The one at the ticket counter : The heartbreak!!

Its in continuation of an ongoing fiction; so in case you missed the 1st and 2nd part, here you go :

http://unsocialgaurav.blogspot.in/2015/05/the-one-at-ticket-counter.html

http://unsocialgaurav.blogspot.in/2015/06/the-one-at-ticket-counter-2.html

or 

scroll below to find the posts. Thanks!

By this time, my sub conscious mind had started to multi task, prepared a network tree and analyzed all possible ways by I could confront/meet her yet again while portraying the incident as a mere co-incidence. I knew the shortest route to my destination was Raashi, Rahul’s wife. I immediately wrapped up my dinner, tossed the soiled plate in the dustbin and headed to the podium to greet the newly weds, as they posed with an artificial smile and tons of make up, just to look merrier and prettier in the wedding pictures.

I am not sure if it’s the bliss, boon or the other way round, but every newly married friend of yours makes a real effort to hook you up, or push you hard to settle in life(read get married). While they claim that it’s the marital bliss which every bachelor should experience, the same fades off once the reality dawns on to them a couple of years down the lane. Marriage was certainly off my charts until I met her, and even getting ‘hitched up’ by my friend who just returned from his ’6 nights 7 days’ honeymoon trip did not seem a bad idea either. 

It’s a guy thing, that the moment I spent more than 10 seconds over lunch talking about Reetika, once Rahul was back to office, that he patted my back and said, “Let me set things up you”. While this phrase would bring in a lot of ambiguity for others, both of us knew what he exactly meant. The pat on my back, a sly smile on his lips clearly told that “he would do something to get me in talking terms with her”. I was elated. I had an earnest desire to hug my brother, yeah this selfless act of his suddenly elevated his position in my life from a friend to my brother.

I week passed and nothing happened. I was getting restless and ruffled as the only source of seeing her over the past one week was her facebook page. I figured out the basic information about her, that she worked for Wipro, and her office was pretty far off from where I lived, brought up somewhere in Orissa, was a vegetarian and loved Bollywood playback singers way over Metallica or Pink Floyd. Never, I say never listen to your heart over your brain, it always lands you in trouble. My data analysis abilities clearly told me that it was an incompatible match, always destined to doom, while my heart brought in the theory of magnetism which I studied way back in higher secondary; unlike poles attract each other. I don’t know what made me believe it, as we were obviously not magnets. The only things which existed was a one sided attraction.

While Rahul was still working on his master plan, I as always being my impatient self, told about the entire attraction-which-i-thought-was-love episode to Raashi over a couple of drinks. As we were done with our office early, Rahul and I went to a closest pub. Raashi joined in a hour later. As Rahul went in for a leak, I dropped the bomb and told her how it was. “Wow”, she exclaimed with her mouth open. “That’s, that’s huge. I had no idea that you liked her and for so long”, she followed it up. I was clueless seeing her expressions. She did not jump with joy, but was not upset either. I was reminded of yet another feat which the male species had never achieved in his life, the ability to read a woman’s expression.

“He loves Reetika !!” exclaimed Raashi, the moment Rahul arrived back. Rahul gave me a what-the-fuck-you-couldn’t-wait look. The exchange of the bro code was enough for the secret to come out of the closet. “You knew about it, and never told me”, Raashi charged Rahul. I was guilt ridden for having created dents in their wall of trust. “I asked him not to tell you. I thought of handling things myself. But I need your help now.” I countered Rashi, to calm her down and take the blame on myself. She wasn’t amused. “Do you have any idea what you are getting into ?”. This statement and its ambiguity did nothing to make itself understandable, but yeah did bring a chill down my spine. A lot of thoughts started churning in my head; Is her dad a local goon or a MLA, Is she suffering from a rare disorder/disease, I confused myself further. “What do you mean ? Can you be a little elaborate, this entire suspense is not helping my anxiety”, I shot back at Rashi.
“She is in a happy relationship for the past 2 years, got officially engaged last week and is due to get married by the year end”, she spoke in bland tone and brought my world crashing down. I sat there expressionless. The lighted cigarette between my forefinger and the middle continued to be there. I looked down and I could feel the entire world around me standing still. I couldn’t feel anything and the numbness even made the loud music go silent. The alcohol finally seemed to have started to kick in. The news of Reetika being engaged amplified the effect of alcohol manifold times  and I wanted to throw up. I looked around for the signs of the nearest restroom and tissues in my table. That told me I was still in my senses but momentarily paralyzed.

“Gaurav, Gaurav, Gaurav; Are you OK”, I could hear this feeble voice and then a jolt on my shoulders. Rahul came along my side of the table and started blabbering something which I was not able to comprehend. All I could follow was “Its gonna be Ok”. I shook off my head vigorously, blinked my eyes a number of times to came back to my senses again. “The cigarette looks to be one adultered shit, gave me a sudden high”, I told Rashi who sat in a state of shock. She panicked seeing me go haywire as she broke the news to me. “Are you OK, look I didn’t mean to startle you” Rashi tried to reason herself. “No, its alright. You did what a good friend would do, bring the facts to table and I really appreciate it. At least it cleared off any air of unwanted expectations I might have had from a girl I hardly met twice?, yeah just twice”I said trying to be practical and reasonable. It wasn’t Rashi’s fault, in fact it wasn’t anybody’s fault. If anyone had to be blamed, it had to be my heart who fell in love with her hopefully without checking her relationship status. “Damn, my luck”, I said to Rahul as Rashi excused herself to the washroom.

“Lets get the heck out of here, I need some fresh air”, I told Rahul. We asked for the cheque. “Bhai, we can still make it work”, Rahul tried to comfort me. “Its over dude. I am neither Madhavan of RHTDM who could woo off an already engaged girl, nor she is Dia Mirza for whom I would take so much of troubles. Remember, what happens to Jack in Titanic when he tried to get an already engaged pretty girl. He dies. I don’t want to be that person”, it was alcohol which was speaking now, but made perfect sense. That night I decided to put a lid to this episode, once and for ever.

2 days later, clad in business formals, as I waited for the lift which would take me to my office floor, my phone rang. It was from an unknown number. As I took the call, the lift doors closed and I could not hear the person at the other end. I apologized and asked to call sometime later. 10 minutes later my phone rang again as I was trying to put my office desk in order. The same number. True caller did not work as I wasn’t connected to wifi. I took the call with a slight hesitation. “Hey Gaurav, its Reetika here, Reetika Sharma, We had met a couple of times before, Do you recognize me” said the voice at the other end. I knew exactly who she was, someone I was trying to get over from the past two days, but somehow God has a weird plans to bring back your memories haunting back to you time and again.

The one at the ticket counter - the plan

Its in continuation of an ongoing fiction; so in case you missed the 1st part, here you go :
http://unsocialgaurav.blogspot.in/2015/05/the-one-at-ticket-counter.html 
or 
login to the home page and scroll below to find the post. Thanks!



I was sure I would never see her again, even if I did, will not recognize her, and even if I did recognize her, she would pretend she did not. Never did I know that not even a month later, I would see her again, at a chaat counter, at my colleague’s wedding reception. “Oh its sooo spicy, can you get me some water”, she yelled at the same hurried tone, I couldn’t help looking back as the voice was very very familiar. Damn, it was her, with water coming out of her kohl lined eyes, induced by the extra spiciness of the chaat. She was trying hard to keep her make up intact, when she looked up and caught me staring at her.

I panicked as she continued to gaze at me. Contrary to women, men find it weird when looked at. Men are looked at mostly due to their shabby/good looks or uncanny familiar looks. In this case, it was the latter. Now I was in complete fix. The chaat counter where she hogged onto paanipuris were adjacent to the desserts where I was headed to. I wasn’t sure if should risk confronting her yet again in order to suffice my sweet tooth or help myself with yet another serving of hot piping chicken biryanis. The disgust on her face as she looked at me made me shift my loyalties towards the biryanis. This is something which I could never understand. I or rather men stare women primarily for the very same reasons why they do the same to men. According to one of my closest friend, who happens to be a female, women get all decked up for these special occasions just to be looked at. I just did the same; she was pretty as ever, looked prettier in that ‘i-am-not-sure-which’ shade of blue churidaars. And if you consider the fact that I had met her once before; oh am sorry, not only met but also helped her selflessly just a couple of weeks before, I gazing at her was totally justified. Yeah, I could have smiled at her rather than scurrying off the place; but her sudden look did scare the shit out of me.

Marred by these thoughts, I acted to listen to the group of colleagues I was sharing the space with. The buffet dinners have this unique art of balancing your plate filled till the brim, making your way in and out of the food counters and also shamelessly asking the servers for another round of servings. As I multi tasked the act of listening to my colleague’s nonchalant rant, hogging on to the food, observing every female around in the age group of 18-28, and think about the girl-in-blue-churidaars, I felt a tap on my shoulders. “Damn, not again” I thought, as I turned back. It was her standing less than a hands distance from me. I have read that the best way to impress a woman at the 1^st impression was to make an eye contact with her. Technically, it was not our 1^st meet, but I tried my best to give this trick a shot. “Have I seen you somewhere ?”, she blurted with a expressionless face. Seemed more like an interrogation rather than a curiousity. “Maybe, in your dreams”, would have been my usual reply, had I been my filmy self. But I was transfixed in her deep blue eyes; NO they weren’t blue, am just exaggerating.

“Yeah, we saw the same shit 1^st day 1^st show, at the same place”, I tried to spice it up by not being upfront with my reply. Unmoved by my intellect and sense of humor, all she hummed was “I am sorry, WHAT ?”. “We saw Ek tha tiger, starring Salman Khan 1^st day 1^st show, at talkie town. It was a huge crowd and I helped you get the ticket. You said you would see me around, but as soon as your purpose of getting in an animated conversation with a random guy was over, you were ACTUALLY nowhere to be seen”. This time I opted to go all guns blazing and bluntly utter what the fact was in a single go to the lady who seemed nothing more than beauty-without-brains now. “Oh ok”, she said and started to leave. A moment later, she turned back and said the unexpected “By the way, HI, I am Ritika; Ritika Sharma, I work as a Software Engineer at Wipro”. Till now, I could not decipher what impressed a woman, but for that moment I thought it was honesty, which proved to be wrong a couple of months later.

No matter, I had dropped the bomb by stating obvious, but she was still pretty and I tried to play it cool. “I am anyways not gonna marry her”, the thought played in my mind the very instant. Its weird how things change and your heart overrides the decisions taken by your mind in a split second. If an average person’s mind and heart could be considered as a couple, the heart always plays the nagging wife, while the mind is the logical husband. No matter how practical the mind is, the heart always wins the argument.

“I am Gaurav, working as Consultant at XYZ Consulting India”, I tried being my professional best. “By the way, what brings you to Rahul’s reception, how do you know him”, I spoke to her as I looked down at the chicken drumstick which though had lost its prominence now, but was next in my priority list. “Raashi is my close friend and a colleague, she invited me over”. I was hearing the name for the 1^st time. Any sane person would have guessed who could be possibly that person , but in the heat of the moment, my common sense went for a toss. “Rashi, who ?” was my instant reaction. She looked at me with utter dismay and amazement. “You were invited by Rahul and you don’t even know his wife's name” Woman, I knew where the reception was being held, I knew that they would be serving non-veg, and I for sure remembered the date and time for the reception. Remembering the name of spouses while coming for a dinner reception is never a criteria. “Oh yeah, now I recollect where I saw her name, it was on Rahul’s wedding card”, I tried to play down the embarrassment. In reality, Rahul never gave us any wedding card. All I remember getting on my official mail ID was a email which said “Please consider this email as my personal invitation for my wedding blah blah”. He asked me to consider it as a personal invitation and I did, even contributed 500 bucks for his wedding gift, no questions asked. As I was lost in my thoughts, she bid me a good bye to join her friends.

By this time, my sub conscious mind had started to multi task, prepared a network tree and analyzed all possible ways by I could confront/meet her yet again while portraying the incident as a mere co-incidence. I knew the shortest route to my destination was Raashi, Rahul’s wife. I immediately finished up my dinner, tossed the soiled plate in the dustbin and headed to the podium to greet the newly weds, as they posed with an artificial smile and tons of make up, just to look merrier and prettier in the wedding pictures.

The one at the ticket counter : Our 1st encounter

“Excuse me” someone yelled in a hurried voice. When at a public place, you don’t respond to random excuse me’s and that too coming from a lady would certainly not be addressed to me. I kept doing what I was best at, minding my own business. 2 seconds later, another “excuse me” and a gentle tap on my shoulders startled me. It was for me, I thought and my heart skipped a beat. The police within me started questioning me if I stared at someone, or said something aloud which I shouldn’t have. I looked back to find a lady in her mid twenties, clad in a pink top and jeans. Her bigger-than-face shades did injustice to her otherwise pretty face. “Is this the counter for getting the online tickets?”, she interrogated me. I replied with a cool “Ahaan !!”, stole a glance of hers and looked in front. I was groggy having slept less than 3 hours the last night and this was the worse that could have happened, a pretty girl talking to me when I was not looking my best. I cursed my room-mate, a die hard Salman Khan fan. He somehow coaxed me into accompanying him for the 1^st day 1^st show of Bhai’s latest adventure, “Ek tha tiger”. I hated Salman Khan for his shitty movies, and now my room mate too, for waking me up so early in the morning, just to see a stupid movie.

The counter had not opened yet and the crowd kept coming in. I seriously expected a stampede to happen any second. People jostled their way to the ticket counter. I was genuinely concerned about the damsel in distress, who stood behind me. For a second, I thought of asking her to move in front of me, but the sight of crowd which was still coming in huge number made me change my mind. “You a big Salman khan fan”, she said as she tried to start a conversation. “Big Salman Khan fan ??”, I felt as if someone abused me publicly. “Well, I was kind of forced into it. I don’t understand his logic defying films, but since it was off day and I did not have anything to do, sitting in an otherwise air-conditioned room was after all not a bad idea”. She broke into pearls of laughter. “Really, you don’t like Salman”, she questioned the sanctity of my earlier statement. “I do not lie to pretty ladies”, I tried my own ways to flirt with her. As I said this, we both laughed and I could observe a number of raised eyebrows though my peripheral vision. I hitting on a pretty lady, right in front of ever bachelor “Bhai” fans, was certainly not a very pleasant sight.

“Its so hot out here, why can’t they have a shade for the patrons atleast”, she complained with her eyebrows raised. “You are at Talkie town, which offers ticket at less than half a price of what PVR does, what do you expect”, would have been my usual response. “Yeah, no one cares about the customer”, I joined the band wagon and cribbed about the perils of seeing a movie. “You alone for the movie”, I couldn’t resist asking her. My deepest insecurities told me that, she was here probably with her boyfriend (had ruled out the fact that she was married from a single glance), or with her family, both could have been highly catastrophic for my new found profound interest in her. “I am here with my roomies”, she pointed out to gang of ladies, all of whom wore shades of different shapes and sizes. Now, I was in complete fix. Is she the one for me, or could she be my wingman, to get her prettier room-mate. I contemplated, looked at the pros and cons, and finally decided to settle in for the buck I had in my hand. “How about you ?” she boomeranged the same question to me. I would have easily lied that I was alone and joined the girls gang, but I realized I had earlier told her, how I was cajoled into seeing this movie, so I had to utter out the truth.

I was still playing like a rookie before showing my prowess at impressing a chick, when the ticket counter opened with a bang. I had no other option, but to help myself with the ticket. I earned some grey points by getting her the tickets too and helped ourselves out of the crowd. It was time for the show and my room-mate who was waiting for me at the entrance started panicking. He started calling me at the same time when I had to bid adieu to my new princess. “Damn!!”, I said to myself after putting my cell in the silent mode. “Well, thanks a lot” she said. Before I could say any other word she followed it up with a “Bbye, see you around” giggled and hopped back to her gang.

I was perplexed. “See you around ??”, but how ?? Did she know me or even my name. May be she knew me from some common friends, or was she just fooling around and used me to get the tickets in the crowd. The latter made a lot of sense. I stood there brooding, feeling used and strolled my way upto the entrance of the theatre. “What happened ? Did someone kick your ass in the crowd”, my room mate joked seeing me upset.”Yeah, kind of”, I replied to him. I wasn’t sure if she used me or I let myself being used. Either ways, I had a company of a hot female in the crowd, made quite a few guys jealous in there. As we stepped in the theatre, I looked all around if I could see her or any of her friends. It was pitch dark in there and that made it literally impossible to find her. I just wanted to walk upto her and ask if she just wanted to get the tickets or striking a conversation with a random stranger was the part of her plan. I decided never to help any female unless they asked about it explicitly, ever. I decided to concentrate on the cheap samosa and popcorms rather than brood about some female whom I met hardly a minute ago.

I was sure I would never see her again, even if I did,  will not recognize her, and even if I did recognize her, she would pretend she did not. Never did I know that not even a month later, I would see her again, at a chaat counter, at my colleague’s wedding reception. “Oh its sooo spicy, can you get me some water”, she yelled at the same hurried tone, I couldn’t help looking back as the voice was very very familiar. Damn, it was her, with water coming out of her kohl lined eyes, induced by the extra spiciness of the chaat. She was trying hard to keep her make up intact, when she looked up and caught me staring at her.

The valentine's day!!

“Wow, they are soooo pretty. I love them”. She exclaimed with extreme joy. The glitter in her eyes did corroborate her statements. The efforts which I had put in over the last few days completely paid off. Her smile was way too compelling and I tried hard not to kiss her. Her light pink formal shirt complimented the crystal blue pendant. I fell in love with her once again. She acted as if blushing when I kept staring at her for a few seconds and said ”Its already late mister, don’t have some wild thoughts. Lets go home”.

We neared her place, but I wanted the time to stand still. I could not let her go, though I knew I would meet her again the very next day. As we neared the lane to her place, it was as if she read my mind. “Want to go for a drive” she uttered or rather commanded. “What about your parents, won’t they worry for you”, I replied back in a reassuring tone. “Its OK, I know how to manage things”, she said as we took the flyover instead of left turn.

I had no clue how times had changed. We had graduated from buddies, to close friends and I tried hard to believe that with the acceptance of the gift, the relation took to a romantic turn. We both knew about it, but were too skeptical to confront it. She started to talk, as we hit the highway. “I wanna change the song to Raabta”. She was a big Arijit singh fan and the romantic number was icing on an already romantic night, which I was having with the lady I loved the most. I couldn’t have asked for more.

“Don’t you like him”, she asked poking me and waking me up from my thoughts. “I don’t like men, but yeah I like his songs though”, I said in a playful tone. We have known each other for ages, went over coffee a zillion times, but today it was different. I took cognizance of the moment and put my palm on hers. She held my hand in hers and our fingers intertwined. “You are an idiot, a big one” she said with a broad grin on her face. “I knew all along, right from the day you asked me out for coffee, lying your parents that you were going to office. It took you so long”. “Wow”, I thought. She knew about it and pretended all long.

Me : “You don’t know a thing, I have this feeling for you since I don’t know, 6 months”.

Her : “You’re kidding, aren’t you. I thought you liked Sneha and you two guys had something going on”.

Me : “The only person I had anything going for was you”.

Her : “So, what next. Where does this go to”.

Me : “This road goes to the airport, we can have a midnight meal at the McDonalds on our way back”. I replied back, though I knew she did not mean to ask that.

Her : “Nooo, I mean are we dating.?? Gosh, I can’t believe I am dating you.”

Me : “Am I an extinct species that you cannot believe that fact.”

Her : “You were my best friend. I don’t want to screw up things, as to now we both will have more expectations from each other.” She sounded quite pragmatic.

Me : “Nothing changes, we are still the best buddies. And trust me, I won’t disappoint you. I will be along your side no matter what happens.” I said with a lot of emotion and authority in my tone.

She came close to me and put her head on my left shoulder. I could feel her breath and smell the cologne, which were irresistible. We kept driving on the dark corridors aimlessly for the next hour, without speaking much. It was the company more than the words, which did the magic.

I dropped her at her place and as I turned back, she tapped on my shoulders. She hugged me tightly and gave a peck on my cheek. She whispered “Happy valentine’s day” in my ears and hopped towards the lift. She didn’t look back, but I stood there frozen in time and space.

P.S. : Yet again, a work of fiction.

Nothing beats a text message from someone you are in love with and nothing spoils your mood more than a promotional call/message when you are expecting the same from your beloved with a bated breath. “Did she love me”, i contemplated and speculated, while reasoning myself why or why not the hottest chick(as she was referred to) of our section would even date me. We were spotted together many a times, more than the number which graduated our relationship a step higher than just friends.

86400 is the number of seconds in a day, and if you deduct a few seconds, the balance is what i spent out of my day brooding about her, thinking what it really meant if at all it did any. It was complex relationship, atleast that was what i thought of. If coincidences were ever meant to be the way it is, the mother of all coincidence was the fact that the culmination of this complex relationship happened in maths class, when the teacher taught us complex numbers. I stepped in the class earlier than my friends for no rhyme or reason and took our routine last row. As i took the 2nd chair in the last row, leaving the other 4 for my friends who were coming in, my friends deserted me by taking the empty 1st row. I had no idea, what had gotten in them, but suddenly i felt like a loner. I has an instant urge to get up and join them in the front rows, but my ego got better of me. When i look back today, i realize how its always better to listen to your instincts.

I was furious from within. I uttered a thousand curses for my friends, who could and should have included me in their evil plans.In a few seconds my friends had turned foe for me and i was weighing this small silly act of theirs as a potential war against me. If at all there was an award for exaggerating tiny things to proportions, i can always be a potential winner. For now, my face had turned red, and i was planning a coup to avenge myself. As my mind was still busy trying to figure something out, she stepped in the class with her best friend. Lets call her X for privacy reasons. Clad in pink cotton suit, the couple of pretty ladies found their seats already taken by the bunch of guys, whom i were planning to unfriend a few seconds back. She looked puzzled as this had never happened in the past 1 year. As the class had already started, teacher was scribbling away some Hebrew to glory. I looked around to see the empty seats where they could possibly accommodate themselves. There weren’t any except the ones right besides me.

The proposition of an incoming opportunity threw open the barrage of emotions. The frown on my face gave space to some excitement and extreme pleasure.3 empty chairs meant she could have easily ignored chair adjacent to mine and taken the other two. I sat straight looking cool and attentive as they made their way to the last row. And bingo, she sat right besides me. As she settled down, the tinkling of her anklets and her ‘i-dont-what-but-awesome’ perfume gave me a startling sensation. “Hey”, she started the talk, yeah, i say talk because thats how it went on. I made the most of the opportunity, threw a volley of queries, jokes and other random ways to indulge into what we call a “healthy” conversation. “Damn, she was smart”. My infatuation scaled a notch higher with the sudden revelation of her intellect. 

Just another week day!!

Like all things in life, my interests took a backseat giving in way for my career, relationships, and all the materialistic desires of life. However, the reality dawned upon to me last night, that nothing calms me more than scribbling in my thoughts(i tried everything right from talking to myself to spending quite some time to get some sleep). So, here I am. Back, not with bang, but with a more subtle outlook towards things. I had a series of unfinished writeups, and i would be publishing the ones which has some interesting content worth sharing. 

Just another week day!!

The alarm went off right at its scheduled time. The sound of beeps in continuous intervals did nothing to wake me up.I turned off  the alarm with my left hand with a simple slide across to the left on the touch panel. Touch screen has its own share of benefits. I was a pertinent victim of procrastination, 3 days in a row. But today it was different. The fact that i hardly slept for 4 hrs the last night took its toll on me. There was something irking in any corner of my mind. 

I woke up an hour later than my scheduled time. Distraught, anger, frustration and disgust were the first thoughts which made its way in my mind as soon as i came to my senses. I was still lying on my bed contemplating my next move, when my room mate announced how he had received the latest updated of Android L on his nexus 4. Yeah, he has an Android L now, while I have made peace with Android Jellybean. 5 months : thats the duration after which he had bought his smart phone after i did a couple of years back. Even technology looked down upon me, and found me not worthy of its latest updates. Screw Samsung!!, I uttered so loud that it could have been heard at its headquarters in South Korea.

My name is Bond, James Bond - I

Prologue:

The sound of a gun-shot woke up Davis in the middle of night. For a moment he brushed aside the incident as a mere night-mare, but the noise of birds starting to chirp at the same-time, made him realise that something did happen. He got out of his bed in a haste, and looked out. He tried hard to peek out in the dark skyline of Seattle, seeing nothing. He looked around and it was then that he found his neighbour’s lights were turned on. He stepped out in his balcony, to see something inside the glass windows of his neighbour, which looked messed up, as if it was not cleaned for ages. Something looked splattered all over the glass, and it didn’t take long for him to figure out that it was blood all over. Davis, panicked, and called 911. The police arrived with paramedics and broke open the apartment. A man in his early 30s, with sharp features and clad in a tuxedo lied on the floor. He did not have any pulse and the paramedics pronounced him dead. To his right was a 9mm Beretta, which made the incident appear like a suicide. Davis had never seen this man earlier. The police looked around the apartment and found nothing. On searching the body of the deceased, they found a note in his tuxedo pocket, which read “Codename: 007”.


A MI5 agent, a modern age spy, popularly known as James Bond painted a scary picture in the mind of other spy agencies across the globe. No-one except Jonathan knew what his real name was, even his passport sported his alias name. A student par excellence, Jonathan made a mark in sports too at school. He was a prodigal child, and was awarded best outgoing student in his final year at university. None knew about his where-abouts after his 6 years of stint at the renowned Cambridge. With no immediate family members, Jonathan’s close friends at college couldn’t reach out to him. It was a year later that Jonathan was identified as one of the victims of Air France 324 which crashed in the Atlantic. His body was never found and neither was his memorial ever conducted.

The entire operation to fake Jonathan’s death was approved by senior official at 10 Downing Street. The idea was to conceal his identity. The British intelligence trailed him ever since he cracked an online Psychometric test with exceptional scores. He was hand-picked by Mr. Sheen, who headed the Brit spy induction program. People at the agency said that he has a knack of finding a raw talent and making Jonathan an indispensable agent within a year. Since Jonathan was the 1st recruit of the 7th batch of the agency, he was code named as 007. Mr. Sheen personally gave him the alias name of James Bond for all his covert operations.

It all started with an operation to rescue an asset from a hostile territory, Jonathan had more than 70% success rate in more than 40 operations which he led in less than 5 years. He was looked upon and admired at the agency. It was this unblemished carrier of his, which made him MI5’s prized possession.
Fresh from his success of Operation Ransack, Jonathan was summoned by the head of Specialist Protection branch, the security detail for the British Prime minister and its family members, also popularly known as SO1. He was assigned the job of escorting the 1st lady of UK, on her trip to Seattle, WA to address the alumni meet of Seattle University. Though CIA had issued no threat to the 1st lady’s visit to States, Jonathan was inducted taking into consideration the imminent threat the British 1st family possessed always. Post 9/11, foreign diplomats have stopped considering US as a safe haven. The entire Operation was named as White Rabbit and involved keeping a track of Ms. Clara’s security, and her safe passage back to home and Jonathan was asked the lead the team of 10 agents. It was another Operation for the seasoned field agents. However, 4 hours before the Air Force flight 443’s schedule departure from London Heathrow International airport, a red alert was sounded by MI5. The intelligence was tipped off by their Indian counterparts who claimed that the Islamic activists plan to create a hostage situation, by kidnapping the 1st lady. MI5 knew the information was credible enough, as the Indian agency found maps of Seattle University and also the itinerary of Ms. Clara’s visit, when they decrypted some emails sent from Islamic handlers in Peshwar, Pakistan to Washington, US.

                                                                              -- To be continued ....