The Real Mission

Pooja A.H.

Notion Press

5 Muthu Kalathy Street, Triplicane,

Chennai - 600 005

First Published by Notion Press 2015

Copyright © Pooja A.H. 2015

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-93-84878-38-2

This book has been published in good faith that the work of the author is original. All efforts have been taken to make the material error-free. However, the author and the publisher disclaim the responsibility.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Sample ChapterS

Chapter 1

The intro

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“Mom, where are my bike keys?”

Nineteen-year-old Karan was searching in his cupboard. He was 5 feet, 10 inches tall, easily the tallest person in their family, and well built as well. Like many young men of his age, he strived to maintain his six-pack and biceps. He had jet-black hair, thick eyebrows, dark eyes, and a perfectly shaped nose, mouth and ears. He liked to maintain a thin moustache that was not connected to his chin beard, which was occasionally accompanied by a very small soul patch.

On the whole, it was easy to make him out to be an aspiring male model with pockets full of hard cash to burn, going on world tours and finally settling down with a family in Europe or North America. All set, there’s no objection to Karan having a luxurious life like that, but we happen to have a tiny problem. Karan hated luxuries and pleasures in any form. Yes, hated.

He liked to live a simple, compact life, closed away from the outside world of exaggeration, celebration and glamour. Such a guy is hard to locate, even with powerful tools like Google Search or Baidu or Yandex – because, oddly, unlike others his age, even those younger or older, he didn’t parade his bodily features by posting pictures on Facebook or Instagram!

2 The Real Mission

Don’t come to any conclusions yet about him – that he was the perfect guy who liked everything in order. It was his sister Sandhana who fit that type, because Karan’s room, in which he was scavenging, for his keys will explain to you why that is so.

One couldn’t figure out the colour of the walls of his room. Not that it was a weird, never-seen-before colour. And no, the paint didn’t have the magical capacity to make a person colour-blind. The walls were clothed with posters of Giacomo Agostini, Valentino Rossi, Keith Code and Wayne Rainey. For those whom these names sound like Greek (though literally, the first two are Italian and the last two American), they are four of the world’s all-time best motorcycle racers. While Rossi and Rainey are still in the league, the amazing Agostini, who has long since retired, travels around the world visiting many racing events. The legendary Keith Code, on the other hand, took up the task of coaching young talents in his field of expertise by setting up the California Superbike School or CSS.

Providing company to those posters were newspaper cuttings of various racing events, launch of new gadgets and a huge poster of Karan’s darling – the PS.

This PS did not refer to the PlayStation gaming console from Sony, but to Karan’s dream bike – the 1199 Panigale S superbike from Ducati. It was placed in such a position that it was the first thing he saw upon waking up and the last thing he laid eyes on before going to sleep.

So, he was a 19-year-old, handsome guy, and a die-heard fan of superbikes. A small correction – he was also a trained motorbike racer.

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Two of the posters displayed Karan holding a huge trophy – in one, he was kissing his trophy; on the other, he was holding it above his head, an unusually wide grin on his face. They were of his winning moments at the Yamaha One Make Race (YOMR) and TVS One Make Race respectively.

I used the word unusually, because it wasn’t everyday that Karan wore a grin. Nope. His jaw always remained taut and mouth shut most of the time as he hardly ever talked. The only time Karan displayed his teeth was when he admired his darling PS’s poster on the wall or when he was riding his Honda CBR 250R. He named his bike ‘Amico’ – Italian for ‘friend’ and, in his case, quite literally.

The third poster contained a shorter smile, as he was highly disappointed for finishing second. Karan wanted a hat-trick win in all three One Make Races. Oh, the pain of being a runner-up! He wouldn’t have minded if he had finished third or fourth. He was on the lead until the last lap when, all of a sudden, he dropped his pace and his competitor overtook him.

Karan had a craze for gadgets too – there was a time before his interests in biking began, when Karan used to fiddle with electronics or indulge in programming all the time. His room still showed signs of his tech love, thanks to peripherals and gadgets strewn all around. Not that Karan was an untidy person – his brother was the example of untidiness. Karan just found it cool to have them lying around like that.

The first thing you’d see when you opened the door – amidst the gadgets, wires, peripherals, his bike’s tool kit, helmet, riding suit, gloves, boots, visor, spare double-D rings and a few other mechanical tit bits – was an iMac,

4 The Real Mission

all-in-one computer, in the left corner of the room. It was in his room, but it was mostly his brother who used it for gaming, or his mother for blogging. Karan didn’t find time to use his Mac as he used to be after his enrolment at the Apex Racing Academy.

“Mamma, I messed up my uniform!” Karuna shrieked from her room, which was next door to Karan’s. Her room had a single cot bed, an attached bathroom, a dressing table and a huge closet. By huge, I mean huge. Her closet, which occupied half of the room, had separate sections for clothes, cosmetics and footwear. Her dressing table had a huge shiny mirror, and drawers that contained hair dryers, combs and clips.

There wasn’t much to clean and maintain in her room, except for her clothes – which were never kept neatly in place. Runa, as everybody called her, was Karan’s 17 year-old sister. I’ll save the rest of it for later.

“Mummy! I can’t find my new earrings!”

This cry was from another sister of theirs – Sandhana. Just when you begin to wonder, ‘How many siblings are there in all?’, we have one last person to talk about.

“Mum, did you see my brown sock somewhere around?” This was Sandheep, Sandhana’s non-identical twin, who was older than her by sixteen seconds.

Mrs. Kavarai or ‘Mother’, as I will refer to her, was in the kitchen, preparing breakfast and packing lunch simultaneously.

“Mom!” All four shrieked in chorus from four different rooms. “That’s me definitely. I’m coming!” Mother answered as she turned off the stove. Mother

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was used to the weekday morning hustle, especially on Monday mornings!

After a happy weekend, getting back to school on Monday morning was all about running around in circles, with each one misplacing something and searching for it. For Karan, it was bike keys; for Sandhana, her accessories. Karuna and Sandheep were the only two folks who were talented enough to come up with different reasons for “Oops, Mom!” almost every day.

Mother calmly climbed the stairs to the first landing, to Karan’s room. “How may I help you?” she asked him, arms crossed over her chest.

“My bike keys are missing and I’m getting late for college!”

“How many times should I tell you, young man, that you have to keep your things in place – and remember where you’ve kept them?”

“I lost count okay? It would be kind of you if you could find them for me now”

“Hmph!” snorted Mother. “As if you’re going to let me off if I don’t!”

She opened his cupboard. Inside was a small safe, where he usually kept his wallet, extra money, pen-drives, back-up CDs and bike keys. Being a tech-geek, even his keychain was digital.

Those who have one of those, please excuse me while I explain what that is to those who don’t. A digital keychain is a tiny gadget with a tiny screen where you can store and view photos. How we all love to view pictures when we’re waiting for a bus or at the doctor’s place! Well, yeah, you might tell me that you have your smartphone

6 The Real Mission

to the rescue. You also have every right to ask why I did not mention Karan’s smartphone yet.

For the record, Karan owned a Nexus 5 with Android Version 5.0 Lollipop – but it was not going to stay for more than a month. He always changed his gadgets to keep up with trends. Even if he owned different fancy phones every month, Karan was not the kind of guy who juggled through pictures on them, when he was idle, let alone view them on a digital keychain! He just kept the keychain as a memory of a long forgotten best friend, with whom he had worked to make the keychain in tenth grade.

“Did I keep them there?” wondered Karan. Mother frowned at her eldest son. “I thought you valued your bike,” she said.

“Yeah, of course, I value it. And always will,” Karan replied coolly, as he tossed his keys in the air and caught them.

“Then learn to keep your keys in order, Karan. You are 19 and you are a role model for your…”

Karan didn’t let Mother finish. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it loads of times!”

“Then it’s time that you learnt to follow it!” retorted Mother. After a pause, she added, “Breakfast is ready. Go and have it.”

Karan shook his head and said, “I’ll eat out. It’s getting late. Bye!” And he hurried out of his room without another word. Karan was very swift person, not only at the track, but even when he walked or talked or ate. Sometimes swift became hasty, causing unintended trouble to others. For Karan though, the world revolved only around him. He started Amico and sped out of the

Pooja A.H. 7

gates without bothering to close them. Mother sighed, shook her head and moved to the next room – Runa’s.

Runa was standing in her bathrobe, staring at her school uniform. One hand was holding her empty coffee mug while the other hand was running over the back of her head. “Oops!” she exclaimed when Mother reached her room. Mother simply said, “I’ve ironed spare uniforms. It’s in the wardrobe downstairs. Get dressed quickly,” and moved on. Runa was known to have ‘butter fingers’ and spilling things over her clothes was an unfortunate habit of hers.

“Oh, thank you so much mummy! I…”

Mother walked away. She was sick and tired of hearing her daughter’s artificial words of gratitude, which she uttered only at times of need. Runa needed help for everything – if she could do anything other than texting, calling, shopping, dressing up and make-up, world hunger will be eliminated!

Well yeah, making Runa take up a work fully fledged and do is as difficult as eliminating world hunger. If you didn’t know, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that around 870 million people out of the total population of 7.1 billion people in the world were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Making the math simple – one in eight people in the world are hungry.

There are, of course, loads to discuss about the factors and prevention measures of world hunger, which we will along with Mother, who is a popular blogger, on children related issues. She mainly deals with hunger and malnutrition.

8 The Real Mission

Moving on to Miss Perfect Sandhana’s room, according to whose vocabulary, ‘perfect’ not only meant having all good qualities but also socialising with only the richest of peers, eating only certain types of food and not be seen repeating the same accessories, even to school. And today, was of course, no exception. Sandhana wanted to wear the new hoop earrings that she had bought the previous day while she was out with her friends, Sharon and Sarah. Mother went to Sandhana’s room – the cleanest in the house.

Sadhana’s room had a comfortable study table, a single bed – on which the sheets were changed every week, a wardrobe and a bookshelf. For Sandhana everything was to be planned and scheduled – on time, every time. Even the tiniest delay drove her crazy. However, she did not depend on her mother to do her work. From ironing her clothes to changing her bedsheets, she preferred to do everything herself. To an outsider, it looked as if the girl was highly disciplined, but Sandhana had other reasons for being self-reliant.

Mother did not even ask Sadhana what she wanted. “Sandhana you are going to school, not for a fashion-show. Behave like a 15-year-old school girl,” Mother said sternly.

“But I can’t afford to lose them! I have to find them right away or it’ll be at the back of my mind for the whole day!” exclaimed Sandhana.

Mother simply shook her head and made her way to Sandheep’s room – which, in contrast, was messy, unclean and stinky. As she stepped into his room, mother covered her nose.

Pooja A.H. 9

Chocolate wrappers, potato chips packets, unwashed clothes and socks, books, papers, game joystick, rollerskates, cricket bat, football, hockey stick and many broken parts of different mechanisms lay strewn on the floor. Half-eaten apples, bananas and other left-over food stuff gave rise to the stink. His bed was unkempt – the spreadsheet had not been changed for months; the pillow cover had a ketchup stain on it, and a muddy sports shoe was on the bed.

Mother’s eyes scanned the room from right to left and back again. Seeing the shoe on bed made her fume, even though she was used to Sandheep’s lack of cleanliness. “Sandheep, if you don’t clean your room as soon as you come home from school today, I will confiscate your roller-skates and your Xbox One. I mean it!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it. For now, one of my socks is missing!” replied Sandheep.

“Wear the other one then,” mother replied.

“There is one sock missing from every pair. What can I do?” wailed Sandheep.

Mother took a deep breath. “Sandheep Kavarai, I must have told you this about a dozen times. Put both socks for washing and not just one from a pair, for God’s sake!”

“Chill dudess. I’ll follow your holy words from this very moment, but I can’t put on my shoes without wearing socks. Which means I cannot wear shoes, which means I cannot go to school now. Well, I can wear my buckles if I want to run around the school ground 15 times, which I’m not quite inclined to right now…so…help?” Sandheep raised his eyebrows at Mother.

10 The Real Mission

“Take one of Karan’s old socks and put it for wash before he gets home.”

Sandheep winked at his mother and went to Karan’s room, singing out loud – the lyrics of which I am unable to decipher. I can tell you that he’s singing because I know Sandheep. You mightn’t call that a song, but well let’s say it’s Sandheep’s expression of joy. Not that this is particularly a very joyful moment, but you’ll get to know Sandheep just as much as I do soon. Then you won’t keep wondering why Sandheep and I detail boring stuff so much and leave out the important ones – like the fact that he has bathophobia!

No, no, it’s not fear of bathing. I won’t blame you for the guess. The stinky introduction about him and the description of his trashy room might have led you to the obvious decision that he hardly took bath. Actually, Sandheep bathed everyday – twice a day, actually. As in, he poured half a bucket of water, in which he mixed in a few drops of body shampoo, over himself. Who uses old fashioned soap these days?

Coming back to ‘bathophobia’, it is actually the fear of depths, for bathos in Greek means depth.

Sandheep was five years old when he, along with his family and uncle (who was single at that time), went to a theme park that had only water-based rides. There was a huge pool in the centre, with the depth ranging from two feet to nine feet. A rope was extended across the pool to differentiate the depths, to ensure that little kids didn’t end up drowning in the 9-foot pool.

There were huge slides, around 25 times longer and five times broader than a typical slide in a children’s park,

Pooja A.H. 11

which came down from all the way above and ended at the main pool.

Little Sandheep got so excited on seeing the rides that he wanted to go on every one of them. Karan and Runa, who knew to swim, went with their parents for a small swim in the four-foot pool. Uncle Jagan offered to take Sandheep and Sandhana on a slide ride, with an air-tube for safety.

The clever uncle thought that two little kids could slide down on a single air-tube, and made them sit together. Sandhana, of course, didn’t require much space, but young Sandheep’s weight applied too much pressure on the tube. Taking into account the velocity of the water, the pressure applied by two children on an air-tube that can withstand only one, and the slipperiness of the slide, the two kids (who didn’t know to swim) got freaked out when they neared the pool.

For one, they were both about to fall off the tube, having slid down many sharp turnings. Secondly, the tube burst at the exact tip of the slide and they both fell into the water. Luckily, the water was just four feet deep. Even luckier for Sandhana, she fell on top of her father.

Her father struggled to keep the balance but managed to ensure that his daughter didn’t get drenched. Sandheep, however, was thrown into the deep end before someone could help him. Sandheep’s struggles made him go down further into the water, until Mother and Karan pulled him up.

Uncle Jagan joined them, feeling guilty, and tried all he could to awaken the unconscious Sandheep. It took them all some time to get the water out of his mouth and

12 The Real Mission

ears. That was the last time Sandheep went to a pool or any place that dealt with water, even if it was just four feet deep.

Chapter 2

Phew!

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Mother made her way back to the kitchen. Sandhana was sitting at the dining table, ready for breakfast. Mother was not surprised to see that her daughter had managed to find the missing earring. If Sandhana set her mind on something, there was only one in 10 chances that she would fail.

“Please serve breakfast quickly, mummy. I’ve got to be at school at 8.30 sharp. Sharon said that she would be bringing something to show us all.”

“And what is that ‘something’ that your friend is bringing?”

“You won’t understand. It’s quite complicated and confidential.”

“Confidential?” Mother snorted as she served Sandhana cornflakes in a small bowl with her ‘special’ spoon. “Did you wash that spoon thrice?” Sandhana asked before she began to eat. Mother did not respond.

Sandhana cleared her throat, but Mother still didn’t respond. “Mummy,” she said a little hesitantly, “Did you hear what I said?”

“I don’t have a problem with my hearing,” Mother replied calmly as she packed lunch for Sandheep. She didn’t look up at Sandhana.

14 The Real Mission

“Well, then, why won’t you answer me?” Sandhana asked politely. Speaking in raised voices at the dining table and public places was against her rules.

“I was starting to feel that you have forgotten I am your mother. You talk to me like you would talk to a maid, you know.”

“Well, uh…mummy… you’ve…”

“I washed it thrice, all right!”

Sandhana ate quietly without another word. When she was about to finish her breakfast, Runa and Sandheep came down the stairs together.

“You are lying, I know!” shrieked Runa.

“Really Runa, I heard it with my own ears. Manish and Paayal were with me too!” Sandheep said, grinning widely.

“No way! Don’t tell me that they heard this rubbish too!” shrieked Runa.

Mother placed two bowls of cornflakes on the dining table and turned to Sandheep.

“Won’t you give her a break, Dheep?”

Sandheep just grinned and started eating greedily, as if he hadn’t seen food in days. Runa sat down too, but she was distracted by the shiny spoon, and forgot that it was supposed to be used for eating and not as a mirror. She looked at her reflection on the smooth surface from all angles. Not that she knew that it was the convex side of the spoon – she just used it because the side which was curved on the outside showed her image upside down and she decided to admire herself on the other side! What she saw was a skinny girl of 17, with black hair tied back in a

Pooja A.H. 15

ponytail, black eyes, her face covered with make-up. She beamed, showing off her shiny white teeth, and set her hair right.

Runa always thought that she was the most beautiful girl in the universe. Well, you might say every girl on this planet thinks the same way, but Runa was ahead of the others. “That looks fine!” she said to herself and took out her iPhone 6 plus from her schoolbag to take a selfie. She took one, two…one from a top angle and another from the bottom. She took at least 14 selfies before posting five of them on Facebook, five on Instagram and the rest on Pinterest, with the tagline, ‘bor’n brkfst, so lemme tke a selfie’. Before she placed her phone on the table, the pictures got 27 ‘likes’ and was ‘pinned’ by 18 people.

Zach Lyson: lookn hot babe ;) ;)

Manoj Rockzz: wow… vry beauty…cn v b frnds??

Gagana Suresh: omigosh sweetie, lookn soo pweetie :O :* :*

Wahid Shah: drlng giv ur nmbr…

Sandhana looked from Sandheep to Runa then back to Sandheep and made the same expression that Mother had made when she entered Sandheep’s room, earlier that morning. Sandheep looked up and asked, his mouth full of cornflakes, “Wah?”

Sandhana just gave him a disgusted look and got up from her chair to wash her hands, shaking her head in disapproval. She took her school bag and bid Mother goodbye. Runa was admiring herself again, and replying to comments on Facebook.

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“You know what? You aren’t gonna become ‘Miss World’ by just looking at your reflection every second of your life,” said Sandhana.

“Jealous, sissy?” Karuna asked mockingly, her eyes still on her reflection.

“Oh puh-lease! I’m not gonna waste my time explaining you that I look a million times better than you ever will be after a whole week at the spa, so doodles, duck face!”

Runa glared at her sister.

“Perhaps you can start breakfast? Or you’ll have to sit here all day,” Sandheep suggested. Runa ate a spoon of cornflakes and half-heartedly chewed it as she stirred the milk lazily.

Sandheep helped himself to more cornflakes and shook his head in disapproval at Runa’s turtle-speed. Mother came back to the dining room and stared at both their bowls.

“Dheep, I think you’ve eaten enough to last three meals! You better leave now. I’ve already been receiving about a dozen phone calls from your school about how late you are.” Mother then turned to Runa with an exasperated look and said, “At least drink a glass of orange juice before you leave.”

It took only 10 seconds for Sandheep to wash his hands, grab his school bag and hop out of the door. I thought we could follow Sandheep all the way to school, but maybe we’ll just go have a look at Karan instead.

Ever since he was ten, Karan used to wonder, while watching all the Grand Prix and World Championships on TV, why he hardly ever saw an Indian champion. Upon

Pooja A.H. 17

doing some quick research, he realised that he had been wrong about thinking that one had.

It wasn’t as difficult as he had imagined it to be. Karan always thought one had to be 18 to get a license to ride a bike. He learnt that, in closed circuit racing, one could start racing from as early as 13. He was really excited! He made a tiny mental calculation – Two years, seven months and five days from that day, he would be 13 and he could join training too.

Karan was excited! He couldn’t wait for two years, seven months and five days to join training. He wanted to go right away. He had never felt desperate about anything so far. He had never felt that much passion about anything ever before. However, he was patient, and decided to prepare for the official training by looking after his fitness and health.

He started with a schedule of jogging, stretching, skipping, pull-ups and push-ups. Along the way, he realised that his question was still unanswered.

Why wasn’t biking famous as a sport in India? He always saw his seniors showing off in front of girls with their fancy bikes. He always looked at them with awe, for they rode well. Why didn’t they take up racing as a profession, at least part-time, if they were so obsessed about bikes and biking? He halted his exercise and wiped his sweaty face and hands with his towel, before grabbing a notebook.

Why is motorbike racing as a sport not very popular in India?

 Lack of exposure regarding the sport to youngsters.

18 The Real Mission

It was very true, he thought, mainly in his case. Not everyone was aware that one could get a closed circuit racing license, at 13 itself!

 Lack of enough training institutions

 Pressure from school and parents on academics

 Fuel issue!Karan stared at the notebook. Fuel issue! Bikes used

unleaded petrol and it cost between Rs. 47–50, as prices rose and fell by a rupee or two now and then. This was the cost when Karan was 10 years old. (The current rate stood at Rs. 75 in Chennai.)

Karan knew the price wouldn’t remain constant. In no time, the price would hit a peak, because petrol is a non-renewable energy and the gap in demand and supply would always remain. He wanted to do something about it. Karan loved challenges, and there was one right before his eyes!

So, when Karan was 17 and was waiting for his twelfth grade Board Exam results, he decided to study Automobile Engineering, when most of his peers took to Mechanical Engineering or IT. His passion and concern for the country as well as the environment wasn’t appreciated by all. People pointed out that his passion would get him nowhere and insisted that he choose a course that would easily land him a well-paid job.

But Karan was not interested. He knew Java, C++ and Python like the back of his hand as he had spent his middle school summers learning them and had no interest of wasting four years learning what he already knew. He was a school topper with 492 marks out of the total 500.

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He got an easy admission in Anna University’s Madras Institute of Technology.

And that was where he rode to now, and parked Amico at his usual spot, which was informally reserved for him – a neat, shady parking space for his baby.

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