Pankaj had just come back from Nilaya, the kingdom of trade after a gruesome week of business. His master wanted profit, nothing more, he did not care if they were tired, or even dead maybe! Altogether, he was glad to be home.
Pankaj was a man in his twenties, the stubble on his face indicated that he had not had the time to look after himself. His name literally meant 'the lotus that rise from the mud'. He wore a white dhoti and a bright green shirt as he walked through the streets of Vasala, the kingdom of humility. He held a rucksack, which by the looks of it, was probably heavy. It contained a thousand gold coins. He had just received the amount from his master in the form of a hundi, which he later had to exchange with some merchants.
He took out a small key from the pouch tied to his waist and unlocked the door to his home. As soon as he entered, he noticed the signs of someone having been inside, artifacts laying on the ground, blood spilled on the floor, and most abnormally: wet footprints from the puddle right outside, footprints that looked very fresh. Even as he was thinking, a weird noise of soft feet walking came from the kitchen. He immediately pulled out a dagger from his pouch and crept on the floor. He took handfuls of coins and put them into his pouch as slowly backed up against the wall and crept outside.
He left his luggage inside and ran like a madman. People gazed at him as he jumped off a wall, with newfound strength too! He vanished from sight as he entered the woods nearby and blended with the greenery. The sudden downpour made them lose their care and start looking for shelter.
He knew exactly what was happening, the padded sounds made were unmistakably the same as Madan's. Madan was the leader of the group of assassins, the Madanas, who took up jobs of killing people for money and selling their possessions for a high price. But it was a weird thing for Madan to be here, the cost for hiring Madan was so much that only Royals could have done it.
That was it! The King of Daksa, Dansh, had probably hired this assassin, an amalgamation of shadows. Pankaj, was actually born and raised in Daksa. He belonged to a family of kshatriyas, in fact, he was related to the nobility too! But as he grew up, he never wanted to be a warrior. He was too weak and frail, took no interest in fighting and always spent time reading the Siddhanta Shiromani, a book written by Bhaskaracharya on the concepts of arithmetics and algebra. His family thought that they had at least given birth to a brahmin, but alas, he openly proclaimed that he wanted to be a Vaishya! They ostracised him since then, but he never gave up and started learning to fight, but for the sake of defense.
They begged for him to take back his decision, but he never agreed.
He soon began rallying the people to protest for their rights. Why did they have to follow the same caste system? He wanted to break such a biased line of tradition. The people soon began to love him as their leader and started rejecting all the laws that were made by the nobility for their own sake. They stopped the palanquins of all royalty and stopped trading with people from other kingdoms. This led to the economic downfall of Daksa.
That day, Pankaj had led a revolt against the building of another temple dedicated to the kings and had instead forced them to make it a well for the poor instead. He had come home late at night, after having resolved some more problems of his citizens. Finally, he had got some time off. He had heard the soft sound of padded feet coming from the kitchen and had taken out his dagger and flung it in that direction. The weapon had hit its target: Madan. It had almost embedded itself into his heart, but he quickly caught hold of the hilt. He would have died if it were not for Druva, one of his servants who had come with him. Druva had removed the knife and quickly jumped out the window with his master in his hands. Luckily, he was saved.
This open attempt of assassination had caught the sight of several pedestrians who woke up the entire city. That very night itself, Pankaj was named the King of Daksa. The previous king, Samrayu was thrown into the prisons and given a liftime sentence for trying to murder one of his own kin.
The very next day, Pankaj was found nowhere, his house left abandoned. He had left a note saying that he could not shoulder the responsibilities of ruling a kingdom as large as Daksa and did not ever want to be a king. He only wished for the welfare of his citizens and had named Dansh, Samrayu's son, as the next king. The deceptive Dansh had immediately started his tyranny: destroying any piece of evidence that a person named Pankaj had ever lived here; the kingdom was back in corrupt hands. Samrayu had been released and all the followers of Pankaj had been either exiled or executed.
It had not been more than a week and Dansh had already attacked Pankaj, finding his whereabouts so soon was no ordinary task; surely someone was spying on him. Moreover, he had faked his name as Pankaj Kasu, the only child of a family of Vaishyas. He had found work under a wealthy merchant who went around kingdoms trading spices and manuscripts and whatnot.
Pankaj came back to his senses as he walked through the dense forest, familiar of all the nooks and crannies. He looked back to see if anyone was following and slowly neared a grove of bamboo. Sunlight poured through the spaces in-between. There was slight rustling of leaves as Pankaj started kicking the leaves away to reveal a cleverly hidden trapdoor. Pankaj pulled out yet another key from his pouch and unlocked the trapdoor, closing it behind him as he got inside.
As soon as the door closed, a bunch of specially trained squirells came over and started rearranging the leaves over the trapdoor to conceal it once more.
Inside, Pankaj lit a torch and started walking through a seemingly never ending tunnel. He finally reached a spacious room on the other side. He lit the torches inside to reveal a magnificent library, filled with the most exotic collection of books. There was a quite comfortable chair and a humongous pile of gold coins on the other side of the room. There was also a small cupboard containing bottles othe Soma drink, a liquid capable of sustaining a man of his hunger for days together.
The room had everything needed by someone to hide from the cruel world outside. In short, it was a perfect hideout. Pankaj lay down on a clean carpet on the floor and rested his head upon a soft pillow, immediately falling asleep. He was no longer worried about being found out, his hideout had never been found by anyone till now.
He had come to Vasala in hopes of finding peace with a new life. He had never really had any problem with ruling Daksa, but then he would have had to let go of his dream of becoming a vaishya who would travel the entire world, not for the sake of money, but knowledge. He had had high hopes for Dansh, but like father, like son.
He had come to this city with hopes of a new beginning, a fresh start, but his past did not let go. But come what may, he knew he could face it courageously. He would start with a new beginning again.
React
