chapter 20

Time passes.Fiza gets appreciation for her work in her office. But along with the accolades, her workload also increases. Fiza is so busy now that she can't even get time to call her mother regularly. Fiza does not get time to meet Shalini either. Gradually, Fiza is also getting used to her new routine. These days Sameer doesn't come to Fiza's desk much and doesn't even invite her to lunch, but whenever they meet, he behaves nicely.No matter how busy life is, as soon as Fiza returns home, she selects girls from the photos sent by Arif and mails them back to him. But, Arif cancels them, giving various excuses.One day Fiza gets angry and tells Arif, 'If you cancel every girl, you will never get a girl to marry.'I don't want anyone else in my life except you. I am doing all this to please my parents. Arif says inwardly, but to Fiza, he says, 'Marriages are made in heaven. So if there is someone for me, she will be mine one day.''Hope you find her before you get old.' Fiza teases Arif.I already found her; only she has to accept me. Arif says inwardly, but to Fiza, he says, 'If you pray for me, then surely she will be in my life soon.''Okay. I will visit Haji Ali Dargah to pray for you.''Thank you. That's why I love so much.'Arif's last words shock Fiza. Does he still love me? She thought. Six months have passed since Fiza came to Mumbai. Fiza receives a promotion as soon as she completes her six months at the company. It's the first time someone got a promotion after six months of joining the company, which became big news for other employees. Now Fiza will be leading all the teams of designers.All the team leaders, including Sameer, who has been working in this company for the last two-three years, got disappointed. All of them were expecting the promotion. Some people accept Fiza as their boss with a heavy heart, but the male ego of some people like Sameer does not allow them to admit a woman as their boss. Sameer never went into direct conflict with Fiza. He provoked other team leaders not to cooperate with Fiza, but he himself pretended to be good to Fiza. Sameer and his team never missed the deadline, but he instigated others to not abide by Fiza. Sameer tells them that if everyone resists Fiza, then management will remove Fiza from her position. For this, they have to unite and raise their voice against Fiza. Some team leaders start creating problems for Fiza by not cooperating in handling and submitting projects on time. They doubted her ability and, at times, refused to follow her decision.Although Fiza is a soft-spoken person, she deals with troublemakers very nicely. Soon, troublemakers understand that Fiza is a tough cookie. So, they gave up. When all the team leaders accept Fiza as their boss, Sameer tries to befriend Fiza again. He, every now and then, tries to offer her gifts, but each time Fiza refuses all his gifts. Sameer starts telling everyone the many fabricated stories of his friendship with Fiza. Everyone believes Sameer because they know about their trip to Goa together.Sameer tells everybody,' Although Fiza is boss, she never takes any decision without consulting me. She is new here. So she depends on me.'Many times, Sameer gave wrong information to other teams, due to which Fiza faced many problems with clients. Fiza finds out that Sameer is inciting everyone against her in various ways. She warns Sameer in a meeting for provoking others against her and giving wrong information to others.Sameer can't accept the insult. He vows to teach Fiza a lesson that she will leave Mumbai forever. After a few days, Fiza again comes to the limelight in the office. This time, Fiza's nude photos have made her the topic of discussion again. Fiza gets shocked when HR shows her the pictures. She has never seen such dirty pictures. Someone has created a fake social media account in Fiza's name and published those pictures. Fiza scrutinizes the social media account thoroughly and finds that all friends on the friend list are her colleagues. The DP of the profile is a picture from her Goa trip.Fiza takes some screenshots and downloads all the pictures. She asks HR to give her seven days to find out who has spread such fake pictures of her. Fiza also requests HR not to tell anyone that she has talked with her about these pictures. She knows that these are edited pictures. Someone has spread these pictures on the internet to tarnish her dignity. But who benefits by tarnishing her honor?Fiza looks at the pictures again and again. Although the photos can ruin her career, Fiza can't help but appreciate the perfect editing. Fiza knows that the images are superimposed, but it's too difficult to prove because once photos get uploaded to social media, the metadata of the image changes. I am not on any social media. So they must have downloaded my pictures from someone else's profile. Maybe these are pictures of my Goa trip. Fiza thought.Fiza knows that if her parents know about the incident, there will be chaos in her house, and if she tells Arif, he will come to Mumbai immediately to take her back. But she doesn't want to run away defeated. Fiza decides to go to the police. So, she calls Aarav and tells everything and asks him to accompany her to the police station. Fiza submits all the images to the cyber cell of the Mumbai police. She did not tell anyone in the office that she had filed a case with the police.Despite such a big incident, everyone in the office is quite surprised to see Fiza working as before. Meanwhile, some people have appealed to HR to fire Fiza. Still, Fiza calmly works as before. Even after this incident, there was no difference in her behavior with anyone. One day the police come to the office and arrest Sameer. Like everyone, Fiza is surprised when the police catch Sameer in her case. The police officer informs that Sameer gave money to another person to create a fake social media account in Fiza's name and upload these photos from a far distant cyber cafe. The police caught that man, and he confessed the crime.(Continued ..)