Fact or Fiction?

Facts are stronger than fictions however there are few incidents that cannot be explained with logic, science or debates.

We see many people around who claims to see things which are not normally visible. They feel the presence of unearthly beings which normal people do not feel, these are generally form of discerning information that is beyond the normal range of sense or perception.

Animals specially is more perceptive towards such senses.

Out of many such incidents is one such incident that I am about to narrate.

Around 20 years prior when BPO industries were just trying to boom and the call center industry was trying to engage all youngsters under graduates,10th or 12th pass college mates for a quick pocket money, Lavanya who was studying fashion and designing in an institute near Gurgaon now Gurugram, backing from a middle class family in Kolkata, surviving in Delhi NCR and Gurgaon was quite difficult for her and more so she got her admission in the last minute after lot of requests and pampering her family who wanted Lavanya to stay back in Kolkata. So naturally she could not grab the opportunity to stay in the College campus hostel, which was already booked. She managed a girl's hostel near by Delhi-NCR highway.

The hostel fees, transportation charges, food and other miscellaneous expenses were quite high. There after she would also need to invest in the fabrics and other materials of her training and curriculum. So she thought of a quick earning method.

The call center near her hostel was just a startup. They had clients from USA hence the shift timing was during evening mostly starting from 5 PM until late in the night or next morning.

Lavanya thought she could attend her classes during the day and the call center in the night shift, yes there would be some issues, she would not get much time to sleep but it was quite manageable since she was getting a raw amount of 8,000 Rupees as a starting salary which would solve most of her problems.

Lavanya joined the call center, the work was quite easy, to pick calls of the customers and resolve their computer issues ,practical trainings ,voice and accent trainings were provided to the employees before they start their jobs full fledged.

Three months went by, Lavanya was getting accustomed to the timings, she came to realize not only she, there were few other employees in the call center who were studying and working simultaneously. They would work either for pocket money with which they would party in the weekends, have fun etc. and few worked to help themselves manage the college fees.

Lavanya had a very unique style of building rapport with people so she would easily mix with every genre of people.

So she had a good friendship with Rose. Rose was a quite eligible employee, she used to do her task with great passion. All her customers used to be satisfied with the services and resolutions that she provided, quality of all her calls used to be topmost. Her calls were used by the trainers to facilitate the new trainees.

Every one sang praises of Rose. From managers to all the hierarchy were proud to have an employee like her. But Rose was just the opposite of Lavanya. She would hardly talk to anyone, unless asked for help. She would hardly take breaks and go out partying. She would avoid crowds and gatherings.

Lavanya felt quite inquisitive about Rose and decided to become friends with her. Initially Rose avoided her but with time they started becoming good friends. Lavanya spoke all about her, but she was quite curious about Rose ,when ever she would ask Rose about where she is from or anything in general about her, she would often avoid Lavanya's questions, but Rose was quite talented and passionate about her work.

Those days Overtime and extra day pay were easy way for extra money. Employees were given chances to either work overtime or extra day on holidays or take a leave. Employees preferred working on holidays. But it was the time of Diwali and almost all the employees went on leave to their nearby hometown since that year Diwali was on a Friday and they would have long weekends.

Though Lavanya had her college shut down for Diwali, she could not go back to Kolkata on Friday and return on Monday, so she decided to stay back and work. Along with few other employees and Rose the call center was almost empty.

Around 2 AM, Lavanya wanted to take a break, the cafeteria was not opened on the occasion of Diwali, Lavanya felt hungry and thought she could go out of the office campus and grab something from the night dhabas or chaiwalas. She was feeling a little odd to go out alone so she decided to ask Rose, when she turned to the cubical Rose was seated, she saw Rose was quite upset and there seemed to be an argument on the phone, "Perhaps the customer is not happy with the company service or is frustrated with his defective product" thought Lavanya and moved towards Rose's cubical. The argument was quite heated. Rose never escalated a call to any Subject matter expert and resolved everything by herself. Lavanya sat beside her for sometime and when she found that the argument has taken a different route she sought help from a Subject matter expert who was luckily available that day. The expert came to Rose's desk and checked if everything was alright. She smiled and said "I'll manage."

The expert got back to his desk. Lavanya was worried and requested the Expert to barge the call. Reluctantly the expert listened to the call.

Astonished he looked at Lavanya, refixing the head set, checking the sound settings he again tried listening to Rose's call....."No....Not yet.."

Lavanya looked at him quizzically, "What's the matter?" she asked. The expert handed his headset to her to listen. When Lavanya had put on the headset, her eyebrows shrink, fiddling with her fingers she was trying to fix something. "I have tried those already, "the expert said.

Both their jaws dropped. They could only listen to Rose's voice. There was no other voice. What could that be? Could that be the system or technical issues,.

The expert checked on Rose, she was still arguing....Ultimately they thought it could be technical issue.

When the call ended, Lavanya insisted Rose on grabbing something at least a cup of tea would do good.

Reluctantly enough Rose went with her...they decided to have the tea outside the campus where there was a tea stall and Lavanya had a packet of biscuits. While walking down the small path, Lavanaya often saw a few stray dogs loitering around near the gate. Today she saw quite a lot of them but when they moved towards the tea stall the dogs seemed to sniff and bark at them. Lavanya loved dogs and tried pampering but they behaved odd that day, they seemed like they were scared of something....

While having tea and chit chatting suddenly Lavanya asked about the last call Rose was on....."I was quite worried so I asked Pratap to barge your call...but you know what we could not listen to the customer....it was all blank...what was the argument about Rose? "asked Lavanya in one go....Rose looked at her closely.....the look in her eyes were a mixture of fear and hatred, her eyes were glowing red like fire....the face turned pale and dry. Lavanya has never seen this face of Rose. She was scared....."Rose...

What happened? " she asked.

Rose perhaps had controlled herself, she sighed and said with her head down, "Nothing..."

On Monday when Lavanya went to the call center, she could not find Rose.

There after Rose did not come back to the call center for the next 3 days. The managers were quite worried, Rose had never taken any leave and unscheduled leaves, they cannot even imagine about it.

They tried contacting Rose on her phone, the number remained uncontactable. The incident was reported to the HR of the call center. When 7 days passed by and no information received, Lavanya was quite worried. The HR in the mean time had tried reaching out to the girl's Hostel ,Rose was staying in, with the address she shared to the call center during her joining, but the address was a fake one, there was no Girl's Hostel within that area. The other employees spread out the rumors that Rose had absconded and since in those days, background verifications were not so strong hence she might have given a fake address.

Lavanya did not believe it.

Time passed by.....3 months later the HR happened to get some links of Rose's relative and contacted them...

Then the reality came along.....A truth that no one could imagine. A fearful truth....

Rose's relatives said that Rose wasn't alive. She had died 8 years ago and that she was buried in the same place which was a grave yard and now turned in to a call center....

Hearing this most of the call center employees went in to trauma. Lavanya was one among them. It took her almost 2 years to overcome this fact.

There are a lot of things in this universe and world that cannot be explained in words. These are beyond imagination, science does not have a term to explain such sort of things but yes they are true, some unfulfilled expectations or wishes which does not get fulfilled for the people who dies young or unnaturally...facts are really stronger than fictions sometimes.

Do you believe that???????