The Barsati in Shahpur Jaat, newly christened "A&M Store," smelled faintly of fresh paint and pine soap. It was small, but it was theirs, a tangible marker of their audacity. Arun and Mira had spent the last week transforming it from a dusty rooftop shed into a minimalist, clean showcase.
They sat cross-legged on the floor, their laptops open to a spreadsheet that held their entire future: their remaining savings, the projected cost of the initial consignment from Himachal, and the budget for fitting out the shop.
"We have sixty-two thousand rupees left after rent and this paint job," Arun calculated, running a stressed hand through his hair. "The initial inventory—honey, jams, pulses, and the small lot of hand-knitted caps—will cost exactly fifty-seven thousand, including transport."
Mira looked at the numbers. The margin was terrifyingly thin. "That leaves us five thousand for, what, electricity and unexpected taxes?"
"And a month of food, if my old logistics firm pays my last pay check on time," Arun finished, his voice heavy. He hated how close they were sailing to the edge, but this was the only way. "We transfer the fifty-seven thousand tomorrow morning. Once the stock is here, we can launch the online sales immediately."
He reached across the small pile of papers and took her hand. "It's scary, Mira, but once the stock arrives, we control our own destiny. No more bosses, no more waiting on clerks. It's just us, the mountains, and the market."
Mira smiled weakly, but her focus kept slipping. For the past few days, the oppressive Delhi heat hadn't been the only thing making her dizzy. She had attributed the lingering nausea and the general weariness to the weeks of stress and the constant smell of vehicle fumes. But this morning, while Arun was out, the simple fact had forced itself into her mind. She was late. Very late.
She had hurried to the nearest chemist, her heart hammering against her ribs with a mixture of fear and impossible hope. The confirmation, a faint but undeniable line on a cheap plastic stick, sat tucked deep in her handbag.
As Arun prepared to click the 'Transfer' button, committing their last major chunk of capital, Mira 's mind screamed: Stop! That money was their buffer. It was their hospital fund. It was the future of another person.
"Arun, wait," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
He looked up, annoyed by the interruption to his focused, pragmatic moment. "What is it, love? We need to do this; the prices are only going up."
Mira reached into her bag, pulling out the small, sterile white box. She pushed it across the floor toward him.
Arun frowned, picking it up. He saw the company logo, then the purpose of the kit. His blood seemed to turn instantly cold, and he looked at her face, which was pale but radiant with unshed tears.
He dropped the box. He didn't speak. He just stared at her, his pragmatic businessman's mask shattering in an instant, revealing the astonished boy beneath.
"I only checked this morning," Mira whispered, tears finally tracing clean paths through the dust on her cheeks. "It's... it's going to be a spring baby."
Arun surged forward, sweeping her into a hug so tight it stole the air from her lungs. He buried his face in her hair, breathing in the last remaining scent of pine that seemed to cling to her, even here. He didn't say anything grand or emotional; he just repeated the same word, a rough, choked sound of pure joy: "God, Mira. God."
The moment lasted until the hard reality of the city crashed back in on them. Arun pulled back, his eyes now wide with a new, sharper kind of panic. He glanced from the test kit to the glowing transfer screen on his laptop, where the figure ₹57,000 mocked them.
"The baby," he said, his voice dropping to a rapid, calculating whisper. "We need insurance. We need a bigger flat. We need better food. Mira, you need rest. We can't launch now. We need that money as a safety net."
Mira, however, found an inner steel she hadn't known she possessed. The fear was there, but it was eclipsed by a fierce, maternal drive.
"No, Arun. We don't stop," she said, taking the laptop and closing it gently. "We don't have time to wait for a safer time, because there won't be one. If we wait, we spend the money on rent and food, and we still have no business, only a very expensive new baby."
She looked him in the eye, her resolve mirroring the tenacity of the roots in her logo design. "This is the push we needed. The baby means we don't scale down our dreams; we accelerate them. This business has to work now. It's not just for us anymore. It's for the little one who needs clean air and a stable home in this city."
Arun stared at the closed laptop, then at his wife, whose eyes held the determined light of the mountain woman he'd married. The life he had planned—step-by-step, careful, controlled—was gone. In its place was a reckless, immediate need for success.
He reached for the laptop again. His hand hovered over the trackpad.
"We have to be ruthless, Mira," he said, the pragmatism flooding back, now sharpened by necessity.
"We have to be fast," she corrected. "We are transferring the fifty-seven thousand. But we are going to pivot. We don't focus on setting up a beautiful storefront yet. We launch the online sales immediately, and we take our products to the high-end markets—the pop-ups. We get cash flow today."
Arun looked at the tiny, dusty room—their Barsati—which would now be less a shop and more a vital distribution hub. He nodded slowly, the panic subsiding, replaced by a cold, surgical focus. They had just moved their launch deadline up by six months.
"A&M Store is officially a high-risk venture," Arun said, a grim smile touching his lips. He hit the 'Transfer' button.
"A&M Store is officially a family business," Mira countered, placing his hand over her flat abdomen.