1 SHUBHASH BISWAS AND RAVI SEN

It was around 8 p.m., I was through an alley near Chowranghee (a place in Kolkata). Suddenly, a man got a hold of me, and shouted, "Now I got you. You must be the thug who has been kidnapping children; right?"

I was stuttered, "What the hell, what are you doing?" I shouted, but he didn't listen. I had no choice than to joggle him off. Before taking this any further I tried to reason with him saying "You got me confused with someone", but it was in vain, he then tried to punch me. I understood talking through words got no value, only fist-talking did. I hold out his punch stopping him to move forward and struck his thigh with a low kick, then grappling him down to a lock taking the control of the situation.

Suddenly I heard a child shouting "Ravi uncle, that's not him, he's not the kidnapper". Hearing that the man whom I was holding on to, changed his tone and apologised "Sorry bro, I had mistaken you for someone else, forgive me", listening to his apology I relieved him from the hold.

That man, who was truly ashamed, then said, "Recently, a former assassin named Vinash, has been kidnapping children here, recently my landlord's grandson was threatened to be kidnapped. I confused you with the kidnapper. I am truly sorry". Then he bit his tongue and said, "Sorry I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Ravi Sen. May I know who are you?" I said, "My name is Shubhash Biswas. Though the meeting was not nice to begin with, still I ask, can you please help me finding this address?" I then showed him a piece of paper with an address. He saw the address for once and said, "Ah! This is my landlord, Gopu Babu's place. Let me take you there as an amendment to my mistakes."

We then went to the place of Ravi's landlord and met him. Mr. Gopal Chakravarthy a.k.a Gopu Babu was a retd. Banker who used to work at Calcutta Bank. His face was wrinkled and he had a moustache which was joined to the hair on both sides. I then introduced myself, then said "Mr. Chakravarthy, I contacted you earlier and you promised you would rent me a room here." He said, "Yeah I remember; indeed, I did promise, but…" "But what sir?" I asked. He then said "First don't be so formal, call me Gopu Babu instead of Mr. Gopal, and the room I would rent is a part of mess with this young lad, who attacked you. Well will you be problemed?" I replied smiling, "no sir I would be happy to do so, but may I ask does anybody else live there?" Gopu Babu said, "No none except him."

I enquired again "Did my luggage came here earlier it was supposed to arrive today morning here?" Gopu Babu replied affirmatively. Then he said, "I saw you also had a short sword in your stuff, sorry I couldn't restrain my curiosity and checked it out. I love swords you see, but I do enquire, it seems customed out, what is it based one- A katana or a kukri?" I understood the confusion and said, it's a Japanese Kodachi, though I customed it out to be use for single-hand usage. I got my luggage and sword from Gopu Babu.

I then without extending anything further I left for the room. The apartment was actually very clean. There Ravi offered me some tea. He then asked me "You are pretty strong, you must be trained in martial artist, yeah?" "Good guess, I'm trained in Kalaripayattu and Krav Maga, though I would say you were good for the surprise attack, but if it was a current assassin you were attacking like that, he would have killed you" I said. He laughed it out, saying "yeah he would but it would be a feat. Grappling a trained assassin and holding him down, right?" "Ha! It wouldn't be a feat, but some 'feet' towards the death." I told him.

He then asked, "well, were do you work?" "I, I have taken VR(Voluntarily Retirement), or rather was forced to take it. I used to work at RAW." When I said about the VR, he was so shocked that he was transfixed. He asked shockingly the reason for it, I said, "I once lost someone very closed to me due to my job, so that such incident didn't happen I was forced to take VR by the office, but leave it, you keep the place way quite clean for a young bachelor."

He suddenly said, "What do you mean? I'm very hygienic."

I said smirkingly under my breath, "What a duo, a dirty person with such a clean man"

"Dirty??- Wait are you unhygienic?"

"Well, no, I'm very hygienic"

"Then charac…" before he could use a full stop to the sentence I smacked him down, saying "NO YOU STUPID! I MEANT ABOUT MY PREVIOUS JOB"

He said, "Sorry, I was just kiddin', but forget about your past now"

He then asked me that where will I work now, I said my new job was to tutor Rishi, Gopu Babu's grandson.

That day I earned new friend, but something from the past was coming to haunt me in the near future.