Agent 024

ASSIGNMENTS

Monday was near and I had a load of assignments to finish. It was a training Academy for Agents but much of the first semester had a focus on theoretical learning and hence the mountain of assignments. Our seniors had promised us that the theory got reduced with time and that was enough consolation to keep us going.

I went to the communication department to return my phone.

"Done so soon?", a young agent who now sat at the reception said.

"Yeah, I've talked to everyone I wanted to. Besides I'm going to be in the library for a long while so I though it's best not to have any lingering deadlines hanging on my neck."

"Oh the first week - it's always hectic.", he said with an understanding smile.

"Let me guess - you're on voluntary duty here?", I asked.

"Yes.", he nodded.

"I don't get what's voluntary about this. I mean how do voluntary and duty even fit in a single phrase?", I asked, shrugging.

"Voluntary since we volunteer at these place. We can choose what we want to do and well duty is a duty.", he said.

"That's not-", I started.

"The complete definition of voluntary, I know.", he laughed, "But that's just about how voluntary it gets here. I'm Akaash by the way."

"Tisha, nice to meet you.", I nodded as I thanked him and left the building.

I went in the room and found it empty. Priya had perhaps already left for the library. I picked up my laptop as I had made most of my notes there. I had a habit of losing my notes and Microsoft word had saved my graduation.

I picked up a notebook and pen along and left for the library. The Academy had no time restrictions or deadlines. This was pretty unique because most colleges in my country had a curfew time especially for girls. I recently read about a protest against the time curfew imposed on female students banning them from entering the library in late evening and was disgusted at the sexism that prevailed even in the institutes of education. What education indeed if you were teaching female students to be scared and making male students believe it was normal.

I had brought my debit card along. The cafeterias ran 24/7. I wasn't hungry right now - I'd had a very heavy lunch, so I decided to have something while I was returning to the hostel.

I stepped in the library and found it filled to the brink and yet insanely silent. In school, we had a library period and we used to drive the librarian mad as for us the library was just a place to sit together and talk. It was usually the last day of Thursday and the librarian's face dropped every time he saw my class assembling outside the library. He even had it canceled a bunch of times. I admired his courage. I would have banned such a class from the library altogether.

As I made my way across the library, I understood why the environment of this library was in stark contrast to that of my school.

The librarian was a man in his early thirties with jet black hair tied into a man bun with a lost strand at the bottom. He had a beard that covered half his face. As he stood browsing the language section with a couple of students, he took one glance at the library and the occasional whisper that had blossomed in some corner was cut off in its bud immediately.

This man commanded authority with just his look. And now that I though of it every agent who taught us did. Whichever confidence and self-esteem classes were being taught here, I was going to register for them.

I took a seat at a corner table far from the cluster of tables and sat down with my stuff. I needed absolute silence when I studied. Even the slightest sound or movement could distract me.

I opened my notes on my laptop and opened my notebook to a fresh page labeling it Morse code. We had a list of messages that we had to transcribe into the Morse code.

"2 more guards arrive at the cell everyday to drop off lunch at 2am everyday." - I read the first message that I had to summarize in the briefest form such that it retained all the important information and then jot it down in Morse code in dots and dashes. I had been revising the Morse code everyday for two days and was almost sure of all the alphabets now. I finished off the twenty messages in an hour and cross-checked my work with the manual and corrected the few answers that were wrong.

I saved the document and sent it to the Agent. We used all the platforms like Google Classroom, gmail and whats app for communication and assignments. But we used our version of these applications so we'd stay out of the loop of these muti-national corporations.

 
It felt good to finish off one assignment. It gave me a feeling of pride as I opened my Language assignment next.

Kannada had a certain swag to it. I'd seen my South Indian friends refer to us as macha and maga and not one sentence they said ended without da. I had always been about the language. It had a ring to it.

I plugged my headphones in and played the voice notes of the Agent in which she had given us the correct pronunciation of basic words of the language. Anna I said out loud and felt the word roll if my tongue. Learning new language was entering another world and took a second to embrace the diversity my country was so rich in. 716 languages and this varied culture is made my country an amalgam of humanity and my heart filled with pride by just calling myself a daughter if this land.

I heard the audio around 5 times and began practising the words. I'd got the jist now but I'm pretty sure I was messing up the pronunciation. I made it a point to talk to Radhika in Kannada from tomorrow and master the language. I yawned and stretched my arms as I read the assignment for the next subject. It was going to a be along while.