Yuddh

First Chapter : Initiation

It's November of 2012 . A policeman escorted out of my lonely cell to meet someone who had come for me. When I sat down at the table — sitting opposite to the anonymous man — he asked me the normal basic details such as my name, etc. The  only thing on which I was really focused was to find out his identity. I didn't have much details on which I could go off . He wore a military uniform and I was for sure that he's from the military but other than that I knew nothing.

The thing that stunned me the most was the following question : What are you willing to do to not have to life in prison ? I had a life sentence; I was willing to do anything.
He said that all I had to do was to life in Pakistan and get secret information to send back to India. This is what I had to do; I had to become a RAW agent.

I was taken aback. Why would they sent prisoners for a secret mission instead of maybe, a trained spy; He said, "A trained spy if caught, would be a great loss." He didn't tell us anything other than the information I needed. I learnt a lot more in Pakistan about Indian secret agents than I did in my week-long training in Lucknow.

I was trained on how to make anonymous phone calls, how to not get caught 101 ( a very good thing to teach to a criminal like me) but most important how to act Muslim and speak Urdu. Urdu is rather similar to Hindi in basic speech. It didn't take much time.

Finally a week's training was done and I was off to Pakistan. Before that I was given a new name — one which would not make me stand out in Pakistan — Ghazal. Now, I wasn't great at making new friends or meeting people. I was overwhelmed with all that I had learnt over the past weeks but I feel like I did well knowing that I survived 12 years in Pakistan.

The border crossing was one of the toughest parts in my journey— the Wagah border* at 2:15 PM. I had to wear in a kurta and a kufi. My pockets were stuffed with money as that was my allowance for the next month. The Indian army on guard aided me throughout the way, from distracting the Pakistani army to leading me through the fest.

And soon began my first few days in Pakistan — a foreign nation.

* The Wagah Crossing is just something I found while googling about Indo-Pakistani border crossing. I doubt it is a real passage or that actually crossing it would be easy.