Jogendra's POV:
My name is Jogendra, and I am a walking contradictionâa government employee in Hyderabad, India, clad in a starched khaki uniform that smells faintly of mothballs, armed not with a sword or a gun but with a pen that's seen more battles than most soldiers. I've spent my life drowning in paperwork, navigating the labyrinthine corridors of the Indian bureaucracy with the weary determination of a man who knows he'll never escape but refuses to admit defeat. I've worked in every department imaginableâevery single one. From the mildew-scented archives of the records office, where files crumble like ancient relics, to the tax department's fluorescent-lit purgatory, where souls and spreadsheets go to die, I've stamped, filed, and argued my way through it all. It's an achievement that ought to come with a medal, a parade, or at least a lifetime's supply of filter coffee to keep my sanity intact. Instead, it's left me with a permanent crick in my neck, a caffeine dependency, and a mastery of red tape so profound I could write a doctoral thesis on itâif only I had the time between triplicate forms.
How did I end up here? The story's not exactly a tearjerker, but it's not a comedy either. I was orphaned before I could tie my own shoelaces, tossed into the unforgiving embrace of the state like a parcel nobody wanted to sign for. Growing up in the shadow of government hostels and welfare offices wasn't a fairy taleâit was more like a Kafka novel, but with worse lighting and more mosquitoes. Picture a scrawny kid with patched-up trousers, trying to decipher forms longer than his arm while stern-faced clerks barked orders over the hum of ceiling fans that never worked. That was me, a tiny cog in a machine too vast and rusted to care. You either sank into the quicksand of despair or learned to swim through it. I chose to swimâor rather, I clawed my way up, one soggy form at a time, until I became the master of the chaos I'd been born into.
The bureaucracy wasn't just a job; it was a battlefield. Every day was a skirmish against a hydra of regulationsâcut off one head, and two more sprouted, each with a new sub-clause to memorize. I fought typos that could unravel weeks of work, battled ink smudges that turned signatures into abstract art, and waged silent wars against colleagues who thought "urgent" meant "next month." Over the years, I honed my skills until they gleamed like a freshly sharpened pencil. I could find a missing file in a storage room that hadn't been opened since Independence, fill out a form in triplicate with my left hand while sipping chai with my right, and recite obscure policy manuals like they were bedtime stories. I wasn't just good at my jobâI was a legend, a bureaucratic deity whispered about in the tea stalls near the Secretariat. "Jogendra," they'd say, "he once got a pension approved in under a week!" A feat so rare it bordered on myth.
But even gods get tired. Today had been a war of attrition, a soul-crushing marathon that tested every ounce of my patience. It started with a junior officerâRamesh, a wiry man with a mustache that looked like it was plotting a coupâinsisting that a memo about office chair replacements needed to be printed on paper of a specific shade: beige. Not off-white, not ecru, but beige, a hue so precise it might as well have been a state secret. "It's in the 2003 handbook, sir!" he'd proclaimed, waving a dog-eared manual like it was the Constitution. I'd countered with logic, precedent, and a veiled threat to bury him in audit requests, but he wouldn't budge. Thirty minutes later, after cross-referencing three decades of policy updates, I wonâbeige it would beâbut the victory tasted like ash. My head throbbed, my eyes burned from squinting at faded print, and my spirit felt like it had been trampled by a herd of particularly spiteful water buffaloes. I needed an escape, a lifeline, a miracle.
That miracle came in the form of Bawarchi Restaurant, Hyderabad's undisputed temple of biryani. The moment I stepped inside, the chaos of the day began to dissolve. The air was a heady mix of saffron, cinnamon, and sizzling mutton, a perfume that could resurrect the deadâor at least a deadened soul like mine. The clamor of the crowd faded into a soothing murmur as I placed my order: a plate of mutton biryani, extra spicy, with a side of raita and a boiled egg perched on top like a crown. When it arrived, steaming and fragrant, I nearly wept. The rice was perfectly cooked, each grain glistening with ghee; the meat fell apart with a nudge, tender and succulent; the spices sang in harmony, a fiery crescendo that warmed me from the inside out. I ate slowly, methodically, letting each bite wash away the beige-stained misery of the day. For those precious minutes, I wasn't Jogendra, the bureaucratic MinotaurâI was just a man, a pilgrim at the altar of culinary bliss.
Sated but not yet ready to return to reality, I decided to prolong my reprieve. Outside Bawarchi, a kulfi-wallah stood by his cart, his wares glinting under a flickering streetlamp. The evening air was warm, the kind of sticky heat that clings to your skin, and the promise of cold, creamy kulfi was too tempting to resist. I handed over a crumpled ten-rupee note and took the dessert, its chill seeping through the paper wrapper into my fingers. The first bite was heavenâsweet and milky, laced with a whisper of cardamom and a crunch of pistachio. I stepped onto the street, strolling aimlessly as I savored it, the city's noise softening into a distant lullaby. For once, I felt unburdened, a rare sliver of peace in a life defined by deadlines and disputes.
Then the universe, in its infinite wisdom, decided peace was overrated.
I stepped off the curb, my mind adrift in kulfi-induced euphoria, when a sound shattered the calmâa horn, sharp and relentless, like a trumpet heralding the apocalypse. My head jerked up, and I froze. Headlights blazed toward me, twin suns attached to a hulking mass of steel. A truck. A massive, unstoppable truck, its grille gleaming like the maw of a predator. Time stretched into a surreal haze as my brain flailed for coherence. A truck? In this narrow lane? Andâwaitâwas that a Japanese logo on the hood? The absurdity of the detail hit me even as adrenaline flooded my veins. I couldn't move, couldn't think. The horn screamed again, the lights blinded me, and thenâ
Impact. A thunderous crash, a symphony of metal and bone. My body flew, weightless for a heartbeat, the kulfi tumbling from my grasp as the world spun into chaos. Pain flared, then faded, swallowed by a tide of darkness. My last thought, bizarrely, was of beige memos fluttering in the wind. And then⊠nothing.
---------------------------------------------------------- Truck-kun's POV:
Greetings, insignificant specks of the multiverse. I am Truck-kun, the vehicular harbinger of destiny, the steel-clad shepherd of souls, theâwell, you've heard the spiel. I'm the cosmic delivery service for isekai adventures, the one who yeets mortals into new worlds with a well-timed crunch. It's a job, not a passionâdon't get it twisted. I don't revel in the squish of flesh or the shatter of bone. It's not like I've got a vendetta against pedestrians or a fetish for roadkill. No, this is a calling, a sacred duty etched into the fabric of existence. Every collision is a ticket to rebirth, a shuffle of the cosmic deck. I'm just the courier, the FedEx of fate, dropping off packages of potential to whatever world needs a heroâor a headache.
Lately, though, the gig's been grinding my gears. Centuries of ferrying chosen onesâsword-wielding teens, brooding loners, starry-eyed dreamersâhad left me rattling with exhaustion. It's the same old script: lock onto the target, rev the engine, blare the horn, and bam, off they go to fight demons or flirt with catgirls. Rinse, repeat, ad infinitum. I needed a break, a sabbatical, a chance to roll my tires without the weight of reincarnation on my chassis. So, I punched my cosmic timecard and took a detour. Where to? India, obviouslyâa land of vibrant madness, where the streets pulse with life and the food could make even a truck like me weep motor oil.
Hyderabad was my pick, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. The city was a sensory overloadârickshaws darting like fireflies, vendors shouting over the growl of traffic, the air thick with dust and dreams. The Charminar stood like a sentinel, its arches framing a sky tinged orange by the setting sun. And the foodâoh, the food! I rolled through the streets, my sensors gorging on the chaos. Samosas that burned with chili fire, jalebis dripping with syrupy sin, and biryaniâsweet merciful axles, the biryani. I'd heard tales of its glory, but tasting it (or rather, analyzing its molecular perfection) was a revelation. It was a symphony of spice and soul, a dish so divine I briefly considered retiring to become a food critic.
But fate's a sneaky bastard, isn't it? I was cruising along, soaking in the evening vibe, when my sensors twitched. A blip, faint at first, then a full-on alarm. There, sauntering down the street with a kulfi in hand, was a man who screamed "isekai bait." Average build, unremarkable face, but something in his strideâconfident yet wearyâpinged my instincts. I've seen it a million times: the posture of a protagonist waiting to happen. My engine growled before I could stop it, my tires gripped the asphalt, and I was off, hurtling toward him like a moth to a flame.
I swear I tried to resist. My brakes screeched, my horn wailed a desperate pleaâ"Not today, not on vacation!"âbut momentum had other ideas. The collision was brutal, a crunch of steel and a thud of flesh that echoed through the street. The manâJogendra, I'd later deduceâwent down hard, his kulfi splattering into a tragic puddle beside him. His body crumpled, a marionette with cut strings, while his soul shot upward, a shimmering streak bound for parts unknown.
I skidded to a stop, my engine coughing awkwardly as the crowd erupted into chaosâshouts, gasps, the wail of a distant siren. Guilt, that rare and rusty emotion, clunked into my frame. I was supposed to be off duty, damn it! No soul-ferrying, no world-hoppingâjust me, the open road, and a bellyful of biryani vibes. Yet here I was, staring at the wreckage of my good intentions. Jogendra's body lay still, a broken shell, but his essence was already gone, whisked away by the reincarnation gods to who-knows-where.
Curiosity gnawed at me. Who was this guy? I ran a quick scan, sifting through the fading echoes of his aura. Jogendra, government worker supreme, a titan of paperwork and red tape. No warrior's spirit, no latent magicâjust an unmatched knack for turning chaos into order, one stamp at a time. This wasn't your standard isekai fodder. What world would take him? A kingdom drowning in tax audits? A fantasy realm choked by permits? The idea was ludicrousâand oddly thrilling.
I let out a metallic groan, my headlights dimming as I rolled away from the scene. My vacation was toast, torched by my own reflexes. Back to the grind, back to the endless road of destiny. But as I rumbled into the night, the taste of biryani lingering in my circuits, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd just kicked off something epic. Jogendra wasn't just a soulâhe was a bureaucratic hurricane, a filing cabinet of fury, and wherever he landed, heads would roll. Probably under a pile of forms.
The reincarnation gods better brace themselves. Jogendra, the Minotaur of Hyderabad's paper maze, was comingâand I, Truck-kun, would be watching, equal parts dread and delight humming through my gears.
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