My Kingston 8GB pen drive was infected with an unknown virus yesterday. Suddenly, all the root folders in it changed in to applications. How magical is that? It was my office tech-guy who first brought this to my attention when I asked him to transfer a word file in my pen to a PDF from his PC, since I couldn’t from mine.
Upon discovering the virus, he advised me to do a backup and format my pen immediately. So I hurried back to my PC, did a backup, saved it to my desktop, initiated formatting and left home for lunch.
An hour later, I returned to office, in an usually cool manner sat at my desk and found out my pen was, formatted. However, from then on, what happened next, I haven’t a clue what to call it. After I checked my pen, I saw a little folder called ‘PEN BACKUP’ on my desktop. Thoughtlessly, I moved my mouse pointer over this folder, right clicked and selected delete. Unaware of my stupidity, more thoughtlessly I then moved my mouse pointer over Recycle Bin, right clicked and selected Empty Recycle Bin. Just as I clicked the left button of my mouse, a white flashed before my eyes. Only then I realized what I really have done. All this happened in less than two seconds. A four lettered word beginning with an F went out of my mouth.
All my screenplays, my ideas for future screenplays and other important files gone with a simple mouse click. The final version of LEYKARUNAIN which I revised recently, gone. Even an almost revised version of INDHIRAAS, gone.
Slowly, sounds of the entire ambiance started fading as I buried my head in to my hands in slo-mo. Then I began to hear a weak sound of my own heartbeat getting louder and louder. I was completely frozen.
A minute passed. Two minutes. Three, four, five, six. Suddenly I stood up from my chair and hurried towards my office tech-guy. Told him the trouble I was in. He said it was possible to recover any deleted files including files deleted even from the Recycle Bin. Without further ado, I made a silent phew. Immediately he went browsing for a recovery application. I went back to my desk and scorned myself.
While I was scorning myself with all the known swear words I could think of, which was the same four lettered word starting with an F repeated over and over again, fifteen or more minutes later, my office tech-guy came with an application. He installed it to my PC and right away launched it. Meanwhile, I was beginning to notice how cool I was despite being in the thick of the disaster of my life. While the software scanned, my brain scanned for a reason why I was so calm. I was curious. Too bad my brain was slower than a PENTIUM 286.
Finally, the software completed scanning. My office tech-guy found out that this software recovered all the files deleted ever since birth of my PC. He asked me to select the files I needed, out of close to three to four thousand odd files of various bytes. That was when I dropped my jaw and my eyes popped out, literally. He said it was the only way for the moment until he finds another application.
Defeated, I sank at my desk, looked at the monitor. I thought finding a pin from a haystack would have been easier in comparison. I was in tears. Music goes off key. Wait a minute, this is no tear-jerker. As I wiped my amassing tears, not in large quantities to put a smile on Ian Thorpe or Michael Phelps for that matter, I began to hear an inner voice. First as short bursts of static sound which few bursts later, turned comprehensible. No, I wasn’t becoming schizophrenic. It was a good voice. Like a voice Tom cat from Tom & Jerry fame hears from his right shoulder by a white Tom with wings and a halo over his head. Not that my right shoulder had a similar me. But I heard a mysterious voice telling me to close the application, shutdown the computer and go home since it was also a minute away from going home. I listened and headed towards home like someone hypnotized. As I strolled down the winding and less winding roads, this voice kept telling me that everything was going to be alright.
When I reached home, the voice instructed me to open the drawer in my sitting room and check all my personal DVDs in there. Hey, guys! Why are you frowning? Don’t you get it? If there were any type of what you all are frowning about DVDs amongst them, would I have heard an angelic voice in the first place?
Anyway, I opened the drawer and started going through the labels on every DVD. MY TELEDRAMAS, PRODUCTION PICTURE DVD 1, PRODUCTION PICTURE DVD 2, DVD 3, WEDDING PICTURES, HONEYMOON PICTURES 2004, VARIOUS TRAILERS and wait a minute! What’s this? PEN BACKUP OCTOBER 2010. It couldn’t be. When did I make a backup? Last month? How come I didn’t know? I clapped my eyelids in slo-mo once. In my hand I have a backup of my pen. It’s really a backup of my pen. I exploded in to a victorious laughter as rousing music started. I hugged this DVD and kissed it so hard that if seen by anyone, would consider me having squeezeaphilia. Whatever that is, it never mattered to me. I was saved. Even up to this point, I was still under hypnosis.
The voice then asked me to open my laptop. I did just that. Then I logged in to Hotmail. Opened my SkyDrive and hallelujah! I did save a file of my recent revisions of LEYKARUNAIN and INDHIRAAS in there. I kissed on my laptop so hard that if seen by anyone, this time would consider me having technophilia. A techno, what? Never mind, I was saved twice. Rousing music peaked and fades to black.
Fade in. I sit here typing this post. It’s the denouement of my episode. Here’s the moral of my story. My friends, stay protected in whatever you do! Yes, including that, now that AIDS is spreading wide or is it wide spreading? You never know what could happen if you are too impulsive. Think twice before you delete. It might be the most important thing or even, person in your life that you are deleting. If it’s latter, then none of the miracle happened to me yesterday would be possible. Presently, all my files are happily copied to my pen. Neither my pen nor the files know what I went through yesterday. Fade out. Credits start rolling.
Cheers!
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Mahdi Ahmed 