Arshi was scared.
It was a feeling new to her. Arshi Mallik, the youngest CEO, star academic, brilliant entrepreneur, did not know fear. She could not afford to.
But now, for the first time in her life she was terrified of what lay ahead. Her organization that she had built with her own hands, her entire career was now at stake.
BrainVita, her startup organization, nurtured talented students with additional guidance and coaching in the absence of physical classes. It was a breakthrough in academic support particularly during the pandemic. However, since the schools have started, membership was dwindling. Sales had slowed to a trickle. It was getting increasingly difficult to pay her staff and even to maintain her establishment. She had let most of her employees go keeping only a few of the old timers who were kind enough to stick around despite not being paid their salary. However, she knew they would not be there for too long. Everybody had their responsibilities to meet.
She did too.
The letter from Ruhi’s school reminding her of the last day for paying her fees still rustled in her bag pricking her mind relentlessly.
She needed desperate measures to make things look up. And for that she needed more funds. Her corporate reserves and personal resources had already been exhausted.
She had approached a leading venture capitalist firm through a friend. They had agreed to spare some time for her. Arshi knew how badly she needed to win this.
The train hurtled down the dark tunnel as Arshi opened her laptop for the hundredth time to take another look at the presentation. It had all the numbers and graphs in place but a nagging voice in her mind kept reiterating that something was missing.
What bothered her most was she could not put her finger on the missing block.
“What a lot of numbers you have up there!”
Arshi looked up from her screen to notice a man sitting next to her. She had not noticed him getting in as she was too engrossed in her charts.
She gave a brief smile and turned back.
“I love the charts too!” the man continued.
Arshi rolled her eyes and turned around. She looked closely at the man this time. He was short with a square face. Thick rimmed glasses sat on his stubby nose. His hair was well-oiled and neatly combed. He was wearing a simple striped half shirt and grey trousers. He wore a pair of old worn-out sandals. A shiny steel watch was strapped to his right wrist. The strangest thing on his face were his ears. They were quite large and stood out in a funny manner on both sides of his head.
“Thank you Sir. But if you don’t mind, I am working on a very important and confidential bit of information. I would appreciate if you do not peer into my screen and let me continue with my work.” Arshi knew she sounded a bit too rude but she could not help it. Moreover, she stressed on the “Confidential” part deliberately so that he would stop looking into her screen.
The man looked unperturbed as he smiled back at her with twinkling eyes.
“I used to create presentations like these once upon a time” he continued unfazed. “So yours has naturally piqued my interest. But there is something that I find strange. And..” he said looking at her with an impish grin “I think you do too.”
Arshi looked at him in surprise. He was right no doubt but how in the world did he know?
“Why do you say that?” she asked trying to sound unbothered.
“Because why else would you be peering into it in a train where you know you are fully exposed to the possibility of your confidential information being leaked?” he said smiling simply.
“ I …was..just looking to make sure…”said Arshi defensively.
“And did you find it?” he asked inquisitively.
“What?” asked Arshi in a surprised tone.
“The missing piece?” asked the man looking at her innocently.
“No..not yet” said Arshi like a guilty child who was caught doing mischief.
“I know. It is difficult to catch but once caught you should never let it go” he said sighing with a distant look on his face.
“What do you mean? And why are you telling me all this?” asked Arshi feeling foolish with herself for getting into this conversation with an unknown man. But something in the man was egging her to continue.
“Because once upon a time I was like you. I loved my work and would devote everything towards it. I was an entrepreneur, so I had to make pitches like yours to VC’s for funding. Then one day I had to make a very important pitch to a critical investor. I had worked on it all night and I thought it was perfect. I reached my office on time and decided to take a last look before I met the investor. Then as I was going through the slides, something happened. I felt myself go blank. The slides did not make any sense to me. They were just big numbers and colourful lines drawn across the screen and nothing more. Something like what I see in the one that you are looking at right now.” He said pointing to Arshi’s screen.
She looked at her screen and nodded knowingly. She knew he was right.
“So, what did you do?” she asked slowly.
“I realised I did not know why I was making that pitch and what were all those numbers for. That everything was wrong. My whole basis for my business was misplaced simply because I was chasing the wrong goal. Or rather I had no goal at all. I realised I needed to rethink it all over again. So I decided to shut down my business. For the next six months, I paid off all my employees a good severance package, cleared all my debts with my creditors, shut shop and I took off.” He said smiling at her.
“Where did you go?” asked Arshi intrigued.
“I travelled. I traversed the country from the north to the south and east to west.”
“But why? What made you do that?” asked Arshi confused.
“Because I needed to find the reason. I needed to find the ‘why’ behind all those ‘whats’. It had become my mission in life and the sole reason for my existence.”
“And did you?” asked Arshi.
“After a year of my travels I landed in a small village in Ladakh. It’s called Kanji. It’s a small hamlet set against a rocky rugged terrain. The place is a barren land with a motley collection of only 52 households. I was told it is a completely secluded spot and can be accessed from Hansikot which lies on the National Highway 1 connecting Kargil and Leh. I fell in love with the place as soon as I saw it. There was a strange beauty in its nothingness. The people were simple and so welcoming. Everybody I passed smiled at me. There was a single tea shop whose owner I befriended. It was he who offered me a stay for the night in their small two-bedroom house. It was there that I met Jampa.”
The train grumbled to a halt as people shuffled in and out of the cabins. Arshi’s cabin became emptier as many got off but few people got in. The man waited till the train started on its onward journey with a jerk.
“Jampa” he began softly “was the tea shop owner’s son.
He was a young lad of around 13-14. He used to study in the local primary school. The only one in the area. He was way past the age for primary school but as that was the only school in that area, the primary school teacher would take his classes separately, hence he went there.
He was a bright chap no doubt and would come up with some brilliant ideas to solve their daily problems. I saw the water wheel that he had built to pull water from the nearby river into his house so that his mother would have running water. Amazing bit of work. I fell in love with the family and stayed on for a whole week. I became friends with Jampa who showed me around the place introducing me to his friends. He was the most enterprising among the lot. So I asked him one day how does he come up with such brilliant ideas. And I did not expect the answer he gave me.”
“What did he say?” Arshi asked looking at him curiously.
“Jampa had looked at me simply and had shrugged his shoulders casually and said ‘ whenever I face a problem, I try to find out the root cause. All I have to do then is to think of a way to remove that. Then I already have the solution.“ said the man smiling at Arshi with shining eyes.
“Just imagine, the single most effective way of coming up with an idea is to find the need. Then we all we need to do is think about making that need a reality. It is indeed simple and yet we tend to make it the most complicated of approaches. We have forgotten to think ourselves and have even stopped our children to think. But this little boy in the remotest of villages with limited facilities and education has the courage and ability to do just that.”
The man laughed as he sat shaking his head.
“All my life I thought myself to be a genius. I was brilliant academically, a gold medallist, star entrepreneur. But I was reduced to nothing in front of this little boy. There are moments in life when you realise you have been walking through a dark tunnel only when you see the light ahead of you. Jamba was that light for me. I realised the sheer darkness in which I had been living my life. Not any more. The missing piece that I was looking for was right there before me. I decided to sponsor Jamba’s education in a proper school where he can learn the way he should. Not wanting to stop at one Jamba my organization today arranges for funds to sponsor underprivileged children to give wings to their potential. Help them live their dreams. I had finally found my purpose.”
He stopped looking at Arshi with twinkling eyes.
“Wow!” said Arshi nodding her head smiling “That’s a nice story indeed.”
“Yes. But now you need to find yours” the man got up to move towards the door.
“Mine? But I have them all here” said Arshi tapping the screen proudly.
“Those are just lifeless figures. They hardly tell your story. It’s like a house without windows, a body without a soul. Inert, and incapable to rouse emotions and that my dear lady is what is missing in your pitch. I want to listen to your story and so does your audience.”
The mechanical voice on the loudspeaker announced the station name as Arshi watched the doors slide open and the man stepped out onto the platform. He stood looking at her with a smile on his lips.
Arshi kept staring foolishly till the doors closed shut and the train started moving. Suddenly, a vision flashed before her eyes. That of a little girl silhouetted against the flames of the brick oven as she bent over her books engrossed. A smile spread over her face as Arshi realised she knew what she had to do.
The next morning, Arshi walked into the meeting room with a broad smile. As she turned to meet her stakeholders her eyes paused over a certain gentleman who stood up to shake her hand in a quiet unassuming manner. It was the same man whom she had met in the train yesterday and was surprised to know he was the main stakeholder she was presenting to. He simply nodded without any indication of acknowledging their conversation of last evening. Arshi smiled back politely.
She walked up to the podium and took a deep breath.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to share a little story from my life.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose eyes were filled with dreams. Her father was a construction worker so she spent her childhood in under construction houses. Though poor, her father ensured she went to a school. Every evening she would sit close to a makeshift stove, made from bricks and wood splinters left over from the construction, where her mother used to cook their dinner.
The flames would leap up from beneath it as her mother fanned them to rise higher. That was her only light. As her mother cooked, she would study diligently. Later at night when they lay down on their threadbare mattresses the little girl would stare at the bright lights peeking out from the windows in the opposite buildings and wonder what it would be to study under real lights.
That little girl, Ladies and Gentlemen, was me.”
Arshi paused as an appreciative murmur went around the room
“It has been a long journey for that little girl to turn herself into the Arshi who is standing in front of you now. But in that long journey if there was one thing I always kept by my side, it were my dreams. And they were very simple ones. It was to be able to reach the stars. I know that like me, many a little girl or boy harbours such dreams. So it has been my mission to help them make those dreams come alive. Yes, I am a dream seller and I wish you will join me in my endeavour because I know together, we can help a child script his or her own story one day.”
As the room broke out in a loud applause, Arshi knew she had cracked it. She felt a surge of warmth rush through her veins. For the first time in many years, she felt genuinely happy.
Arshi noticed that the elderly gentleman was sitting in the corner smiling at her with the same familiar twinkle in his eyes.
She smiled back.
Knowing that she had found her purpose gave her immense strength.
Arshi would no longer be afraid to tread forward because every step would take her closer towards her dreams and those of millions of other children.
Cover Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV in Pexels.
