[Shiva's POV – Morning, Krishna Nagar, 6:15 AM]
The chirping of bulbuls drifted in through the grilled windows of the modest East Delhi house. The air was still, tinged with the faint smell of kerosene—Vidya must have lit the stove. Shiva sat on the edge of the cot he had once loathed as a teenager. It creaked softly beneath his weight, a sound he hadn't heard in decades.
He blinked against the morning light spilling through faded yellow curtains, then slowly ran his fingers over the cotton bedsheet.
No smart bedding, no climate control, no AI assistant chirping "Good Morning Dr. Shiva."
Just dust, wood, and the faint echo of the old world.
His heartbeat thumped in his chest—not from fear, but a powerful sense of awe. He stood and crossed to the old steel cupboard near the window. On top of it was the same desk calendar his father used to get every year from the LIC office.
> "March 2009 – Jeevan Suraksha"
Shiva stared at the numbers.
March 12. Thursday.
He turned and slowly walked into the living room, barefoot on the cracked oxide floor. Sunlight filtered in through a lace curtain. A dusty tube light hummed overhead but remained off.
The room was like a museum exhibit now—except he was part of it.
His eyes scanned everything. The wooden showcase filled with fake flowers. The VHS player below the TV. The wall clock with a fading Bata logo.
Memory matches reality. I'm back. Fully back.
He reached for the Dainik Jagran on the center table, still crisp. The front page carried bold headlines in Devanagari script:
> "Satyam Scandal: Ramalinga Raju ke khilaaf FIR darj"
"Sensex slips below 8,000 as market volatility continues"
"India to face New Zealand in 2nd Test at Napier"
He felt the weight of the moment. His mind was like a split screen—half present, half pulling 26 years of data from a quantum chip that no longer existed.
He turned pages like flipping history:
A black-and-white Vodafone ad with a pug.
Bata school shoes, ₹279.
Tata Sky DTH offering 80 channels for ₹199.
An HCL ad promoting desktop PCs with 256MB RAM.
"A caveman could build an empire here." Shiva thought.
---
[Vidya's POV – Kitchen, 7:00 AM]
Vidya stirred the tea absently, her gaze flicking toward the open doorway. She could hear the rustle of the newspaper and Shiva's unusually slow footsteps.
He wasn't watching Aastha channel. Wasn't nagging for extra sugar in tea.
Just… silent.
Her heart tugged. Ever since he came home from school the day before, he'd been polite, calm—even helpful. Too helpful.
Last night, she saw the lights on in his room until well past midnight. When she peeked in, he was writing. Not school notes. English. Something about "monetization modules" and "app latency issues."
He was acting older. Wiser.
Almost like… he had lived a whole life in a single day.
---
[Shiva's POV – Krishna Nagar Street, 7:45 AM]
Pretending he was going early to school, Shiva turned the other way from his usual route and walked down the narrow alleys of Krishna Nagar. The vendors were opening shops. Newspaper boys were cycling past. The smell of frying samosas wafted out of a small halwai shop where he used to sneak snacks before tuition.
He stopped near Rohit Cyber Café, just behind the Gurudwara. It was exactly how he remembered—blue metal shutter, peeling posters of "Counter Strike" and "Need for Speed."
He stepped inside.
Ten computers lined the walls. CRT monitors. Clunky CPUs humming with heat. A fan oscillated lazily overhead.
He paid ₹20 for 30 minutes.
---
[Cyber Café – 8:00 AM]
Windows XP took a minute to load.
He opened Google and typed:
> "Bitcoin value March 2009"
His heart raced.
$1 = 1300 BTC
The moment hit him like a truck.
His hands trembled as he clicked through to the old BitcoinTalk forums, still in their primitive layout.
Satoshi was still posting.
The Genesis block was barely three months old.
He downloaded the original wallet client and saved it on the café desktop.
Size: 3.1 MB
"The most valuable file in the world," he whispered.
He pulled out his old Kingston 2GB pen drive and carefully saved the file. Then, instinctively, he created two backup folders: "Project_A" and "Books_09", hiding the wallet file deep inside.
For the rest of the session, he made a list on Notepad:
> Buy Bitcoin (Target: 1M BTC)
Create dev alias (US identity)
FlappyBird-like game
Open US-based Gmail, Google Dev, AdMob
Begin code sketches
This wasn't a day. This was a revolution in motion.
---
[Yogesh's POV – Govt Boys Sr Sec School, 10:30 AM]
In English class, Yogesh nudged Shiva.
"Tu theek hai, bhai? Aaj subah se bhoot ban gaya hai kya?"
("You okay, bro? You've been like a ghost all morning.")
Shiva looked at him and smiled.
"I'm better than I've ever been," he said. "Bas duniya ko samajhne ki koshish kar raha hoon."
("Just trying to understand the world better.")
Yogesh blinked. This was not his friend who once scribbled "iPhone is for rich showoffs" on the blackboard.
This Shiva was distant. Calm. Purposeful.
Yogesh watched as Shiva took out a rough notebook and started scribbling… but not in Hindi. Full lines in English. And not just sentences—he was drawing diagrams. Game flow charts. UI layouts.
"Abey tu engineer ban gaya kya?"
("You turned into an engineer overnight?")
Shiva chuckled.
"Ban gaya nahi… banne wala hoon."
(Not yet—but soon.)
---
[Shiva's POV – Evening, Family Room, 6:45 PM]
Back home, he sat cross-legged on the floor while his father listened to the evening news on Doordarshan. The anchor was discussing the global financial crisis. Stocks plunging. Lehman Brothers collapse. American banks in turmoil.
Shivkumar grumbled, "Ye sab America waalon ne dunia ka satyanash kar diya."
("These Americans have ruined the world economy.")
Shiva sipped his tea and smiled.
"Perfect timing." he thought. "While everyone is afraid, I'll be planting seeds."
---
[Late Night – Shiva's Room, 11:55 PM]
The house was asleep.
Shiva sat at his old study desk, surrounded by borrowed library books and a cheap 256MB USB stick flashing dim red.
He opened his new diary:
> March 12, 2009
Day 2 back in time.
Confirmed Bitcoin status.
Wallet downloaded.
Real estate prices stable.
Ideas:
Game clone (FlappyBird)
US-based developer identity
Buy BTC worth $800 in coming weeks
Begin sketching game studio pipeline
Mission: Financial independence before 2010.
Goal: Multi-sector empire by 2025.
He leaned back.
Tomorrow, he'd go back to school. Act normal. Study.
But tonight, he whispered to himself:
"Let the world sleep. I'm about to wake it up."
"And I won't stop until every inch of Delhi, Mumbai, and the stars above carries my name."