One Of A Kind [ slow updates ]

Chapter 9: New Trainer

While Navi was busy preparing for her engagement which was in less then a month from now I was looking forward to my new training. The address where I was to report was a commercial building in a lane off the main road . A three storey building. There was a sports shop on the ground floor. A gym on the first. A dance plus zumba studio on the second floor. 

I stood across the street wondering which of the three could be the place I had to be. It was a good thing that I had a habit of waking up early. I had reached earlier than my reporting time. I took out my phone and opened the image of that single sheet of paper I was given.

I zoomed on the text. It seemed impossible to guess where I was suppose to be. There was no clue at all. I spent another few minutes looking up each of the three on the internet– Winner's Store, Stripe Gym and Anwar's Dance Class. 

I found no clue. At first I thought it should be Anwar's Dance Class. If you reverse the words in ANWAR you get RAWAN. But that was seemingly too simple. I stared at the banner boards of all three. There was no clue in the logos as well. The winner's store had a trophy as a logo, the Stripe Gym has two parallel lines with a line striking through it, the Anwar's dance class had three stick figures on an arch.

A few more minutes of staring and I had another theory. 

STRIPE. If you strip the first two letters it is RIPE. The opposite of raw. Something told me that was it. I walked across the road and made my way up the short fleet of stairs the led to the common space in the building where there were two elevators. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the place.

I headed to the second floor. The elevator had a cctv which was quite common these days. I stepped out  of the elevator. The gym's glass door was open. It was a proper gym. I stepped in looking around. There was a woman on the treadmill, one man was on a bike. One man was lifting some weights.

"Hi, can I help you?"

I was startled and immediately stepped forward, away from the source of the sound. I was too busy in analyzing the scene in front of me that I had totally not paid attention to the movement behind me. 

"Uh, Hi." I said looking at the highly muscular man who was wearing a blue gym vest. His lips were pulled into a smile. A light stubble on his chin and lower cheeks. My eyes noticed the tattoos on his arm.

"I repeat, How can I help you? I manage this place."

"Umm, right. I was ... I heard this place trains people pretty well." I said instead of giving out any details right away. What if I was wrong? It was a possibility. Although a very less probable one.

He nodded. "Yes, we do. You got a referral?"

I analyzed his expression. His eyes were a bit narrowed, expressing amusement, although very subtly. "Uh, no just word of mouth." I couldn't give out Uncle Mehrotra's name just like that.

"Right. I will need your identity card. I will get you enrolled right away." His answer was not something I was expecting. He didn't ask about what kind of training I wanted to take up, or more questions about my objective. But it was making sense. 

I reached out to my Unique ID card in my sling bag and handed it to him. He smiled and turned around. "This way please." I followed him noticing him take out his phone and click a picture of my ID card as he walked over to the corner of the wide room where a desk was stationed.

He walked up to the desk, opened a drawer took out a notepad and scribbled something on it. "Here you go,"

Puzzled I took the piece of paper from his hand. An address was scribbled on it. Below that was written NT069.