Ahhhhh!!! as Arjun woke up he was confused, his mind was still filled with the scenes where he sacrificed his life for a little girl crossing the street, in that instance he had felt pain he never felt before and all of his life ran past through his mind like a train. He was disappointed, not because he was a failure but because the highs he wanted to reach could never be reached. He worked hard all his life only to die abruptly? he could not accept it, he refused to accept it. Then it hit him, wait how can i still think if i had passed away? slowly he started looking around.
It was quite dark so the only things he could see was the light coming from the lighthouse through his window and the cool breeze that hit him brought back memories he had long forgotten, wait is'nt this his childhood home? how come he was here? as he began to think about this he had a hunch, Could it be possible? it was too good to be true. He quickly got up and noticed his school bag beside him, once he opened the bag, took out a book after noticing the year of publication he quickly understood that he was really reborn!!
Soon new questions surfaced in his mind, why him? why was he reborn? can he go back? wait why go back!! yes why go back when he was already back in time. Was'nt this the dream of many modern folks? to go back in time with their memories intact? He slowly came to a conclusion, He had to make this chance count, he did not know if he would ever get such a chance again.
As morning soon arrived sleepless arjun quickly got up and went out into main hall, he could'nt wait to see his parents and dear sister of his. They were his everything until one day where they met with an accident and passed away, Arjun was never the same since then, All of these emotions were slowly hitting him like ocean waves.
And there he noticed his father sitting in his relaxing chair as he usually did and was reading the newspaper, his mom could not be seen but the aroma in the house was unforgettable to Arjun, ever since she passed away he missed her cooking dearly almost to the extent that he had lost over 10 kilograms of weight within a year of their passing, His sister was probably still sleeping, well who could blame her, it was only 6AM at the moment, even Arjun could count the number of times he woke up this early in his past on his fingers.
His father was visibly confused seeing his son waking up this early, "what is it arjun? you're up so early", hearing his voice after who knows how long, tears welled in his eyes, watching him like this his father Pratap misunderstood it as arjun getting a nightmare and quickly consoled him, "Do not worry chinna(Arjun's nick name), we're here for you nothing is wrong, stop crying".
As soon as he heard this Arjun quickly came to his senses, He understood that he should hide his changes as much as possible so quickly replied "yes dad i understand" and sat beside his father quietly reading the newspaper alongside him. But deep in his heart he swore that he would do the protecting this time. He would correct all his mistakes he made in his past life and aimed to stand at the top of the world and take these people alongside him.
Finally after a while his mom called them to the dining table where lay a simple routine breakfast, but it meant the world to him. He had enjoyed having such breakfast for a longtime now, and so he cherished every bite of it, afraid that this was all a dream.
As they were having their meal a small cute voice rang out "Waaahh brother you're up so early!". Saritha was shocked, she had never seen her brother wake up before her, it was her job to wake him up everyday and she took pride in it as it was one thing she felt she was always better than him. Pratap quickly covered for him, "Your brother is up so early, why not learn more from him" which made Saritha quiet speechless. It was her whom one should learn from no? but since father had spoken she quickly finished washing up and had her breakfast.
Soon it was time to go to school, there was only one government school in their village and no other schools so all the kids in the village go to the same school, despite this their numbers added to no more than 200 students for entire 10 classes. Understandable considering India's financial difficulties in 1989 and throughout the 20th century to be frank.
As he entered his class and sat on his bench, He started looking around. Most of these people he could'nt remember, even though there were only around 20 people it's been nearly 25 years since he had last seen these people, it was quite understandable that he could not remember many, just then he saw his best friend during those times Karan enter the room with face full of smiles.
Karan quickly sat beside him and said "Dude, what happened to you why so serious?" It was then that Arjun snapped back to reality, he quickly recovered his expression and enquired "It's nothing man, what's up with you, how did your holiday trip go?" as soon as he said this he began to regret it, Karan went on a rant about his trip to Andaman for ever until their class teacher arrived, he still did not want to stop but a glare from Mrs.Mamatha was all that was needed to shut him up. Karan's father was the village sarpanch and such being the case he was not afraid of many people in their village but mamatha was one of them, She was his own aunt, his father's elder sister and had quite the standing in their family being one of the very few educated people in the family or even the entire village.
Throughout the day Arjun could'nt really focus on the classes, quite frankly he had no need for them and so he began to think about how to earn his first pot of gold. But no matter how much his brain churned he was not able to think of anything to instantly go from zero to a significant sum from where he could start his investment journey, Especially considering his age of being 10 year child. He can't directly go tell his parents that he was a time traveller can he? he needed to find proper reasons and justifiable excuses to do anything.
As he was absent mindedly thinking about how to go about this he heard the bell ring signaling end of the school. Finally it was over! as he was walking back with Karan to his home the see breeze hit him comforting him a bit. To his right, next to the beach he noticed people dumping freshly caught fish into the bins and taking them to the town to find wholesale buyers, it then hit him why not start with that?