The air in the Kalari was a living thing. It was thick with the scent of wet earth, the pungent aroma of medicinal Dhanwantharam oil, and the faint, lingering trail of burning camphor. This wasn't a modern gym with air conditioning and sleek machines. It was a pit, dug five feet into the sweltering North Indian ground, its red-clay walls absorbing the heat of New Delhi and replacing it with a cool, spiritual stillness.
I stood in the center, my skin glistening with gingelly oil, my bare feet gripping the damp soil. Opposite me stood Guru ji. He was seventy, but in the dim light of the oil lamps, he looked like an ancient statue carved from teak wood. To the world outside, he was just a quiet man who ran a small herbal shop. To me, he was the bridge to a thousand years of history.
"Lower, Arya," Guru ji commanded. His voice wasn't a shout, but a vibration that seemed to come from the earth itself. "The Simhasana—the Lion Pose—is the foundation. If the root is weak, the tree falls when the wind breathes on it."
I dropped into the stance, my thighs screaming as I held the wide, low position. Kalaripayattu, the Mother of all Martial Arts, was a brutal teacher. Legend said that the monks who traveled from India to the Shaolin Temple carried these very movements, which eventually birthed Kung Fu and Karate. But here, in the pit, it remained in its rawest form. It wasn't about flashy kicks; it was about Marmam—the 107 vital points where the nerves, joints, and life force intersect.
Step. Pivot. Strike.
I moved through the Meippayattu sequences, my body snapping like a whip. I had been training here for ten years, ever since the orphanage had sent me to Guru ji to "fix my discipline." I wasn't like the other kids who played cricket in the dusty lanes of Delhi. While they were dreaming of becoming the next Virat Kohli, I was learning how to move like a leopard and strike with the precision of a surgeon.
But when I stepped out of that mud pit, I wasn't just a warrior. I was a student.
At school, I was the "Ghost of the Back Bench." I was the guy with the highest grades and the worst jokes. My friends, Rahul and Sameer, were the only family I had outside the Kalari. We were a trio that made no sense—Rahul was the loud-mouthed dreamer, Sameer was the chill gamer, and I was the genius who lived in two worlds.
"Oye, Arya! Stop being a philosopher and check number seven for me," Rahul whispered during our afternoon chemistry lab, his lab coat stained with blue ink.
I grinned, sliding my cracked tablet under my notebook. I was secretly caught up in the latest chapter of Questism, obsessed with how the characters evolved through the System. "The answer is 'Displacement Reaction,' you idiot. And if you spill that acid on me, I'll show you a 'Marmam' point that'll make your arm feel like a wet noodle for three days."
"Yeah, yeah, Karate kid ," Rahul chuckled, leaning over to copy the notes. "After this, we're going to the Lajpat Nagar market. Sameer says there's a new Momos stall that serves the spiciest chutney in the city. You in?"
"Only if Sameer is paying," I replied, feeling a rare moment of warmth.
I loved them. They were my anchor. They lived normal lives, worried about board exams and girls, while I spent my nights in a mud pit or reading manhwa to escape the silence of my orphanage room. They didn't know I could break a man's collarbone with a two-finger strike. To them, I was just Arya—the brilliant orphan who was always ready for a laugh.
"Aryan," Guru ji's voice cut through my thoughts as we finished the session. He was watching me with those eyes that seemed to see right through my skin. "You have a gift. Your mind calculates the world faster than your body can follow. You see patterns where others see chaos. But remember, boy... in a real fight, the 'System' is your breath, and your 'Stats' are your will. Never let a piece of glass and light replace the fire in your gut."
I bowed low, my forehead touching the red soil. "I understand, Guru ji."
I didn't know then that the "patterns" I saw would soon become my reality. I didn't know that those playful jokes with Rahul and Sameer would be my last memories of a world where I was truly happy. I was seventeen, a top-tier student in a country of billions, and I felt invincible. But life, like Kalaripayattu, has a way of striking the one vital point you never thought to protect.