Love Takes Time {Completed} {#Wattys2017}

15. Nowhere Around

            Shanaya joined college two weeks late in the fourth semester but it had been a month since then and she hadn't spotted Abhimanyu anywhere in the campus. She walked with her friends on her favorite stretch of road on evenings only to not find him in basketball court, canteen or strolling with friends. This made her very sad. She had started living in a dreamland over the clouds after frequent sightings of him last semester. She missed that. Last she saw him was in a picture with Shilpa and Mona. Nothing gave her so much pleasure as sightings of him.

        Ram and Abhimanyu were studying at their respective tables when someone knocked at their door. Abhimanyu gets the door and greets John from final year Computer Science. John was the topper of his class. John comes in the room and Abhimanyu closes the door behind him.

John: Listen guys, I guess you know me cause I know you guys, not personally but as toppers of second year computer science branch.

Ram: Who doesn't know you? You topped in third year.

John: Yeah, but I am here to ask you guys a favor.

Both Ram and Abhimanyu listen to him attentively.

John: Now, I am making this project as a part of final year curriculum, the thing is this project is very ambitious and colossal. Without any assistance, I might not be able to complete it in time.I spoke with our Head of Our Dept. Mr.Nair and he suggested that I take help of any junior in documentation, PowerPoint presentation, data entry, debugging and testing of the application.

Abhimanyu: What is the project, sir?

John: There is this manufacturing factory Forbes in Kochi where I am doing my project. They still handle their inventory and labor manually. Basically, nothing is computerized there. Think of it is as a Supply Chain Management application from scratch that we are going to make for them using mostly freewares and inexpensive softwares that they could buy. It's realtime and it will help them out in a big way. And it's huge considering the compatibility issues of different free softwares that we are going to use for it. We might not be able to automate their every business functionality, but even if we cover two to three, it would be great.

Abhimanyu: That indeed is a great project for final year submission.

Ram: Why don't you make it a group project by adding few more from your class in it?

John: That was the plan, but they were not ready to take the risk of a project that might not be up and working  in the real environment by the time of project submission. No one was willing to take a chance with their final year project marks. In fact, I too have to have an alternative to this project, just in case.

Ram: So, what do you want from us?

John: Actually, HOD( Head of Department, Computer Science) said that it would be good to take assistance of the toppers of Computer Science juniors in order to complete it in time.

Ram: Then why not third year toppers. They might help you better?

John: I did ask them before coming to you guys, but they refused.

Ram: Why?

John: They thought they didn't have that kind of time to spare without letting their own studies suffer.

Ram: So, now you want us to assist you?

John: Yes.

Ram: What will we be required to do?

John: It's actually a lot. I don't even know if it's right to ask for it.

John: The company has it's office and factory in Kochi like I told you. Whoever assists me has to travel one hour on bike with me to company every Saturday to study their functioning and requirements. He also will have to put in late hours with me in the computer labs. I have the keys to computer lab and permission to work there anytime after college hours. I already told what all work you'll be required to do which is basically all the documentation, testing and research.