The First day

First day.... every first day is memorable, though we may not always remember them. First day in school, First day in a new city, First day in college, First day at job.... all of them unique in their own unique way. Specially talking about the first day at job, there are so many emotions running inside that it is extremely hard to be normal. I have not experienced it till now and neither did Shekhar before ... well... his first day at his job.

Shekhar was not a bright student and didn't really believe in hard work at school. He was an eccentric kid, to put it politely. But then, 'eccentricity' is a relative phenomenon. A normal person can be 'eccentric' to an eccentric person. So, for now, we'll assume the mass behavior to be 'normal' and hence Shekhar was an eccentric kid. His teachers and parents(read: mother; his father was mostly away for his job and on top of it, he really didn't care) had a terrible time to get him to pass every single of his exams. And it was not that he couldn't read, write or understand stuff. He simply refused to give attention to academics. He hated to study, and on some heavy over-dose of over-confidence, he did whatever he wanted to. By now, if you think he was a brat then ... well... you are quite right.

But everyone, brats included, learn something in school. The only lesson Shekhar learnt and retained was the story of Arjun aiming for the bird's eye and how he was able to see ONLY the bird's eye and nothing else. This little piece of mythology went deep inside Shekhar. After the teacher finished telling the story in the class, he ordered Shekhar out of the class for non-attentiveness. Little did he knew that the reason for Shekhar's non-attentiveness was that he was trying to concentrate on the tiny chunk of chalk-dust which slid along a vertical line on the blackboard. And to this day, only Shekhar knew that he was able to actually see 'only' that tiny chunk of chalk-dust and nothing else. It was at that moment, that Shekhar knew he could do something others couldn't. And probably this led to him being over-aggressive and extremely confident about himself.

Coming back to his first day at the job. He had got this job, courtesy his friend. Well, this was more of a practical interview. He was given a task and accessories required and he had to show his prospective employers that he could do it better than anybody else. Though, over the years Shekhar had become emotionally immune, this day was different. Like any other newbie, he was anxious, nervous and a little excited, all at the same time. With the current situation of cut-throat competition, he knew he had just this one opportunity to seal the deal. He bought a whole new attire for this day which included a Black leather jacket, a pair of Black shades, Black trousers, Black shoes, Black gloves, Black socks, Black belt.... he was literally living his obsession for the color black. Though extremely nervous, he was very stable and calm and trying to be a thorough professional. He went to the building, took the elevator to the top, assembled his portable workstation, positioned himself and waited for his moment.
He was supposed to be focussed but we rarely have control over our thoughts. A lot of thoughts were running across his mind while he was waiting. Most of them from his childhood. The images of him spending a lot of time at the pool trying to hit the electric wire from an electric pole with a stone, him concentrating hard on a tiny pebble hoping it would move, him staring at the teacher when he scolded him (Shekhar believed his best feature were his eyes), him hitting fellow kids with a stone, while hiding in a bush after they had beaten him up in an earlier fight. Lots of memories were relived in those few minutes.
Every job has a deadline. If you miss it, you missed your chance and you are screwed. Shekhar didn't want to miss his only chance at a career. So he took a deep breath, calmed himself, focussed and concentrated hard. He touched his lucky charm, a gold locket in a black thread around his neck (it was with him since he was 15) moments before taking his shot and when the moment came....... he was bang on.

This was the first of the 169 sniper shots Shekhar fired on his way to become the most dreaded Sharp-Shooter in the country. 15th January, 2008 was the day he was supposed to take his 170th victim. 15th January, 2008 was also the first day at job for Raghu. And as they say "Beginner's luck", Raghu didn't miss his chance either.

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