TDK: A Tale of Bumbling Blunders
– A saga by BJ and Annet 😼
(names are colour-coded for ease)
It was a cloudy night. Thirupatheeswaran Deivaperumal Kumaraswamy, known as TDK, looked at the address scrawled on his hand once more. It looked like he’d reached the right house – a sprawling villa on the outskirts of Trichy. He was a sight to behold; one that hit the eye like a firework display. He looked like a child’s temper tantrum while painting – a bright pink shirt with canary-yellow pants. His hair, desperately oiled to look like Elvis, resembled a drowning crow. In all, he was probably the most colourful, baby-faced hitman in existence.
He strode purposefully towards the main gate – his noisy clambering over the wall ignored by the guards, who turned out to be surprisingly deep sleepers. Piece of cake, he thought smugly to himself and promptly proceeded to collide with the polished glass doors. Jarred by the blow, he blearily looked around to see if anyone had noticed the disturbance, not glancing at the guards who’d been knocked out (the force with which he’d struck the doors had tipped the flower pots on the wall right onto their heads). Going inside, he not-so-stealthily made his way to the room of the man he was supposed to kill. His shenanigans along the way went unchallenged, for the other occupants were completely sloshed. Cracking the door open, he saw his target lying spreadeagled on a bed, snoring gloriously. He crept in and pulled out his pistol. He paused, for the guy started to mumble, “Oh Amma, give me more of that heavenly idly”. Being a passionate idly hater, TDK replied softly, “You’re going to hell for that.” Taking careful aim at his forehead, he shot him cleanly through the neck, resulting in a fountain of blood spraying all over the room. Unable to resist himself, he gave a final retort, “Eat your idly with that, idiot”. Satisfied, he looked around the room, his eyes resting on an unattended bottle of soda. Stepping forward to pick it up, he slipped over the puddle of blood and ended up doing a roundhouse kick on the unseen person coming at him with a knife. By a freak coincidence, he hit the knife hand perfectly, resulting in the unknown assailant stabbing himself in the stomach and sliding down with a soundless groan. Assuming he hit the sofa lying nearby, TDK checked to see if the bottle was damaged, and heaved a sigh of relief. Utterly ignorant of the unintended murder, TDK picked himself up from the floor, took a selfie with the target’s body, and downed the bottle. Making his exit, he called up his handler, Sundaram, and arranged a meeting at his dilapidated warehouse.
To say Sundaram was astounded is an understatement. TDK had managed to kill not one but two influential figures in a span of 5 hours. He had not seen anything quite like this in his entire two decades in the mob. “Have to admit; I’ve done a pretty good job, eh?”, TDK commented, blissfully unaware of the stupor he had brought upon Sundaram. As TDK fantasized about becoming the biggest don in the Trichy district, he failed to notice Rathnavel, the youngest (and scrawniest) brother of TN’s most powerful mafia overlord, entering the room. “How did you manage to execute a Topspin Bloody Mary in such a small space? On two people, that too? I’m impressed.” TDK turned around to find Rathnavel sneering at him. TDK beamed right back. “I’ll be more than happy to demonstrate.”, he responded complacently. In a swift motion, he pulled out his pistol and aimed it at a stained, broken window on one of the mouldy walls. The events proceeding TDK‘s sudden pulling of the trigger were catastrophic, to say the least. Within the course of the gunshot and the fate of Rathnavel gradually dawning upon him, the bullet was deftly on its way to the magnificent 300-pound chandelier mounted not-so-securely on the ceiling. As circumstance would have it, the chandelier fell straight on top of Rathnavel‘s doomed fortune, with his last thought being, “How the hell did he pull off a Malnourished Twisty Flop so easily?”. And TDK had accomplished the unthinkable yet again. Within the frame of a few seconds, he had gone from being the most in-demand to the most wanted. Something clicked in TDK’s sluggish brain. “Wait, two people?” he managed to say. Shaking with indignance, Sundaram screamed, “Yes, you blundering fool, you killed Perincherian! The brother of our boss’s biggest rival! And you’ve now gone and put down his own brother as well!” Turning behind, Sundaram yelled for his lackeys, even as TDK began backpedalling into the room.
As TDK tried to process the situation, one thing was certain, he had to escape, and he had to do it fast. Fixating on the nearest exit, TDK made a bolt for it, inadvertently knocking over some open paint cans in the process, which in turn acted as a lubricant and ended Sundaram and co’s hot pursuit. Upon reaching a narrow, dingy corridor, TDK looked around, trying to find his next route. He narrowed in on a sliding pole near a stairway on the other end of the passageway. As he ran towards it, he collided face-first into an open door. Disoriented by the impact, TDK resumed his escape only to find himself face-to-chest with Bakthavel, the bigger and meaner brother of Rathnavel. Ah, nothing I haven’t seen on the streets, he thought to himself as he performed a poor imitation of an Austrian Knickleback Punch and got past his hulking frame. Rattled by the horribly executed yet effective blow, Bakthavel attempted to compose himself by holding onto the railing of the stairway, which conveniently gave out as he fell to his hasty demise. Unfazed by the latest developments on the scene, TDK rushed towards the pole and slid down till he reached the bottom. The feral shouts of Sundaram’s lackeys crashing against his ears, he spotted a doorway and ran towards it.
The doorway was right in front of him, revelling in all its glory until it was blocked by the man himself, the biggest don in possibly the entire region of Tamil Nadu, Annachi aka Aghilavel. TDK stared ahead, poised, noting the twenty henchmen behind his former master. He knew this was what it all came down to; this was where he could finally put his lifelong training to use. “He’s mine”, growled Aghilavel, gesturing at his henchmen to stand down. Not wasting a second, TDK propelled himself towards Aghilavel; the next thing he knew, he was on the floor with a huge black eye, with the others standing in a ring around him and Aghilavel (while TDK did get professionally trained to be a hitman, he never found out that his trainer was actually an insane movie addict who had never hurt a fly in his life, leading to his repertoire of complex but ineffective action moves). Trying to collect himself, his gaze fell upon an approaching figure leading a crowd. It was his ex-handler, Sundaram, who had finally come to his senses, and being held against his bruised face was a majestic bottle of chilled soda. Yes, that’s exactly what I need, TDK thought as he clambered to his full height. With a warbling war cry, Sundaram threw the bottle at TDK’s head, and cleanly missed everyone nearby, shattering against the wall. As snickers erupted throughout the gathering, TDK’s heart slowly sank into the depths of depression. He distinctly heard Aghilavel say, “Aiming like a silly pigeon as usual, Sundaram. Hmph”, he said, kicking over the remainder of the bottle, “Soda tastes like garbage anyway”. Hearing these words, TDK’s vision turned red. He let loose a blood-curdling screech and launched a flurry of blows against his former boss. Dazed by the ferocity of the attack, Aghilavel stumbled back. TDK looked at the spilt soda before him and lost all sense of reason. He gave a wild hoot and perfectly executed a Nunchuck Matterhorn Twirl, albeit kicking the boss in the heart instead of the elbow, instantly killing him. (TDK’s pathetic kicking aim goes back a long way; a popular theory is that he kicked up the wrong way while in his mother’s womb and ended up committing brain damage to himself, thus explaining his overall panache).
There was a stunned silence. Overcome by what had happened, Sundaram told his men to stand down and frantically attempted to devise the next course of action. This was not the culmination that the renowned crime family deserved. While he was lost in thought, the clouds parted, letting in the warm rays of the sun onto the average stature of TDK. And just when all hope seemed lost, the bleak future of the family shone brightly once again. He looked at TDK and said, “Congratulations, genius. You’ve managed to cripple this entire organization. It’s upto you to keep us all alive now.” TDK replied, “It was due for a change in leadership anyway”. Shaking his head, Sundaram made his way back into the wreck of a warehouse, with TDK and the others behind him.
Several hours later, Sundaram sat in Aghilavel’s room, moodily nursing a bottle of soda and reminiscing about his good times with the late Annachi. TDK, on the other hand, was nothing short of ecstatic – he’d finally become the biggest name in TN! He reclined in Aghilavel’s throne of a chair, practising Godfather poses. His buzzing phone brought Sundaram out of his reverie. The mafia circles had been going crazy for the past hour, with the news spreading fast to every corner of the TN underworld – “TDK is the new boss of TN”. Looking over, Sundaram saw a name flashing on the screen – the one name no one in TN ever wished to see. Sweating profusely, he reluctantly answered the call. “Put that guy on the phone”, a deep voice bellowed from the device. With trembling hands, he warily passed it over to TDK, who cavalierly responded, “Who is it?”. His nerves frayed, Sundaram forced his uncooperating mouth to form a name, “Reddy Anna“. Not understanding the situation as usual, TDK replied, “I’ll decide who the Anna is around here”, and put the phone to his ear. The voice boomed, “What ra? Killing two idiots makes you a big hero ah? Too much cockiness you’re showing, it seems? If you can say ten words in a punchline means I can put ten bodies on the street in front of you, okay? Come to Malleshwaram ra baccha I’ll pop you.” The line went cold. Raising his eyebrows, TDK contemplated the situation for a whole 10 seconds. Then, with a cocky smile on his face, he turned to Sundaram and asked, “Have you ever been to Bangalore?”
(Link to TDK’s jaw-dropping moves: Click Here)
Disclaimer: All characters are fictional and any reference to any real person, dead or alive, is purely coincidental.
