THE IMPROMPTU FLASHBACK
BY IIM GROOT
The Journey Begins
18th April 2017, Delhi
Vidit was sitting with his laptop, proofreading a presentation for tomorrow’s meeting with the Chairman and the CEO of Shaurya Automobiles, the market leader in the country, and among the top 5 global companies in the automotive industry. He was the Chief Operations Officer of the company and had joined the company 15 years ago in 2002 as a Management Trainee after His MBA.
Life was good as his boss pushed him beyond his limits; he just became the COO while his boss had been the CEO for 4 years now.
Shaurya Automobiles was cashing on profits because of their amazing after-sales service and best in the industry supply chain protocols.
He was busy selecting the font of the text and his phone rang, it was Shikha, his secretary.
“Sir Vaishali is here to see you”
“Is this urgent?” Vidit asked.
“She says it is”
“Send her in then”.
A minute after he ended the call, the gate of Vidit’s office opened and a girl in her early 20s entered the room. Vaishali was a floor manager now, she had joined the office as a production manager 2 years ago
“Good afternoon sir”
“Good afternoon, how are you Vaishali and don’t just stand there have a seat,”
Vidit said while typing on his laptop.
Vaishali came and sat on the chair across the table.
“Sir I want to give my resignation”.
Vidit looked at her in awe “You were the employee of the year in your 2nd year at the firm, that’s something no one here has ever pulled off, why do you want to leave and that too in March”.
“Sir, I want to go for higher studies, I have an offer from IMX college and I want to follow your footsteps”.
Vidit’s eyes twinkled.
“I was in your shoes 17 years from now and I know how it feels, I support your decision and you may talk to Tanuj, he handles the HR stuff of your department, I will drop him a message that you’ll visit him today”.
“Thank you so much sir, I hope I see you soon”.
“Good luck with the life ahead Vaishali, enjoy it to the fullest and be ambitious” Vidit said.
Vaishali thanked him and left with a smiling face.
Vidit went back to his presentation and the next day he took all the praise one could get from the board members; it was an excellent presentation with the steps moving them towards a new benchmark in the automobile industry.
He came back home with a big smile on his face and greeted his wife and kids, he had all the stakeholders on his side. Aparna and Vidit married 10 years ago, they had one boy named laksh who was seven and a daughter named tashvi. They had dinner together, Aparna was an amazing cook and she made handmade momos for everybody.
They all went to sleep after Vidit told his kids a bedtime story, he really loved them. Vidit woke up soon after, Vaishali was on his mind and not for her beauty or brains but her decision, it made him remember his days, a life he had forgotten, living in the show-off and so-called traditions of this high-class society and he went into a deep sleep thinking about it.
He woke up and found himself in just his undergarments but wait it wasn’t all, his hands and his body seemed different, he saw his face in a plate kept nearby, he was 6 again and he was in his grandfather’s home.
He thought it was a dream but it all felt so real, he went downstairs and saw his grandparents who died back in 2013 in a car accident, hugged his grandmother and then his grandfather. They asked him why was he up so early there was still time to school and why was he crying. Vidit did not understand what was happening to him but kept crying and went back, he found the washroom and was glad he remembered where it was.
He wiped his tears and thought of what was happening ?
And why was he here? but no luck, he was dumbstruck and he was unable to point out anything that could lead him to it.
He went out and saw his dad brushing with a datoon*,
“Did the sun rise from the west today? you’re up at 7 am in the morning” his dad said.
Vidit looked him in awe, he looked so much young and dashing than he did from when he met him last week, all his hair was black and he had no wrinkles on his face.
Vidit then heard a familiar voice from behind, it was his mom, she was calling his dad to help her with the charts* and he went through a similar feeling once again, she was looking so young and her voice was so pleasant.
She saw him and called “Go and take a bath, the water supply would be shut off in 20 mins”.
He obliged and went on to take a bath, he saw his school dress outside when he came out. It was a strange feeling; he still did not understand what was happening to him but decided to go with the flow and wore the dress.
His father dropped him off to school on a cycle, he was in 1st class and it was the month of July, at least that’s what he could recall from his cloudy memory. It was a government school with a building with a very small verandah on one of its sides.
“Oye Vidit” someone called him, it was Deepak, he remembered that guy and said hi from a distance. But Deepak came close and shook hands with him, asked him how were his holidays, and did he complete his summer holiday homework. Vidit was oblivious to whatever he said and just nodded to end the conversation.
They both went in the class and sat on the 2nd last bench in the first row, the class had 3 rows with 5 benches to accommodate a total of 30 students and the school had 5 such classes, it was a local government school and that too only for classes 1st to 5th. After 10 minutes a teacher enters their class and the whole class stands and greets her, she asks for the English homework from all the students according to their roll numbers, vidit checks his bag and surprisingly he finds all the homework completed and packed well in his bag, he smiles for the first time in the day.
The whole class completes the exercise in next 30 minutes and the teacher moves on to basic grammer rules, Vidit feels dizzy and puts his head on the desk, eventually going into a deep sleep.
Deepak tries to wake him up, oye vidit, vidit, wake up, it’s 11 am.
He wakes up suddenly, it’s not Deepak, it’s Aparna and he is back in his bed, so it was all a dream, he thinks.
“Saturday hai, to you’ll sleep the whole day? let’s go out shopping and then we’ll drop the kids at my mother’s place to have the dinner we planned last week” She said.
Still recuperating from whatever he had seen he just nodded his head in affirmation.
“Toh we’ll leave at 1 pm after having breakfast…hmm, brunch, get ready, I’ll go get laksh and tashvi ready”.
He held his head tightly and thinks from where the hell did that dream come, “Forget it, if I had any control over my dreams, I would imagine myself as Elon anyway”.
He picks up his brush from the shelf and moves towards the washroom.
“Bye Laksh, take care of Tashvi and listen to your Grandma” Aparna said as she left them in her mother’s house.
It was 8 pm, they went home had their dinner at an amazing 5-star restaurant in the outskirts of Dharuhera. They came back home at around 11 and went to bed immediately. It had been one hell of a dinner with his wife's old friend.
Vidit woke up at 7 am and went for his morning walk in the society park, he played badminton there with some old friends of his, to his surprise Vinay was there. He jogged towards him.
“Vinay, when did you come back from the UK, you didn’t even inform me”.
“Yesterday bhai, I knew I would find you here, I had some things I wanted to be clear with before coming to you but let us play first, the last time I beat you was 4 years ago, I want to go through that feeling again”.
“You can’t beat me, I have learned some tricks of my own to beat you,” Vidit said with a smirk on his face and they started the game as soon as their turn came.
The match was a feast for any badminton enthusiast, Vidit was right, he was a much better player he was 4 years ago but Vinay was a good player, to begin with, and he had also kept him active even when he was in the UK. Vinay won the game but only by 2 points.
“Yo..u won’t get m…e next time ” Vidit said trying to catch his breath.
“Not in this lifetime, why don’t you go home and pray to be born as ‘Vinay the Great’ next year”
“Yeah sure, why not, you haven’t changed one bit in all these years” Vidit said grinning.
“Leave it, let’s go to my apartment, I have something that I want to tell you ” Vinay said.
“Let me call Aparna and tell her that I would be late today and you better see her soon, she will be pissed if she knew you’re here and didn’t even find some time to see her,” Vidit said and dialed her number.
He started walking with Vinay towards his car and in just 15 mins they were at the door of Vinay's apartment.
“Where are Priya and Sakshi, they aren’t here??”Vidit asked.
“I will explain everything to you Bhai, have a seat,” Vinay said with a shrill voice.
“Vidit Bhai, I left my job last week and only you know”.
“Wait!, What did you do? Leave your job?, Does Priya know about this, does anyone else know about this?”Vidit was shocked.
“I want to work on my idea Bhai, not just mine, our startup, the idea we had, the dream we thought of, together” Vinay had tears in his eyes.
“But Vinay you got the job of your dreams, you’re working as a senior consultant in the best firm across the globe, isn’t that what you wanted?” Vidit tried to calm him down.
“Arre yaar, you still don’t understand, if it was what I wanted would I even be here? It hit me too late Bhai, but now I am sure of it, I want to do what I want not what the society wants me to do” Vinay was still sobbing, trying to keep his tears in check.
Vidit went to the kitchen and brought some water for Vinay.
“Drink some water, I will listen to you, just stop crying like a baby and tell me everything from the very beginning” said Vidit.
“So it all started 6 months ago, I was going through some old photos with Priya on a weekend and I saw you bhai in our little office, that we rented during our engineering days, I started explaining it to Priya that how we managed our startup, how we operated it unofficially for 6 whole months and how we left it in between for our respective jobs.
I started thinking about it, a bit too much, I guess, I put in my resignation 3 months ago, Priya doesn’t know and before you say anything let me complete. In the last 3 months I have gathered all the data and almost arranged all the resources we need to realize our dream, all that is left is your answer, will you help me?”
“Are you kidding me, Vinay, if this is one of your old school pranks, it’s not funny, I said IT’S NOT FUNNY!”Vidit didn’t believe one word of what Vinay had told him.
Vinay tried to calm him down “Sit down first and no it is not a prank, I am very serious about it, I just want your confirmation”.
Vidit lost his cool after listening to this “Do you expect me to leave the job I love so much? I am not an idiot like you are and I won’t be persuaded in some childish fantasy of yours, that time was different, we were young and had nothing to lose, now we have families to take care of and don’t forget that I am the next in line for the CEO of Shaurya Automobiles. I have contacts in the industry, it’s not too late, you can still start in the same role you left”.
“Why would I leave my job if I wasn’t sure about it, it was a childish dream back then but now it is backed by tons of research and I can show it to you right now if you would just stop overreacting” Vinay’s voice had a weight to it this time.
Vidit just shook his head and said okay, Vinay brought his laptop from his room and opened some presentations he had made, it had a lot of new ideas on how they should improve their idea and the potential it had now.
There was also a presentation on how they would present their idea to the investors, for the first time Vidit was somewhat thinking in the direction Vinay wanted him to.
Suddenly Vinay started to cough, Vidit tried tapping him on his back, it didn’t work so he got up and brought a glass of water from the kitchen, Vinay took the glass but before he could take a sip vidit stopped him “Is that blood?”. Vinay tried to push his hanky aside but vidit had already seen what it was “Vinay, I need you to tell me everything or I am out of here”