Raj's Martial Mischief

Bipasha’s hands were shaking with excitement as she opened the envelope. Her whole body tingled as she saw that it was a plane ticket to London! Her eyes darted back and forth between the two tickets, her heart racing as she thought about who else would be going with her.

“Bipasha! Get your tail in here now!” Her father’s voice echoed down the hallway.

She quickly stuffed the tickets into her pocket and hurried into the kitchen where her father was standing with a stern look on his face. The sarpanch, Mr. Rao, was there along with Dadaji, who ran the village store. Bipasha felt a sinking feeling at the sight of Mr. Rao; he had been a thorn in their side for months now because of all the notices he had sent home about Bipasha sneaking out of the house at night without permission, which was not something that she did very often at all. She had tried to keep up appearances, but she just couldn’t help herself! There were just so many boys in town and they were all so handsome! In fact, they were more handsome than most of the boys she knew from school or around town, but there was no way she could ever tell anyone that because it would make her look like quite an awful person... But maybe if her dad heard how great these boys were then he might understand why she wanted to sneak out so much to meet them?

Her dad turned to face her with a grave look on his face. “Bipasha, I know you are over eighteen years old now and technically you are able to do whatever you like, but I have some news for you and I think you will be very interested in hearing it. You see this is not your ordinary ticket to London... This is a ticket to North Atlantic!” At first Bipasha almost didn’t realize what he was saying; it took her a few moments before it sunk in that she had won an amazing trip to North Atlantic! She couldn’t believe it; North Atlantic was one of those places that people only dreamed about going to! It was one of those spots on Earth that nobody could ever quite find because every time someone went looking for it they always seemed to end up somewhere else entirely! Some people said that it didn’t actually exist at all and it was just a myth made up by some bored explorers... But others said that there had been people who had gone looking for North Atlantic only to never return again and so maybe those people did find it after all?

Mr. Rao cut across Bipasha’s thoughts. “It is good that you are getting excited now because your ticket is not actually meant for London at all... It is actually meant for North Atlantic! And you haven’t won this trip through some contest or anything like that... You have actually been chosen by me personally to compete in our annual martial arts tournament held in North Atlantic! A trip there will be included as well as accommodations while you are competing! So let me be clear: You may be getting excited right now but this trip is not going to be a vacation - it will be more like an internship really! If you win then you will get ten thousand rupees along with another prize which I am sure we will discuss later on when we know whether or not you win... But if you lose then well... You get nothing, and moreover I don’t think your family will want you sneaking out of your house at night anymore after this incident gets brought back up again, do you? Yes this little stunt that you pulled just weeks ago might seem like fun now but I can assure you that once your mother hears about this entire thing then she will feel very differently about things indeed!”