When I'm With You

Chapter 64

"Of course." She stepped out of the cabin.

I looked at the pile of files on the table. I took one in the middle. I skimmed through each page to see what it was about. Within minutes Shruti came with the team I had asked her to bring.

"Good morning ma'am." Everyone said in unison.

Brushing off their good morning, I asked, "Is the survey done?"

"Yes ma'am. Here is the file, everything is in this file." Amrita, the group's team leader, handed me a file. I opened it and went through properly.

Weather - Okay.

Weather on the front page? Anyway.

Location - Correct. But not in minutes.

Population - What is it?

"What is this Amrita?" I asked with my mouth wide open.

I put the file on the table. Each member started looking at each other. Amrita looked at her other friends and Shruti.

"I'll give you a whole day to look at their faces but tell me if this is accurate data or not?" I moved the file to her.

"Yes madam, we went to that place and collected these details." Amrita started feeling low and I could see how her heart rate was increasing from her face itself.

"Seriously? Did you all go there?" I asked in surprise. All five members nodded.

"And this is what you all got? Can you tell me who taught you to survey like this? Is this the correct way to mark a location? The weather changing within hours in this. Is these people living in cartoons or somewhere else?"
I shouted, shifting the file to my side. "What- what is this population about? Who took this part?" I asked them.

"Akshay took that part madam." Amrita looked at him and said. He walked forward without hesitation.

"Is this how you take the population of an area?" I raised my voice, throwing the file onto the table.

"Madam I went through everything--" Akshay started explaining his part.

"Went through what? Look what you wrote." I pointed out the particular sentence.

"60 to 65 families. Is this how you present the survey? I want the exact number. How many families live there?" I asked him. He looked at the paper as if trying to figure it out.

I don't know what he is going to find out of just '60 to 65 families' sentence.

I remained silent.

"I think there will be 50 to 60 families." He came up with another.

"So, looking at the paper for twenty seconds the number of families has decreased. Look at the paper for two more minutes and say that there is no human habitation there. ” I seethed with anger.

All the five started to tremble in fear. Amrita looks at Shruti and Shruti slowly nods as if what will I do.

"She can't help you Amrita. All five of you must answer to me." Amrita's spine shivered and never thought I was watching her when she sought Shruti's help.

"We'll do it again. And… we'll come back with accurate data." That's all she said and all she could say.

My tongue eagerly waits to spit my anger into words.

"Remember, all of you are not class ten or twelve students. If you don't know how to work, relearn your school textbooks and start redoing your degrees, then you can work in this office." I suppressed my anger as much as possible this time.