A Hero is born

The black Nissan X-Trail raced across the silent streets of Dhanbad. It was past midnight and as usual, there was not a single living soul in sight, except of course the occupants of the SUV. Four men on a secret campaign. The night was darker than usual today. New moon. The SUV crossed Big Bazaar with a loud screech that echoed into the night.

High atop the Big Bazaar complex, a silhouette gazed at the dark vehicle. It definitely had aroused his suspicion. This complex was his outpost, the one of the few hotspots of Dhanbad. It was his personalized watch-tower onto the Dhanbad crime world. For two years now, he had been tracing the source of arms smuggling into Dhanbad that made its way into Jharkhand to the hands of the Maoists. He had always had this suspicion that seemingly peaceful district of Dhanbad was a safe passage for the allies of the Maoist party in Bengal and that the seemingly dormant Coal Mafia of Dhanbad had a role to play in it. Now finally, today his informant, had come up with news that he hoped better be good. It was time.

He put on his black ballistic armour and the red cape that hid partly hid his face and thus his identity from the world. Black and red where his favourite for they together symbolized the spirit of Jharkhand-coal. The golden single stick of dynamite on emblazoned on his chest represented the name he had given himself: Dynamite. How Dynamite came into existence is a story of another time but let this be known that he was once a frustrated student of the School of Mines and he had dropped out midway to make Dhanbad a safer place for its citizens.

Dynamite had made up his mind to chase the vehicle for he suspected that this could be a lead onto the case he was looking into. He made his way across the rooftops and jumped onto the nearby eucalyptus tree and made his way down to the pavement where his faithful black Harley Davidson XL-1200 waited patiently for him. It was custom made with a 1200cc V-twin engine and a 6-speed gearbox, capable of reaching speeds up to 150mph. Also it had the best silencer to shun the engine noise thus making stealth chases a reality.

Dynamite rode the behemoth into the night, his every gearshift bringing him closer to the cruising X-Trail. They had already crossed the School and were on the road towards HIrapur. Dynamite overtook the SUV, past the windshield and brought the bike to a halt with a masterful ninety degree swing before the vehicle, blowing gravel and sand on the newly constructed road. The X-Trail stopped and the jittery voices from within that came through the partly opened window made it clear that he had taken them by surprise. “What is that? We will be late. Why have you stopped”, cried one from within. “The funny looking guy is stopping the car. Tell him we don’t have time for dramatics!” another impatient voice replied. The door opened and four men came out, their holsters clearly visible. It was an old age philosophy for Dynamite: let the opponent make the first move. With a height of just 5’7’’, he wasn’t the tallest of heroes and hence this was also the smartest of the things to do. “What do you want?” cried the tall and dark man, his fingers crawling towards the holster. “Step aside.” Dynamite’s voice was ice cold. Don’t mess with me. “You have no idea what you are dealing with here. We do not hesitate to shoot.” The third guy pointed his gun at Dynamite. It was a strange looking gun. I would love to examine them at leisure. There was a silent swish as Dynamite’s arms made a strange movement and the man holding the gun was on the floor. The foursome stared wildly at the weapon in the hands of the dark crusader before them. It was a long whip-blade with razor-sharp spikes all along it. It had been wrapped to his belt all this while. Dynamite hated guns and projectiles. Too noisy and too risky. This melee weapon went well with his mastery in martial arts and acrobatics. The three others leaped towards him and grabbed him by the neck. Too strong yet too weak. The surprise was yet to come.

Dynamite stared into the eye of the brawn holding him from the front and muttered something indiscernible. Mumbo-jumbo. His captor was soon on the floor with his hands on his head. Acute headache had seized him. There was no time to waste. He landed a back punch that cracked the jaw of one and staggered back onto his feet. A final swish of the whip-blade tore open the neck artery and brought the final man down.

Dynamite walked back to his bike. His Psycho-sorcery had once again saved him from tight corners. His ability to control the neuron impulses of the opponent always served him well. He had simply casted the spell which he called ‘The Alcoholic Charm’, had caused his opponent to go into an intense hangover after drinking too much of alcohol. Psycho-sorcery had its own disadvantages. For one, the more powerful the spell was, the greater would be the caster’s physical weakness on the aftermath. Also, it could be casted only on one person at a time and required eye contact.

The toolbox in the bike contained an assortment of military equipments. From lock-picks to silent EMP granades which could disrupt a security system, he had everything. For now, all he needed was a lock-pick and some rope to tie his captives to the divider. In the morning, Prabhat Khabar would report how the Dhanbad police had successfully captured armed robbers and foiled their plan to rob some bank. Anonymity was Dynamite’s identity and Stealth his greatest bet. Dynamite picked the back padlock of the vehicle and stared at surprise of what lay before him.

The back of the car contained boxes after boxes of ammunition and state of the art handguns. The goons that lay groaning had held similar handguns. He closely inspected them. Stealth handguns from China. There use by the Maoists would bring in guerrilla warfare on the streets. However, Dynamite’s glance was now transfixed onto another interesting object: a sheet of rolled paper. He brought it out and spread it out on the street. It was a blueprint that looked like the map of a building. There were two maps on the same sheet, one marked Main Building and the other: Basement. Dynamite glanced over the Main Building’s map and could predict from its architecture consisting of hallways and arches that there were only two such buildings in Dhanbad: the Main Building of the School and the DGMS (the Directorate General of Mine Safety.) The other map clearly indicated the whereabouts of some underground storage facility in one of these buildings.

This would be another of those sleepless nights. When he was a student of ISM, Dynamite had mastered the art of undertaking successive night-outs. This night had just begun.

To be continued.

Note: This was my attempt to create your own ISM’s superhero. This might well become a series if I get your encouragement and ideas. On the next instalment : ”Who is Dynamite?”

Non Trivial Observations on New Year

Just two more years until the world comes to an end, if the said predictions are true. Therefore I must hurry with this post. My life so far has spanned slightly more than two decades according to the earthly calendars (I would be an old man if I lived on Venus, the most erotic planet.) During this time, I have accomplished several difficult and dangerous tasks like taking birth and completing 15 years of school life and so have most of you. Congratulations to our generation for these feats. Now, returning back to my life; after I completed school my parents thought that I need to accomplish more and felt that it was real important that I go to college and process myself into a postgraduate. This and some more irrelevant stuff is what essentially the previous decade of my life comprises of. So as the world gathers to celebrate the onset of another decade which will be followed by another one and yet another one, (if the initial assumption of this post is found incorrect) I try to ponder as to what characterized the previous decade and what expectations one could have for the next one.

• Landing of aliens on earth: No, this has not taken place in the previous decade. This is much the same as in the past 4.55 billion years of earth’s existence. I really hope that in the years to come, our earth becomes home to greener and wrigglier intelligent life-forms from the entire universe. I am tired of moving around the carbon and silicon based mundane bipeds that I come across daily.

• Damage to buildings: The past decade’s inception was celebrated by the blowing up of tall towers in New York. This was followed by returning the favour to Afghanistan and Iraq. We too celebrated the occasion by renovating our house in Gorakhpur. This time, I really hope to see World War 3. Let us give the next generation some more dates to remember.

• Rise of cryptic terms: Terms such as ‘Global Warming’ and ‘Energy Crisis’ became immensely popular in tea-stalls and public transports. Several serious steps such as inclusion of Environmental Science courses in school and college textbooks were taken to resolve these problems. Let us pledge to riddle the next decade with creepier terminologies.

• Mobile Technology: I remember gazing in awe at a man with a mobile phone with a flashy monochrome display. A wink comprising a decade later I was gazing at another cell-phone with GPS technology and a laptop with a quad-core processor. If the past decade was the age of mobile technology, I really cross my fingers for an age of nanotechnology. The future with wall size displays and microscopic computers is now.

• Nonlinearity in life: This is a personal observation. So far my days have been almost linear. I skip breakfast, bunk a few classes, attend some, weep about not having a girlfriend, watch movies, chat until 3 AM on GTalk and go to sleep. My new decade resolution is to develop more nonlinearity in my life.

Well, I must take leave of you now, my patient reader. Wit Within completes a year of existence after four days. So, you may call this one a sort of an anniversary post. Thank you one and all for being attentive to what The Other Devdeep has to say. Happy new year!