Episode 3: Close Encounters With Unix

That’s Life – 3 Close Encounters with Unix!

As a rule, I had spent most of my free time playing with the minicomputer in our school trying to get some hands-on. It was a time when everyone worth his salt was able to “crack Unix passwords”. So I wanted to do it too. It might be a very simple task because everyone else seemed to have done it. I didn’t want to be left out of the Hall of Fame!

It wasn’t easy for me. The procedure to crack those passwords was a well guarded and well kept secret. People wouldn’t share it with you unless you promised them a treat in Quality Inn Bliss – which none of us could afford anyway. The pocket money per month was close to fifty rupees of which 40 were spent on movies.

Like the divide between Haves and Have-Nots, the divide between Hacked and Hacked-Nots had become quite big. I desperately wanted to cross over to the elite panel of the Unix Hackers Club. I would spend hours in front of the Unix terminal with all the Unix books I could lay my hands on.

Quite a few times, I had asked my classmates – They would simply laugh at me – “Oh look at this item! He scores 87% in Microprocessors and still doesn’t know how to beat a Unix computer! Ha ha ha!”

I was ashamed. It was reason enough to commit suicide. What was the point living in this world if I couldn’t manage to do such a simple task as cracking Unix passwords? That too when every Tom, Dick and Harry (Not to mention the street dog we aptly called Montmorency!) had done it.

BUT HOW?

One day, I could no longer bear it. I couldn't sleep. I got up from my bed at two in the morning, took my bicycle out and peddled furiously towards our computer center. I wanted to crack the passwords at any cost that day.

Of course it was UNIX and I couldn't have succeeded in my attempts to hack it if one Mr. Aditya Balasubramaniam (May his tribe increase. More about him at a later point in time.) were not seen in the university canteen sipping coffee at three in the morning.

'You know Nirmal! I will tell you what your problem is. First thing - You should not have got 87% in that God forsaken paper. What were you thinking man? It is worse than flunking! Anyways, good that you got only 50% in Mathematics – 4. That is better. Whole lot better you know.”

I coughed a little and politely asked him to talk about Unix passwords and not about my academic excellence in B-Tech.

“Oh Yeah! I am coming there. You know what your problem is? I will tell you what your problem is. You tend to follow the highway even when you are trying to beat the system. Remember, you are NOT Rajinikanth. So leave the highway to him and take the crooked ways. There are hundreds of such routs. THINK!"

I thought then. I sat in front of our library (Affectionately called Taj of the South – inside the university campus because of its unnecessary dome.) on the grass and then 'thought again'.

It was four in the morning. There was a cool breeze; a breeze that would make the sailors happy; a breeze that traveled all the way from Seven Hills; a breeze that carried me a message from His Holiness Venkateswara Swamy. I strongly believed it was He who told me how to crack UNIX passwords.

I ran.

I covered the distance of one kilometer, in the second serious sprint of my life, in five minutes. Only later I would realize that I had actually parked my bicycle in front of our Taj Mahal.

To be continued…