Lucky

The bullet pierced straight in to the left chest of Laxman oozing out a fountain of dark red blood,on the other side Kareem Chacha shreiked and grabbed his shoulder,the bullet from Laxman's pistol had wounded his shoulder.Raqeeb had ran towards Kareem chacha to hold him before he fell and just 15 meters away from him Laxman held his chest to stop the blood,the earth was revolving around him,the face had wrinkles on it which showed great agony and pain,the finger left the hold of the trigger ,it fell on the sand,the storm had already started in the Thar.Laxman was unable to control himself and was about to fall down when Priya's slender hands struggled to control him."Don't close your eyes Laxman,you will need to live,you cannot die,Laxman keep your eyes open."she cried.His childhood,teenage,the struggle,the game everything flashed by his eyes for a second,the pain was uncontrollable,he tightened his grip on the chest,the bullet might have pierced through his muscles,veins,arteries,bones and might have punctured his heart,he ripped open his shirt and tied around his chest to stop the blood flow,he cannot die,he is not meant to die,no not atleast today.

Kareem Khan,the gambling kingpin supposed himself to be the luckiest person on earth seeing the story of his life. He remained the sole survivor when a building collapsed in an earthquake when he was just a child of nine months and was brought to the refuge camp,when a wealthy couple adapted him,things turned out to be lucky after that,he was raised by the couple and they named him Kareem Khan.Later at the age of 12 he was amongst very few survivors in a train accident where the entire train drowned in to river when the bridge broke almost 500 meters high and lost his foster parents.He grew up in refuge camp.He started gambling at 14 illegally with the local goons.Slowly and gradually when he won each gamble since then had tried out his luck in different places of the world and came to be known as Kareem Chacha the kingpin of the gamble world.He had now stretched his hands to underworld as well from extortion to kidnapping to murder contracts everything that an underworld "Don" would be tagged with.To him gambling,drug smuggling,extortion, kidnapping murders have become old ways to get money, his latest interest was investment on people's luck.

On the other side Laxman,aka Lucky as his name suggest was not at all fortunate.He never knew who his parents were ,grew up in the street with other rug pickers,he used to earn his living either by rug picking,cleaning the cabs,boot polishing and some how managed to live and take care of his sister whom he found one day in a puddle of mud wrapped in towels.He thought her to be his Lucky Charm,since when he found the baby in the mud pool he found ten thousand rupees wrapped in the same towel along with the baby whom he named Priya.With that amount he started a small tea stall,the tea stall grew to be a busy and florishing cafe.He then started a restaurant and soon chains of restaurant making him one of the richest man in town,luck had started favoring him,no not that he was lucky ,but he made himself lucky with his hardwork and perseverance.He never cheated anyone.To who says we cannot create luck he was an example,he was a selfmade "Lucky"man.

Then one day Priya,his sister was abducted by Raqeeb,Kareem chacha's right hand for a reason which was henious.

This time Kareem Chacha along with Raqeeb instead of claiming extortion amount created a contest, getting people with luck to play,a contest with life and death stake where a bunch of people is given an opportunity to use their luck to earn a hefty amount. They were required to play games in the contest while the gamblers around the world bet on them.They used Priya as a bait to bring Lucky into the contest.No cops,no law could help Lucky,so tactfully the trap was created by Raqeeb that there was no way in front of Lucky except to give in.The competitors were offered 200 million rupees as a sum to win the contest where they needed to gamble for 10 days.Amongst the competitor was a Major Singh,who survived in many battle field even after facing numerous bullet,still none could kill him,was a lucky man and was in need of money for the operation of his only daughter who needed a heart transplantation.A second competitor was a criminal, a pshyco killer Raghav,who was put in Tihar Jail for mass murdering and was sentenced to death but when he was hanged, he survived being the luckiest, since the Indian law doesn't allow one person to be hanged twice, he was freed from Tihar Jail and destiny brought him to this competition.

A third competitor was a 16 year old local girl from Jaisalmer named Reshma,claimed to be a lucky one as any camel she rode won the race and observed her winning one despite her camel's half-broken leg.

All the competitors were brought to Jaisalmer and the contest was decided to be held in the Thar desert.This was illegal however they had made all arrangements for a smooth contest.The competitors were made to test their luck for one last time as this contest was no easy contest but had huge life risk,one miss and they might be dead.No one could leave the game and flee as they all had signed the contract of their DEATH ,once in the game,there was no turning back.They were under tight security,in case they would try to flee towards the city,Raqeeb's gunmen would kill them and if they flee through the border they would be killed by the Border security forces assuming them to be enemies.

In their first game one day after arrival, all competitors were made to stand in a row and they would need to shoot the person to their right with a pistol one by one. Some pistols had a bullet, some did not.All the unlucky ones would die and the lucky ones survive.Most of the contestants either were in dire need of money or someway or the other wanted to play this game of life and death to prove how lucky they were.Each contestant looked to the person in their right,each had an expression"I don't know what's going to happen"There was a downpour of sweat on the face of the first contestant he was the first target,if the person to his left misses the target he would be alive if not,he would breathe his last.The scortching sun was overhead but the sweat was not due to the heat but a fear and tension.Major Singh seemed quite cool,he had faced this situations several times in life.Raghav had a cruel smile on his face,Lucky had not been allowed to see his sister yet,he had to leave today since he had to free his sister....The first contestant slowly raised the pistol to his competitor on the right side ,his hands were shaking,he placed his fingers on the trigger marking his aim to the competitor's forehead.Then there was a count....1,2,3..and the finger pressed the trigger,the target to the right had closed his eyes possibly remembering something or someone.And then a click.....no nothing....no bullet was there to be fired.The first contestant was saved and there was a sigh of relief.Then it was this target's chance to aim the contestant in his right,this time also there was a miss,each contestant in the left started to breathe a sigh of relief when the tension grew hard on the contestants in the right.One,two,three slowly and gradually all of them were getting save,proving themselves to be the luckiest and then suddenly there was a loud bang followed by loud shrieks and a contestant lay on a pool of blood.The unfortunate contestant was the one who started the game,he could not prove to be lucky this time.The sun had set and the dead body had been carried away.There were just 2 female contestant amongst the 10 others.They had started to panick and could not understand that the game would be that dangerous.But there was no turning back they had signed a contract,they will have to die if they flee or stay back.They decided to stay back and take a chance of their luck. The very next day competitors were brought for the second game where all of the contestants boarded helicopters 3 in each unknown about the fact what their next challenge was.When the 3 helicopters reached almost 10,000 meters above the ground,they were then explained that they had to jump off the helicopter with their parachute.This was again to prove their luck,for some the parachute might open and for others it might not.This was the time to judge who was the luckiest to survive.Death was already knocking at their door,Reshma was a daring girl but Sumathi looked towards the sky and uttered a short prayer,she was tensed.Freckles of tensions showed on the other contestant's face.1,2,3 and all the contestant jumped,with high speed the contestant started descending towards the earth.They tried hard to open the parachute,struggling,catapaulting in the air.When the first parachute opened,Major Singh and the second,third and all the parachute started to open,but one final one...Sumathi's and she fell like a trembling bird struggling to save her life but no help.Just around 200 meters above the ground,something caught Sumathi's wrist,Lucky..he had tried to save her.They both dropped down to the ground together.All the contestant survived.Lucky had no reason to win the game for money but his sister and he knew he had been abducted and not signed a contract.His life was already in the hands of Kareem Chacha but he would not let anyone die.

In the third game next day(Sumathi was disqualified as she could not open her parachute)everyone's hands were locked with handcuffs and in front of them were 300 keys and one each would open the handcuffs in a hollow tank of water .Unaware about the danger awaiting them each contestant went in to the tank and started the task,when Reshma felt something in her legs...something sharp and then in a moment a shout from 2 contestants who were getting pulled by some force inside the water.Lucky,Major,Raghav looked around, added to their trouble there were sharks that swam around them as they had started opening the handcuffs and the tank had started to sink.Struggling to save themselves the contestants were aware that death awaited them.Lucky and Major had managed to open their hands by now,Major swam fast to save the other contestants who was being pulled by the sharks and Lucky went to save Reshma who was also attacked by a shark.Remaining contestant tried to freed themselves and were successful and swam above the tank.But the tank was filled with blood when every one was able to understand the contestants attacked by the sharks were killed by them.Everyone had panicked and shrieked in fear when Lucky swamed up to the tank bed with wounded Reshma,the shark had bitten off her leg.Later Lucky had indulged in to a fight with Raqeeb about the unknown facts of sharks but Kareem Chacha had his life line with him...Lucky's sister,which stopped the fight.The gamblers across the world had participated in the illegal betting and Lucky had the highest bid.

In the forth game,where only 5 contestants remained, excluding Reshma as she could not participate due to her injured legs were locked in a hollow trench of 100 feet,the wall had a bomb with timer of 30 minutes attached to it.They needed to climb up,if they failed ,the bomb explodes and everyone's life would be at stake.A fight started between Lucky and Raghav who wanted to climb back at the earliest,the trench was hollow ,one could climb at a time.Each contestant struggled hard trying to knock down the others.But this time luck was only in favor of Lucky who under all obstruction was able to climb back and with in seconds there was a loud blast.The bomb exploded.Through the smoke Lucky saw a face peeking out,Major...He was alive too.

Injured,Major was disqualified due to injuries.Lucky had the highest bid and the final game was near.In this game Kareem chacha had brought Priya to the scene of the game,Kareem Chacha had hidden 2 pistols in the sand, one has to find one and shoot the other.If Lucky survived he would not only get the reward money,but his sister back,who was held at gunpoint by Raqeeb now.

Lucky had found both the pistols but handed over the other to Kareem chacha as a fair game.Both had shot at the same time.And then one had hit the shoulder and other in the left chest.

A smile rose up to Lucky's face ,he dragged himself towards Kareem Chacha and burst in to laughter,Raqeeb had tried stopping him but Kareem Chacha stopped Raqeeb,something was unusual about the laughter..."Keep your money Kareem Chacha"Lucky roared and spat on the ground.

He bent over and held his sister safely walking back across the desert.Kareem Chacha had not stopped him,nor did he allow anyone to stop him.Lucky was really "Lucky",the bullet had pierced his left side where the heart lies but nothing happened.....

A lighten up face of Laxman aka Lucky was enough to explain his heart did not lay in his left chest but to his right.