Sakkat Savkaara was under threat. Under threat from idiots no less. He was under siege from idiots who wanted to steal from him. They were idiots because they thought they could steal his Bitcoin, which of course did not exist as physical currency. But idiots can be dangerous and these were willing to cause Savkaara serious harm to get to his “immaterial” Bitcoin.

Savkaara was scared. One would not see it on his face unless one knew him pretty well. He had that faraway look in his eyes and though he was looking around his home to see how to stay safe, he was not really looking at anything clearly. This was how he was most of the time. He never discussed his problems and behaved like everything was always fine, but he gave away his unease with his sudden aloofness, change in attention patterns and forced laughs to any attempted humour.

He could fight. He was reasonably well trained and fit. He was fit due to years of training outdoors with regular Temple Runs. He was also trained in both unarmed and armed fighting, though not firearms. Fortunately for him his opponents were not bearing firearms either, for they were idiots. They only carried sticks and knives and choppers.

But Savkaara was not yet an expert at fighting and was always worried about hurting others, even if they were his opponents. He preferred leaving the place of conflict, or talking it out if he had at least a little respect for the opponents, or just leaving it be. He would always ensure that he cut his losses though, even without talking. In any case, his training was insufficient to take on multiple opponents anyway.

His home was pretty old, and the doors were not designed to hold out determined assailants. So, he had to come up with a defence fast! But he had advantages. He was remarkably good at seeing opportunity, in any situation. That after all was why he was the target of the idiots today.  He had grown rich seeing opportunities where no one else had, but his success had also made him popular enough that he had become a target.

So Savkaara continued looking around to see how to make himself safe. And he saw opportunity. The old house was the opportunity. His home was also an ancestral home. It held stuff from many generations; his uncles, his cousins, and his extended family. And part of the stuff was collections from many years ago, that had been put together by many family members.

He found collections of coins, replica medallions, old locks and old utensils. It was a large collection. There were other things, but these are what he saw opportunity with. Ideas formed in his mind immediately. He went back to his room and picked up the liquid cash he kept around as an emergency, and as many old newspapers as he could carry.

He shut himself in the storeroom and went to work. He had brought along his belt, sweatshirts and jackets. He heard the idiots enter the home after breaching the front door. There were many doors and rooms for them to breach and check. So, he hoped he had some more time. The storeroom itself was an anteroom and was not very well lit; there was only a flickering zero bulb which he hoped would not reveal his location at first glance as he had left some other lights on in the house. He needed the time to work.

He put several of the old coins from the collection and wrapped them in his hand kerchief. He then tore up a sweatshirt and tied the coin pouch to one end of his padded training hanbo that was lying around. He had made a temporary mace, which should survive one or two strikes.

He then pasted sets of coins onto newspapers. He used superglue and hoped the adhesion would last at least a few minutes. He placed one jacket on the ground, placed one newspaper inside the jacket, lay down on it and zipped it up. He hoped that way the glue would hold better that way. The coins had been stuck roughly around where his kidneys would be and also to protect his heart from any stab from the back.

He couldn’t help smiling as he worked. He was impressed with his own ingenuity despite the danger he was in. He had tried to replicate historical fish scale armour with old coins. These coin patches, he hoped, would protect his vitals from stabs and slashes and maybe provide some protection from any hits with a blunt object like a stick or the back of a chopper.

He then pulled on a sweatshirt with a zipper and lay down again. He now placed another newspaper with coins stuck to it on his front and zipped up this sweatshirt. Here the coins protected his abdomen in parts and one cluster protected his heart. It was a tight fit and he hoped the zipper wouldn’t give, for the coin adhesion to the paper was iffy at best.

He then hastily wrapped a lot of newspapers onto both his forearms and tied them in place. For this he used his belt on this left arm and used his janayu (sacred threat/yajnopaveeth) for the same on the right side. He could hear the door to the storeroom being forced in now. He hoped they would not attack his unprotected head before questioning him about his imaginary Bitcoin stash. He hastily stood up with the currency notes and lock in his right hand, the weighted hanbo in the other as the four idiots found him.

Two of the assailants had knives, one had a metal rod and the last had a chopper, also called a “long” colloquially. All of them had covered their faces with cloth. As they stepped forward slowly, one of them asked menacingly, “Bitcoin kodo, yell bachittidya!!” Savkaara shouted back, “Tego” and threw the currency notes at them.

The notes flew all over the place in the little room. One of the four went to pick up a few of them, while another was distracted and was looking at his companion. The other two were nonplussed. As this happened Savkaara threw the lock at the one that was distracted. It caught him squarely on the temple of his turned head and it was lights out for him.

The other two charged at him as Savkaara switched the hanbo to his right hand and swung it at the head of the one who looked up even as he was picking up the notes. The coin pouch at its end struck him on the face like a mace and knocked him out. Two idiots were out in a second or two.

But the other two were onto him. He swung the hanbo again, but the coin pouch came loose and spewed its contents all over the assailants, like many tiny chakras. It slowed one by an instant, but otherwise caused no harm. The other one stabbed Savkaara right in the heart but a bit of the tip of the cheap knife broke as it crunched against the coins underneath the sweatshirt. The idiot was shocked and as Savkaara thought to do something his fellow hacked at Savkaara’s side with his chopper.

Savkaara swivelled and punched the one who had stabbed him as the chopper caught the coins protecting his kidneys. But now Savkaara could feel the coins were coming undone on the newspapers. All his protection was coming apart.

But then, all three in the room heard police sirens approaching the home and the two standing idiots fled, one of them clutching a bleeding nose. Savkaara bolted the storeroom door behind him and went out to meet the police, he had no intention of chasing the fleeing two; he was no stupid hero.

As he saw the cops come in, he wondered if there was a reward on the two idiots locked in the storeroom, a great opportunity!

All images are generated with the WordPress AI, based on descriptions by me. The story is entirely by me, with no AI input.

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In 2020 when we were on lockdown due to the pandemic, a few friends of mine and I used to have calls once or twice a week to keep in touch. All of us were practitioners of the Bujinkan and we shared our thoughts on training by ourselves. Sometimes, we shared different works of art that each of us worked on. These included poetry, sketches, music compositions, vfx projects and videogame updates.

My personal contribution was short stories. I wrote one for each of the 6 who used to join regularly. These short stories can be called action sequences. I wrote these based on what each of them was going through in life at that time, their physical appearances and abilities and their professional lives.

I also wrote one sequence based on the oldest action sequence I had ever dreamed up, as a child of around 7 years of age. This was based on my regular visits to the Bannerghatta reptile exhibit section in the late 80s. There was one other story/sequence that was centered around Jallikattu. I am sharing these 8 stories over the coming 3 odd months. I am currently busy with a lot of things at work and in life. So, I am digging into old works to keep my posting discipline going. I will be unable to write detailed posts relating to Hindu culture, the Bujinkan and martial arts in general, for a month or two. So, I am sharing these stories instead. I will return to the regular theme as and when possible.