The walk from Rahul's house to the Bakultala crossing was a sensory gauntlet he had run thousands of times in his previous life, usually with a heart full of anxiety and a head full of half-memorized prepositions. But today, May 12, 2007, the cracked pavement felt different beneath his thin-soled white chappals.
The morning sun had climbed higher, turning the humidity of Howrah into a physical weight.
The air was a thick soup of diesel fumes from passing Vikram-autos, the sweet, cloying scent of overripe mangoes from a roadside vendors beside Midday Super Market, and the distant, rhythmic clanging of a blacksmith's hammer at Check post.
To the old Rahul, this was the background noise of a mundane existence. To the reborn Rahul, it was the symphony of a world that was still alive, still malleable, and—most importantly—still full of possibilities.
He walked with a book held open in one hand, his eyes scanning the lines of his English textbook he had pulled from his shelf.
It was a bizarre sight: a chubby fourteen-year-old in a faded blue T-shirt, navigating the potholes of Bakultala with the grace of a sleepwalker, his lips curling into a slight, enigmatic smile every few minutes.
> [NOTIFICATION: 1,000 WORDS READ.]
> [REWARD: $1.00 CREDITED TO SYSTEM WALLET.]
"Five minutes of walking, another dollar in the wallet," Rahul thought, his heart thumping with a quiet, icy thrill.
"In this era, people think I'm a dedicated student. They don't realize I'm literally printing money with my eyeballs."
At ₹41 to the dollar, he had just earned the equivalent of a full meal in the time it took to walk past the Panchanantala local library.
The "Licking Dog" of his past life would have spent that money on a mobile recharge for Sayani. The Rahul of today saw it as the first brick in a fortress.
Sudhin Sir's tuition house was a classic Howrah structure—a two-story building with damp-stained walls, green-slatted windows, and a courtyard that smelled permanently of old paper and incense.
For over thirty years, Sudhin Sir had been the gatekeeper of English grammar for the neighborhood's youth. He was a man of Victorian discipline, known for his ability to spot a misplaced comma from across the room and a penchant for reciting Wordsworth with a ferocity that intimidated the faint-hearted.
As Rahul approached the gate, he saw the usual cluster of bicycles leaned against the wall. A few students stood near the entrance, whispering about the latest cricket scores and the "Don 2" rumors.
In his previous life, Rahul would have joined them, desperately trying to fit in, his mind preoccupied with whether Sayani would sit next to him or if his shirt looked too wrinkled.
Now, he simply walked past them. His gait was steady, his shoulders relaxed. He wasn't rushing to find a seat near his "girlfriend." He wasn't scanning the room for social cues. He was a man who had seen the end of the world and come back to tell the tale.
He entered the room. The wooden benches were narrow and hard, polished by the friction of thousands of students' trousers over the decades. The blackboard at the front was ghostly white with chalk dust.
Sudhin Sir sat behind a heavy desk, his spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, his sharp eyes darting over a pile of essays. He was a man who valued silence above all else.
Rahul walked up to the desk. In the past, he would have fidgeted, looked at his feet, and stammered a greeting. Today, he stood still.
"Good morning, Sir," Rahul said. His voice was calm—not the high-pitched, eager tone of a teenager, but the resonant, grounded voice of an adult.
Sudhin Sir looked up. He paused, his pen hovering over a page. He looked at Rahul for a long moment, observing the boy's posture. He didn't see the usual restless energy, the sweating palms, or the shifting eyes. He saw a boy who seemed... settled.
"Rahul," Sudhin Sir remarked, his voice a dry rasp. "You are early. And you are remarkably quiet. Usually, you arrive like a whirlwind of excuses and unwashed ink."
Rahul offered a small, respectful smile. "I realized that the noise outside doesn't help the learning inside, Sir. I decided to leave the chaos at the gate."
The tutor arched an eyebrow. "Is that so? Philosophy at fourteen? Let's hope that 'quiet' translates to your tenses and your syntax. Sit. We begin in five minutes."
As Rahul moved to a seat in the middle row, he felt the gaze of several classmates on him. Among them was the "old" Rahul's group—boys who spent more time dreaming of the future than building it. But his eyes didn't linger on them. Instead, his focus was on the blue interface only he could see.
Rahul sat down and opened his English textbook. To his classmates, he looked like he was frantically cramming. In reality, he was "ingesting" data.
> [SKILL ACTIVATED: PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY (EX)]
> [TARGET: CLASS IX ENGLISH PROSE AND POETRY]
> [ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETE SCAN: 45 MINUTES]
As he flipped the pages at a steady, rhythmic pace, the words seemed to lift off the paper and organize themselves into a searchable database in his mind. He didn't just see the story of 'The Price of Bananas'; he saw the structure of the narrative, the vocabulary nuances, and the potential exam questions Sudhin Sir might throw at him.
Suddenly, a shadow fell over his desk.
"Papan? You're actually studying?"
He didn't need to look up to know who it was. The scent of cheap floral talcum powder and the high-pitched, slightly condescending tone belonged to Sayani. In 2007, she was the "queen" of his small social circle—fair-skinned, long-haired, and acutely aware of her power over the boys in the class.
In his past life, this voice would have made Rahul jump. He would have closed his book immediately, offered her his seat, and asked if she wanted him to do her homework.
Now, he didn't even break his reading rhythm. He finished the paragraph, mentally noted the $0.10 gain, and then looked up with a neutral expression.
"Knowledge is the only thing that doesn't lose value over time, Sayani," he said coolly. "You should try it. The lesson starts in a minute."
Sayani blinked, her mouth opening slightly in shock. This wasn't the "Licking Dog" who followed her around. This was someone else.
She looked at her friend, the one who had teased her about the "family-pack" abs earlier, and saw her own confusion reflected there.
"Are you... okay?" Sayani whispered, leaning in. "You sound weird."
"I'm better than okay," Rahul replied, turning back to his book as Sudhin Sir tapped his cane against the floor to signal the start of the class.
"I'm fully awake." Rahul said more to himself than Sayani
The lecture began. Sudhin Sir was discussing the nuances of Direct and Indirect Speech—a topic that usually left half the class scratching their heads and the other half yawning.
"Rahul Sen," Sudhin Sir called out suddenly, his eyes twinkling with a challenge. "Convert this: He said, 'I shall go as soon as it is possible.'"
The room went silent. This was a classic "trap" question for a Grade IX student, involving the shifting of 'shall' and the temporal 'possible.' The old Rahul would have sweated, looked at Sayani for help, and eventually guessed incorrectly.
The reborn Rahul didn't hesitate. He didn't even look at the board. "He said that he would go as soon as it was possible, Sir," Rahul answered clearly.
Sudhin Sir tilted his head. "And if the reporting verb is in the present tense?"
"Then it remains: He says that he will go as soon as it is possible, because the tense of the direct speech does not change if the reporting verb is in the present or future."
A pin could have dropped in the room. Even the "toppers" who sat in the front row turned around to stare.
Sudhin Sir leaned back, a rare expression of genuine appreciation crossing his weathered face. "Correct. Not just the answer, but the reasoning. It seems, Rahul, that the 'burning sensation' I saw in you this morning wasn't a fever. It was focus. Remarkable."
For the rest of the two-hour session, Rahul was a ghost in the machine. He didn't participate in the whispered jokes. He didn't glance at the clock. He simply processed. By the end of the class, he had finished the entire English syllabus for the year.
> [NOTIFICATION: SUBJECT 'ENGLISH' REACHED LEVEL 4.]
> [BONUS REWARD: $10.00 FOR 'RAPID COMPREHENSION'.]
> [SYSTEM BALANCE: $31.00 (≈ ₹1,271)]
As the class ended and students began to scramble for their bicycles, Sudhin Sir signaled Rahul to stay back for a moment.
"Rahul," the old teacher said, his voice dropping to a softer, more paternal tone. "I have taught you for two years. You have always been a 'safe' student—doing just enough to pass, more interested in the girls in the back row than the books on the desk. But today... today I saw a man sitting in that chair."
Rahul bowed his head slightly. "I had a realization, Sir. Time is a resource that doesn't renew. I've wasted fourteen years. I don't intend to waste the fifteenth."
Sudhin Sir patted his shoulder. "If you maintain this 'calm,' boy, you won't just pass exams. You will move mountains. Don't let the world distract you again."
Rahul walked out into the blazing midday sun of Howrah. His "friends" were waiting for him by the gate, including a visibly annoyed Sayani. They wanted to go to the local cyber cafe to check Orkut or get a cold drink.
In 2007, ₹1,271 was a massive amount of money for a teenager. He could have bought the best meal in town. He could have bought a new pair of shoes with thick soles. He could have bought a better phone.
But as he looked at the thin soles of his chappals and felt the heat of the road, he just smiled.
"The shoes can wait," he thought, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon of the Kolkata skyline across the river. "The empire cannot."
He didn't join his friends. He didn't apologize to Sayani. He simply opened his Geography book and began to walk. Every step was a word. Every word was a dollar. And every dollar was a nail in the coffin of his old, failed life.