Here’s the beginning of a book I am writing, and I can’t go beyond a point in the story ahead, because whenever I am about to do so, I think of editing the beginning, and keep on rereading and editing it, which consumes all the time that I should’ve invested in writing the further story. Please read it and tell me whether the pace’s all right, and the description is enough, and lastly and most importantly,
Would you continue to read a story with this beginning?
Here it goes..
Chapter 1
Easy.
Arjun was always a bit nervous on fast rides even while on broad highways, but sitting in a car rushing across narrow, winding streets of Delhi was bursting his very ribs off. Moreover, sitting in the driver seat to his right was a woman, with whom he had been introduced only a day ago. Though it was not that he entirely distrusted women with vehicles, as the majority of Indian men do, but with his quite skeptical attitude, the distrust was nevertheless present in him, which attained its peak at every turn and speed-breaker that approached them.
They were probably breaking every single traffic rule that might have ever existed, Arjun thought, but each traffic policeman they passed by, did no more than gazing inquisitively through the reinforced windshield of their black Hyundai Accent, with a dazed expression. Although Arjun wanted them to stop the car, but he was certain they would dare not: the red beacons flaring over the car roof and the loud sirens were making their authority impeccably clear. What Arjun could do was to just stare at the red tail lights of the blue van that they were chasing at whirlwind speed, on the jam-packed Delhi roads. It was not long before he realized that he was biting his lower lip and that his shirt was drenched with sweat.
“You scared?” came a soft voice, surprisingly near.
He spun his head briskly towards the driver seat; Inspector Nisha Awasthi was looking at him from the corner of her eye. Arjun was amazed to see the calm that she bore on her face even while driving a car slithering past gridlocks at 70 kilometers per hour. Although her appearance wasn’t quite of a fashion model, as female officers are usually depicted in Bollywood movies, but she had a comely face, and a pleasant smile, which, to his disappointment, Arjun had seen only once since their introduction yesterday noon.
“Nope, not at all.” He retorted, trying to sound casual “What exactly made you think so?” He added with a smile, which, he was sure, did nothing but amplify the clumsiness of his dewed face.
She didn’t answer, but just beckoned at his wetting shirt with her eyebrows, and shrugged, “I didn’t know mid-September evenings were so hot.”
Unable to come up with a reply, Arjun merely peered into his wristwatch; it showed 6:18 PM.
Dusk already?
His first day working officially for the ‘National Investigation Agency’ aka NIA was coming to an end, and so far it had been a total failure for him. He had expected a bashing start, but here he had done nothing except slumping like a piece of luggage in the car. He turned his gaze across the window pane towards the evening sky, hanging low over the Delhi skyline.
‘Probably my mother was correct’ he thought, ‘all this investigation stuff isn’t as good as it seems from a distance.’
Focusing his eyes back to the window pane, he saw a faint reflection of his face. It was pathetic; covered with beads of sweat, some of which ran irritatingly down his paled skin, the mirror image was years older than the one which he’d seen today morning back at his home.
His gaze went up to his eyes; only two dark, lifeless abysses in the semidarkness.
“A pair of eyes so keen and serene that would force anyone into believing them.” An old friend had once complimented them, which he’d taken just for a gibe then. It was the same old friend who had enlightened him with the fact that he was suffering from tachophobia, the fear of speed. And by now, it was clear enough to him that it hadn’t been a joke. And no matter how hard he tried, the image of his “reassuring” eyes evoked no patience in him.
He rubbed them.
“Sleepy, eh?” Probably Nisha had seen him rubbing his eyes, “Let me shrug some sleep off you.” She smirked and pressed on the accelerator so abruptly, that Arjun was literally thrown back in his chair.
It couldn’t have been worse.
Trembling slightly, when he straightened himself again, he caught the fleeting glimpse of the back of the van disappearing into a narrow alleyway to their left.
