sudhir for a second, then nodded in agreement.

"I am pleased that…this is going very well then. We have good products."

More silence.

"Er…" Sudhir didn't really know what to say. Suddenly, his phone started ringing. "I'm sorry sir, but I must take this."

Jadeite nodded, but did not move. He wanted to see the solutions process in action.

"Nakanishi Support Line, this is John, how may I assist?"

"Yeah, my name is Georgia Clemens, and my computer is running really slow today. It was working fine yesterday and now it's barely moving."

"Do you have remote access on your computer ma'am?" Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.

"I do. This is a personal computer, the T800 series that just came out. I don't understand what's going on."

"Alright ma'am, I'm accessing it now."

Sudhir turned on the remote accessing tools. It took a long, long time before her GUI popped up and showed him the problem.

There was none.

"What the…" There was no malware, spyware, viruses, nothing. Some tracking cookies, but everyone had those, and that wouldn't slow down this computer that much. Something else was wrong. Maybe it was a hardware problem?

He checked the program manager. There was something there…he didn't recognize the program, but it had all the markings of a program developed by Nakanishi. It was sending out packets of information to somewhere...

Sudhir checked behind him. Jadeite was still there, but D.D was talking inanely to him, irritating the hell out of him. He looked somewhat distracted.

"Okay, let's try this." He ran a simple traceroute command on the outgoing packets. Starting off from a wireless network in Alexandria, VA, then a ISP in Arlington, another address in Mclean, another ISP in Springfield, then Fredericksburg…then the packets suddenly came to a stop in…Orange, VA? It was from an IP address that was allocated to the IPv6 block that Nakanishi Group America had bought when IPv6 was rolled out en masse.

The connection was suddenly terminated.

Oh shit, somebody from Nakanishi is spying on this person. Who is she?

"Hey, my computer is running faster again!" Georgia's voice brought him out of his panicked state of mind. "Thanks a whole bunch."

"Um, ma'am?" Sudhir took a deep breath. "What is your profession?"

"Say what?"

"What is your profession?"

"Uh…I'm a representative in the US Congress, if you must know."
Oh my god, Nakanishi is spying on members of the US Government. I am in such deep shit right now.

"Thank you ma'am." Sudhir was doing all he could to remain calm. "I was simply recording information for our database." Never in his life had Sudhir lied so bad.

"Well, you can put it down right, there. Georgia Clemens, US Representative from Georgia!"

"Thank you. Is there anything else that we can do?"

"Everything is working fine on this end. I don't think there's nothing more that needs to be done. Thanks so much."

"You're welcome ma'am. Have a nice day." Georgia hung up.

"Very well done." Jadeite had swatted away D.D's stupid conversation on cricket and how it was so much better than baseball and was looking at the results of the call on Sudhir's screen. "The call only took about four minutes to complete. I am impressed by your work."

"Thank you sir." Sudhir was using all of his energy to not freak out and panic.

"Indeed." With that, Jadeite left, along with D.D, who didn't even acknowledge the work that Sudhir had done. He would try to take credit for it, but Jadeite knew better. Even if he didn't like India or Indians, he knew good work when it was being done.

"Jesus," Sudhir said later to Mercy in the cafeteria later that day. "I thought that would never end."

"Hey, watch your language." They were eating some curry, but this was completely different that Japanese style curry. It was more runny, more spicy, and definitely no meat in it.

"Oh sorry."

"I had to miss church today because of this job," she moaned. "And that Jadeite guy gave me a hard time as well. Said that I couldn't work as nearly as well as you."

"Did he now?"

"Yeah. The guy is completely sexist."

Sudhir kept looking down at his food. He was still troubled by the events surrounding Representative Clemens' computer.

"Something troubling you?" Mercy asked.

Sudhir sighed. "Yeah. Something really big, but I don't want you to get involved."

Mercy would have put her hand on his, but that really wasn't allowed in this environment. "What's up?"

"Okay, so when Jadeite came by and looked at my work today…somebody called in with their computer on the blink."

"Who was it?"

"Well, that's the thing. It was a representative of the US Congress."

Mercy reacted with surprise. "Wow, that must be important."

"It really wasn't. But the thing is…"

He hesitated. But he had to go on.

"Somebody was watching her computer. From a Nakanishi owned IP address. I did a simple traceroute on the program before they cut me off."

Mercy leaned back in her chair, and then looked around the room. It was packed, but no one was listening to them, engaged in their own conversations.

"That's serious. Someone from the Nakanishi Group is spying on a US Congressperson."

"Do you think I should tell someone?"

Mercy looked around the room again.

"No."

Sudhir looked at her. "What?"

"Do you think that D.D is going to do anything about it? If Nakanishi is doing something illegal, they'll do anything to keep it quiet. And if it means getting rid of you, then they will do that."

Sudhir stared at Mercy. "How do you know all of this?"

Mercy smiled weakly. "Look, I just know, I have this gut feeling, okay? If you want to do something, alert this representative and tell her to look into it. She has much more power than both of us."

That did make sense. "Alright. I'll contact her somehow."

"Sounds good. Now eat up, we still have half our shift left to do."

"You…have a very good operation here," Jadeite said to that sycophant D.D as he walked out of the building. "Please continue the good work."

"I appreciate it," D.D replied. This could mean a pay raise, or even a promotion!

"I will be in contact." He turned to leave, but thought of something that he had almost forgotten to mention to D.D.

"Mr. Desai."

"Yes Boss?" D.D replied enthusiastically.

"Remember what I told you to do on the 16th? Now that Mr. Chung is not here to be your contact, I am taking a big risk coming here and telling you this. Please, do not fail me."

With that, Jadeite left.

D.D was left standing there, wondering why he had to be so cryptic all the time. Japanese people were so weird sometimes, and unlike the Chinese, they didn't seem to explain themselves very well.

Oh well, you couldn't win them all. But at least he had passed that section of the test. Now time to get those lazy employees back to work.

Back in his car, Jadeite wished the driver could hurry up, but there was more traffic than usual and they were stuck.

He really needed to get out of this country. Everything was fine, nothing to see here.

Except for one small piece of business that he needed to take care of.