Lying For A Living

1

"Concentrate," the teacher said as he parried his young apprentice's punch and hit him with the back of his hand. The child stumbled as he tried to regain his composure, but he was already feeling anger. He advanced quickly, hoping to catch his teacher off guard. He certainly was fast, but the old man was faster. He ducked under his student's punch as he spun behind him with blinding speed and grabbed him at his waist.

"Anger and impatience is an asset only for your enemy," the teacher said, as he tossed his student overhead.

The child groaned as he tried to get up, but decided to stay put, hoping that his teacher would call it a day and let him go home. The teacher held out his hand to help the child up. The student grabbed his hand and got on his feet.

"That would be it for today, Raghav, tomorrow, 5am sharp. Don't be late"

"Yes sir," the child replied with a sigh.

.........................................................................

Half an hour later, the teacher was putting the lock on the meagre apartment he had rented to teach young men martial arts. It wasn't a bad life. Specially compared to the alternative, he thought. He walked down the ever bustling streets of New Alipore, Calcutta to a small three storied building surrounded by impressive skyscrapers. He began to ascend the stairs to his humble apartment on the second floor. He smiled at another resident of the apartment and who had just bought an ice cream for his daughter. He smiled as he ruffled the child's hair and unlocked his door. He went to his refrigerator to get a swig of cool water and then proceeded to check his supplies for making dinner. As he thought to himself whether to make vegetarian or mutton, he decided to have a bath first.

He let the cool water wash away the weariness the day had inflicted upon him. A few years ago, he would have shaken this off as he got on a plane to end someone's life in a far away land, but he had left the old himself far behind. For good, he thought. Switching the shower off, he picked the towel and started to rub his hair dry and went into his room to get some clothes.

The mirror on the door of the cupboard showed him a familiar face. At forty- two, Ishitwa Singh was a few inches shy of six feet, broad shouldered and a body that would make his much younger students reluctant to spar with him. His physical abilities had faltered over the years, but he could do many things people half his age would struggle at.

Two decades ago, his body had been efficiently transformed into a very lethal killing machine and his custom pistol was the last thing many people had seen. As a raw recruit to RAW's fabled DivisionX, he had spent a while year at a training facility on an abandoned island in the Andaman. There, he had learnt new ways to hunt, kill, be both more and less than a human to serve his country. What had come out was an assassin worth the title give to him by his counterparts at CIA and the Mossad: "dominus mortis", the Master of Death.

Afterwards when he had found out that his skills were used more often than not by his superiors to kill innocent men who troubled them, he had wanted to erase his past, and so he went off the radar, never going back. And hopefully I never will, he thought.

As he ate his dinner, his thoughts drifted to the day he had stumbled half dead into an old man's house, three shots buried deep into his abdomen, when the very people whom he had so faithfully served tried to kill him. The old man had let him stay in his house till Ishitwa had healed. He did not even remember the man's name, and yet was forever thankful for giving him a new life. From the ashes of a spy, was born Ishitwa Singh. He decided to go for a walk, it always calmed him down.

His feet lead him unintentionally to the place where it had all began: the Victoria Memorial. Nearby, he could see people walking and chatting as they spent a good time. He noticed a lady walk briskly passed him and bumped into a man. He did not think of it much then, you could avoid running into people when you live in a country of one hundred thirty crore people. Even when he was a few metres away, he had noticed an armed motorcade at the gates and secret service personnel milling around. He went to a man in a two piece black suit and a Walther PPK in his hand and asked,"What is going on, sir?"

The man looked at him scrutinizingly and said, "Sorry sir, the German PM is here along with ours, you can't go any further."

Ishitwa was not surprised, the park was always closed at night, but it was always good to watch the magnificent structure. It was funny that a building that was made to establish British dominance over the coloured was boasted by the new PM to all foreign visitors. As Ishitwa turned and started to walk away, a glint from a nearby van window caught his eye and he darted backwards, tackling the man he had just talked to behind a car.

The bullet grazed his left shoulder as it lodged itself into a nearby tree. The man and Ishitwa sat panting behind the car as the van from which the shot had come from tore off into the night.

"Thank you," the man choked.

"Get the PM out of here," Ishitwa managed to say over the searing pain where the bullet had grazed him.

"I want someone on the van now. Get the PMs in their convoys now, and fetch me a medic for this man here," the man said on his walkietalkie. He turned to thank the man who had saved his life again, but he had vanished.