The Life Of Normal-Taro

(Note: This chapter is in first person POV.)

I'm Harish TP; a karate practitioner. My life had been way too normal throughout my entire life until I met this one person.

He called himself Sadanandan. I met him during the state karate tournament. I thought little of him in the beginning, since my eyes were all on getting into the national tournament. However, that's when I got thoroughly defeated by him. That's when I started noticing him.

Even though I started noticing him, he remained nothing more than a dark horse pick for me. This is because I fought with the ones who advanced with him and they were no simple opponents. 

But yet again, the man before me defied all the expectations and defeated his opponents with ease. The person who I thought wouldn't even advance in the first round, advanced to the finals. It was truly miraculous—an underdog story, if you ask me.

Only, it wasn't one. He was strong. Too strong. He was incomparable to us. It took the finals to make me realize how strong the guy was. I should've noticed it before though—after all, he did just defend to win all his matches.

Anyhow, in the finals, he obliterated his opponent Jai because he ticked him off. And we aren't talking about a simple knock out or something. He straight up got Jai's body to go through the wall of the indoor stadium to the outside. I've never seen such a thing in my life.

But the strange thing is this—for some reason, no one remembers this incident the way I did. They were talking about a mystery participant when everyone knew his name just a minute before. It was as if someone was deliberately wiping out the memories related to Sadanandan from people's brain. 

That's when I remembered it. A suited guy holding a rod of some sorts. He was telling some random gibberish back then, and now people were saying the same thing—which means that he manipulated people's mind the way he wanted.

I tried to think of a reason why I was the only one who wasn't affected with this. The only conclusion that I came up to was that rod that I talked about before. I believe it released some sort of light from it. Ever since that, people started believing that fabricated tale. Thankfully, I wasn't hit with it, since I accidentally closed my eyes due to dust particles entering my eyes. 

So, I believed I was the only remnant of the truth for the longest time. I wasn't too excited to tell this to someone else because I knew well that no one would believe that a man was the one responsible for the hole in the wall. 

However, things changed a bit when Zaheer asked to meet up with me one day. I didn't know why he was asking for me back then, but he soon revealed that he remembered the events that happened on that day as well.

It seemed that he realized my knowledge on the incident since one of our mutual friends started badmouthing me, calling me crazy and stuff because I asked if he remembered about it. So, we mutually broke our friendship with our mutual friend because he's an asshole.

Other than that, we partnered together to find any info on Sadanandan. We were curious as to why his identity was so protected and whether he's some sort of unique existence. Anyway, we were like two conspiracy theorists at this point.

You see, there were times that I doubted my own memories just because everyone was remembering one event while I remembered something entirely different. I thought I was the crazy one. However, with Zaheer on my side, I no longer doubted my memories. Sometimes, it's not us in the wrong just because we are on the opposites to the entire world. They could be wrong as well.

So, we started our investigation about this elusive character from his dojo. But here's the thing, the dojo master remembered his disciple winning the tournament and for some reason, in his memories, he died soon after. It seemed as if they twisted some tales to certain members.

I felt bad for him though. Think about it. He's the one who carries the most trauma after the tournament. He is unaware that his disciple is actually well and alive, and that's sad to see.

Since we didn't get any clues from the dojo master, we looked around and still found nothing. We literally spent months trying to find this guy, but he was nowhere to be seen. I was worried that he was imprisoned or something for the stuff he did that day.

In between all these searching for Sadanandan, we were still working our asses off in our normal jobs. Other than having a dojo of mine, I also taught karate in schools, for which I'm paid… fairly. 

And one such school was the Heavenly Flame School. I taught karate there on Fridays. It's pretty fun, you know? On the off chances that I get, I tried endorsing my dojo to them, but they rarely heed my business mind, but it was kinda fine though. I wasn't sad about it or anything since one out of twenty kids joined my dojo from the school since they actually liked me.

Anyhow, the thing's this. I expected nothing from this school, even when I agreed to teach karate there. However, I guess God works in ways that I can't even fathom. I met the guy we were actually searching for in a total accident.

It seemed like he remembered me as well. However, he acted as if he didn't, so I kept my face as well. He took up the teaching profession, which I felt was weird for a guy like him who gets ticked off easily.

So, it seemed as if he hadn't revealed to people that he's a karateka as well, probably because he worries that someone might actually draw his connection to the tournament. But he still agreed to spar with me, which is exciting since I practiced even more since that loss. I finally caught up to the person, I'm not leaving him that easily!

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