Kismet's Odyssey

PROLOGUE

Miloni walked slowly hoping to see him one last time before the school closed for the vacations. At the next junction, her friends would join her and they would walk together to school. Her ears waited to pick up the sound of the racing bike. She trudged along the road hoping for the bike to race past her.

That morning, as she ambled, she noticed an auto coming from the opposite side. Two men were hooting and whistling, doing acrobatics. The road was desolate and Miloni hoped that they would drive away without creating nuisance. But to her consternation, the auto slowed down and the men jumping out, waylaid her, “Hey baby, where are you going in that sexy uniform?”

Miloni wanted to snap at them but her father had advised her long ago that it was better to ignore such taunts. She strode ahead but the men closed in on her. She glared at them. One of the men tried to touch her and she snapped his hand away. The driver grinned maliciously. The first stirrings of unease rose in her.

And then, out of the blue, she heard the burr of the bike. It was the sweetest sound she had heard so far in her life. Miloni turned back and saw the bike coming in her direction. With the black helmet covering the face, the black leather jacket worn over his shirt, jeans and black boots, she had watched the biker race past her every morning for the past six months. Her friends too had noticed but no one had learnt the identity of the biker. Miloni didn’t even know if the biker was a girl or a boy. But the lean body and broad shoulders hinted at a man.

Now as she watched, the men did not move from their position. The auto hovered indecisively while the biker raced past it and turned around. Miloni waited, hoping that he would rescue her from the hooligans.

He came closer, slowed the bike and kicked the shin of one man. The man howled and stumbled on the thorny bushes. The other man lunged at the biker but the biker had raised the speed of the bike and slammed the front tyre onto that man’s legs. He fell down and the auto driver sped away in fear. With both men crawling away to the fields, the biker signalled her to get on the back seat. Miloni happily slid on the seat and sat astride, pulling down her skirt. She held on to his leather jacket as he accelerated the bike. In a flash, she had reached the junction where her friends waited. He stopped and with regret she got down. Her friends gawked in astonishment. And then he was gone in a flash like a hurricane.

All the way to her school, she narrated the incident to her friends and they listened in stupefied silence.

Who was the racing biker? In the small mining town of Kymore, they hadn’t encountered anyone with such a splendid bike. In their school, they had not seen any boy arriving in the bike. Arko was the only one who was rich enough to own a bike but he had a red sports car and he showed it off by bringing it to the school.

Miloni and her friends decided to investigate the identity of the biker during their coming vacation.