Anti Virus and the Policeman

Honest to god, the following incident is true and I am not making it up.

This happened during the later half of 1990's. I was an entrepreneur running a NIIT Computer Study Centre in Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. Being a small town, and heading the leading IT Training Centre, we were well known and had quite a few of the Who's Who of the town, like District Collector, the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), as our students. These worthies come whenever they get time to upgrade their IT skills. You need to understand that computers were still latin and greek to the masses then, especially in semi urban and rural areas. Occassionally, these VIP's will enlist the help of our knowledgable staff to sort of technical issues in their computers as the support industry was in its nascent stages then.

One evening, when we were all busy, I took a call from DIG Dogra, (incidently, a perfect gentleman who had a keen interest in technological developments), who suspected that a virus had crept into his PC. He was in the process of creating a comprehensive database of criminals in the District, a pioneering project. The DIG wanted our help to clean the 'virus'. And, being the gentleman that he is, he offered to send a police jeep to pick my system administrator, Vishnu.

Vishnu picked up the 1.44 mb floppy containing the latest anti virus and casually put it in his pocket (those days the floppy was the only medium of portable storage) and waited. In due time, a police jeep screeched to a halt and out jumped a big, burly, very officious looking policeman, dark, having a handle bar moustache and a big paunch. He was quite intimidating.

Sounding very self important, he thundered " Are you people still not ready? DIG's PC has a virus and it needs to be cleaned immediately. DIG is waiting". (and for him, to keep the DIG waiting is a crime as his whole life revolves around pleasing the superior officer)

I calmly pointed to Vishnu and said, "he is the guy who will come with you'

The policeman looked at Vishnu with contempt. He didn't like what he saw. Vishnu, in his early 20's, though one of my best staff, was a simple guy, very lean and wearing an extremely casual dress. Typical nice boy next door look. Frankly, he did not think that Vishnu was capable of handling the job.

"Are you sending only one person?"

I replied one person was more than sufficient for the job on hand, which didn't too please him.

"Fine, take your bag and get into the jeep", he ordered Vishnu.

Vishnu, with a bemused expression, just walked towards the jeep. The Policeman, seeing that Vishnu was not carrying any bag or heavy kit, started hollering,

"Are you people making fun of the DIG? What do you mean by taking his requests so lightly? You are sending this boy with no bag. Where is the bag that is required to cure the virus? Where are his tools? Do you know that the DIG can crush you in no time? You people will be out of business......................blah, blah, blah............................." He raved and ranted for a while. (The poor guy had no clue as to what a computer is or what a software is or what a virus is or what an anti virus is. The simpleton thought that we needed a few stethescopes, emergency medical aids or alternatively some screw drivers and spanners to clean the virus. The image of a puny boy carrying nothing, in his opinion as he has never seen a floppy in his life, was a bit too much for him)

Our explanations fell into deaf ears as he was berating us in a loud voice. A small crowd, who were anyway intrigued to see a police jeep coming in, had started to gather in front of the institute. The scene was turning a bit ugly

Fortunately, the DIG called just then to enquire if the Jeep had indeed come and I explained the situation to him. He quietly asked me to hand over the phone to the worthy policeman and just said a couple of words to him.

There was a magical transformation. The raging bull, in a fraction of a second, became a nervous wreck and all we could hear was ,'Yes sir, sorry sir, you are correct sir, I am indeed an idiot sir' ,in a quivering voice

Highly embarassed, he somehow found the strength to walk to the jeep with Vishnu and drove off.

A few days later the DIG dropped in to say thank you and sighed "Rajan, everyone says that the administrative system is outdated and has to be modernized. Please tell me how the hell can I implement modern methods when I have such ****** working for me?"

I did empathise with him.

It is almost a decade since this has happened. Today, even a new born baby knows about a computer. But there are still millions of people like that innocent policeman, whom the changes have passed by.