The story of Friends Book Club

Prologue

3rd March 2010

Nikhil:"You look very happy now."

Me:"sitting with 3 of your best friends..... at this highest point of wardha...with today's wonderful day and success of the Friends Horizon session....with blessings of so many fellow students... with so much money in my pocket... with this cool breeze blowing, and whole wardha in front of me, this endless lighting, this silence, this celeberation, these smiles....i m something much more than happy today. something beyond satisfaction...."

Sid:"is it success?"

Me:"May be....i dont know, but yes, today i feel like i m successful, we have seen our dream come true...and gone much far beyond that.anyway, after today, success will be the last thing on earth i will long for...i have understood what success is.today i think i have understood everything. what business is,on what does it stand, how does it works..everything is clear now. "

Bhupen:"today i can say dreams come true, and they give gr8 happiness to u!3 cheers to FBC."

Me:"yes and they add something of immense importance to your life."

Nikhil:"What is it?"

Me:"Tranquility."

Chapter 1: The conception of an idea

June 2009

Me:"hey guys!i've got a business plan!"

Sid:"gr8 man!let's do it!"

Me:" dont u want to hear what the plan is?"

Sid:"who cares?"

very few people in this world are blessed with friends who are ready to fall into anything with their friends. Sid was one of the person in my life. i was very fortunate bcoz i had got 2 more such friends:Nikhil and Bhupen.

It was last week of june 2009 when i was sitting in my room with my eyes closed in front of a window when i got mad with the idea of opening a book shop in sewagram. i saw the bright fututre in this plan. So many students, so many readers! and so much profit! the idea filled me so much that i just cudn't control himself. i had to speak it out to someone!

that day was also one of the happiest day in sid's life. he had passed the 1st year of BE with more than 70% and that was a gr8 achivement bcoz he never studied and had screwed himself in 12th standard and took a drop for 1year which he thought as a shame to himself . so he was in high spirits and was throwing a dinner party at the Gulshan restaurant that night. i took my activa and rushed to sid's room in wardha. sid was now living at sam's house(another "best friend" now this guy is anything,an integral part of our life, even we want to get rid of him, we are just unable to do so,an another interesting story.)as his self-tortured"kirayedar".he was as desperate as preet to start anything that will earn them some money.Gobya was there too as his vacations have begun and he has come over here. the conversation at the dinner table was:

Gobya:" now What's the plan?"

Sid:"We'll order Chicken"

Sam:"Call a handi."

Gobya:"Shut up and listen to the plan."

Sam:"iwant 1 handi , tikhi wali."

Gobya:"Shut up u asshole!"

Me:"So here it is. we bring books at cheap rate from big cities like Nagpur, Mumbai and sell them here at a double price."

Sid:"Ok. at what cost do u get books in big cities?"

Me:"60rs to 100rs for pirated ones. somewhat more for the stolen original ones."

Sid:"At what rate will we sell them?"

Me:"at the rate of maximum profit."

Sid:"if that's the case, i m in."

Me:"That was what i needed, a partner!"

Sid:"So where do we start?"

Gobya:"yes man, you gotta hell lots of scope here! if u open your own book shop which sell novels and other books and magazines, not available in wardha, u will become a hit!u will go rich!"

Me:"yes that's what i m thinking about.i'll start doing a research on the taste of people here, what kind of books they like to read, what they want more, also i'll do a rough estimate of what expenses we will have to spend as an initial investment. i'll start it as early as possible."

Sid:"We are gonna rock!"

Gobya:" Will u be able to tell this to your father,preet?will he agree on this plan?"

Me:"i dont know, that's going to be the biggest challange!"

Sid:"i m with u."

Sam:"And yes the Chicken Handi is delicious!"

The journey thus began! I started doing research. I sent scraps to my friends on orkut. went to book shops and stalls in wardha to see what they offered and what they lacked. i searched the internet for places to get cheap books. i also started thinking ways to gather money for investing.and in this way i started to make every effort to change the course of my life.but iwas totally unaware of life's one law:"dude, if u want to change the course of your life, you are free to change it, but why dont u face a storm before doing so?".....A storm was approaching, very fast.......

Chapter 2: The hurdles of an entrepreneur

July 2009

Danger Daddy:"if u utter 1 more word i'll just thrash this car right into the truck coming from the front. shut ur mouth u swine!"

Me:"if that is what u want to do, then do it and end this all mess called 'living'!"

Mummy:"u r a complete disgrace to our family. u can't do anything.u r nothing but a bundle of mistakes.u r a useless crap. says he will do a business!"

DD:" have u ever done any business? do u know a single thing about it?i did business when i was small!i sold newspapers!"

Me:"that was not a business but a job. all u middle class marathi people will do for all your life is a job......kharde ghasai....live ur entire life with ur files. u have a typical babu mentality."

DD:"shut up u loser! u can't pass ur exams and u think u'll do a business! and that too of books! what will u earn through it? who buys books? i never do! no one does! what margin u'll get? ask that A.H.Wheeler on the railway station what does he earn from books?"

Mummy:"anyway he will end up being a beggar on the railway station....a place where all losers end up."

Me:"u people just don't understand.u r not even asking me for justification! u r in an ugly mental mess not capable of seeing what ur son wants!"

Mummy:" what u r expected to do when ur son wants all the wrong things in life? he dreams of going to the mountains and playing flute all day! all day he sits in his room playing guitar and singing like a beggar.reads story books...doesn't study...always fails voluntarily in exams and makes no use of the brains he has got....has no future plans!"

Me:" all u want is a secured future plan..u dont care fot the Present plan i m having...what do u think why i m doing this?"

DD: "because u have no brains and ur the ultimate shit known to mankind.why dont u leave ur education and start doing a full time business, u r not studying anyway!"

Me:"after ruining 2years of my life in a disgraced college, u want me to leave me halfway? and now when i have this wonderful plan? u see people fighting tooth and nail, tearing their hair apart studying day and night to get admission in MBA at the IIM's? why do they do so? they do so to study 'Business'.this is what i m trying to do.....study business by Actually doing it........not in the books....not on paper.....but actually taking a first hand experience of "what is business"! do u want any more clarification..isn't this sufficient?"

Mummy:" however logical clarification u'll give is not satisfying bcoz we know that u dont want to study and after starting this business u'll stop studying completely....and end up being a non-graduate making a hell of ur life."

Me:"that's not like that..may be i might start studying more after that!"

DD:" Shut up and let me drive and Never-ever again u tell me about ur this useless plan and dont expect anything from me!"

this has been my loophole...to tell the important things to wrong people at a wrong time in a wrong way. i went wrong in telling his dad that i dont want to pursue medical, at a wrong time,at the time when exams were lingering over the head. i told my cousin sister that i ran away from the MGIMS CET just bcoz i couldn't sit in the examination room and see myself attempting to go to a place where i never wanted to and this she told to preet's mother who made his life a living hell for days to come. i said things to the girl he loved in a wrong way at a wrong time.and now i told my father about my plan to do business when we were driving in our car back from nagpur in the night. My father got insane on hearing that his son has got a new notion on his mind and drew the car so harshly shouting all the way that he survived a couple of times an accident by the skin of his teeth.(he is a dental hygienist, this phrase suits him.)

For 15 days i did extensive research on places to get cheap books across India...in cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune.....but couldn't make a plan. also i calculated the initial investment which would be minimum at least 15 thousand rupees if we wanted to put a stall right at the sewagram chowk. that's what we thought...a stall where u wud get everything: mags, novels, exam books everything. i thought if i was able to convince my dad, he might give some initial investment. But he failed.....and now the same question every entrepreneur in this useless country "INDIA" faces was bothering me. i had no resources. since the plan hit me, i was able to save only rs.1000 from the pocket money of Rs500 i got per month, not a penny above that, i left the guitar class, put no recharge in my phone, stop going to places by activa bcoz at times i had to put petrol on my own! but what i gonna do in Rs.1000?

there are crores of entrepreneurs in India....but no one gets support the way he wants to. the panipuriwala at the square or the people who do business on their bicycles in the scortching heat daily are entrepreneurs....but they dont get any support, even if govt. has schemes, they dont know it, no one tells them. no one gives cheap loans.

from where to get money was the biggest problem.at last i decided to ask for money to my aunty(bua). i knew she will give , and there was no other person. i called her and demanded 3000 rs(coz he cudn't ask for more) but when she asked the reason, i became dumb. there was a gr8 probability , that if she didnt liked the idea of business, she might not give me any money. and i cudn't lie to her. coz at that time, he was a gandhiji, never lied and no one cud have lied for a thing so much important to him.

Me:"i just want to buy books."

bua:"ok then it's f9, i'll send u a money order.till when do u want that money?"

Me:"first week of august."

bua:"from where will u buy books?"

Preet:"oh!i haven't decided yet, will tell u soon.bye"

with this money problem solved, i felt that there are still, some human beings on earth who cared for my desires....i had some 2000 rs in his bank account. and some more i would save. i knew danger daddy would give me something when i will leave......now the next hurdle was:from where to buy the books?

"Daryaganj!Delhi! a paradise for book lovers. here on every sunday u'll get 2nd hand books from all over the world at rates below what u called cheap. each and every book will cost you less than rs.100 and u'll get any book u want. but u wud have to search for them coz there are huge heaps of books and u may get gandhiji lying beside aishwarya in those huge piles. u need a keen eye."

this was what i read on internet...and i sent a sms to sid" we aren't going to mumbai/pune but to delhi, i read about daryaganj, u check it out urself."

sid didnt reply anything, as usual. so i thought that it was OK with him. but when i met him he found that sid was taken aback as he had never thought of going to bring books from Delhi.

"we'll see...."was all what he said.

now when some1 says "we'll see", this period is a period of restlessness and utter helplessness.u lose all the peace of mind.u become crippled and dependednt. u r unable to do anything coz u r thinking what this"see" is gonna be? where will it take you.

and then a perilous thing descends on u.

people may fight World wars, they may fight World wars, they may fight the cold on the everest, they may fight everything known. but cannot fight this thing:

"Loneliness".

My Reason to begin

The need to express my thoughts and feelings have grown so much tremendous these days that i just can't resist writing a blog. i m not a regular writer, nor i m good at english.Yet now i sit at 1.15am, (very rarely do i stay awake so long, i usually sleep by 10pm) bcoz i m just unable to sleep. this whole week i have been bedridden. i have got viral fever, body ache, dysentry, vomitting, complete loss of apetite. anyway i got just lot of time to think over things.

i realized that i have changed. and this has been an active process. i have witnesssed it. and m proud of it. it is not an achievement to be proud of but yet i feel i m a human being now. that i have a respect for life. that i can understand people now, at least i m able to breathe in this suffocating murderous world.

BDCOE, Sewagram is a dead college. The institution is a graveyard where the ghosts of lecturers do a thing they call "teach" to the young half-murdered hearts. they teach death. and thats expected because they were murdered too. not only this institution, but my school, the college, and this whole society were all the places where they taught death. people were intelligent enough to learn to die. to die to their desires, the things we want, actually want to do. laugh, jump, hug each other, read to lots of books, cook ,play a guitar, watch the birds flying high, listen to thier beautiful voices and see a beautiful sunset with a friend with your head resting on her shoulder, hands in hands.

the real problem started when i started dreaming of all these things. my friends were dreaming of good colleges for graduation, my father was dreaming of getting me an admission to the medical institution in which he worked, many people were dreaming many things, many weren't dreaming anything. this all started in the summer of 2007, when i went to the ali coaching classes, (the mass murdering institute, a certified institution of performing a mass mental rape of students and preparing for a BIG death for the rest of their lives.) people were thinking of marks scores. the REAL problem started right there. i didnt think of any of these things. i was thinking of learning violin because i fell in love with it. while my friends were doing hard study there what i was doing was playing my flute all the day, eating and sleeping. this was the beginning. this has caused a great torrent in my life. i have stopped studying and doing such idiot things from that very day. i havent studied any academic thing in these last 3 years and i have survived a fresh mind. a mind that has gained the ability to see the things as they are in reality.

now it becomes a problem for others when you start seeing things in the right way and express them. i have always been expressive. i rarely hold back things. angers, fears, weaknesses, abuses(the worst of them), feelings and all the other things. since childhood i have been expressing things the way i have seen them. from my 10 years of age upto my 12th standard i have been expressing all the ugly things. or say expressing things in an ugly manner. things are as they are. they simply exist. we express, modulate, speculate them according to our conditioning and our capacity to see them. but now i project things the way they are. and this has become a problem for my parents, the authorities of the institution i work in and in such a way for me too.

and that is why when i do things like forming the FRIENDS BOOK CLUB( its story is very interesting, i'll surely write about it) for rekindling my own life and the life of my dead college students i have to face tremendous outward pressure. and many such little things which i want to do to feel the life in me like laying in the lawn looking at the plants and flowers, or to stop studying, taking a drop just to go and roam the indian countryside, i have to face tremendous pressure.

NOBODY talks about LIFE here. i wonder that is EVERYBODY DEAD? we are human beings, we need to talk to each other, we need a companion, to share our feelings, to fulfil our necessities both physical and mental, or else it becomes impossible to exist in this boring dead society. we have to survive and not just survive but LIVE. i have write this whole thing becoz i have a hope that some person out there is just looking for a person to LIVE a beautiful LIFE. AND YES, THAT's what i m concerned about. to LIVE A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. at any cost.i m waiting for that person to reach me.

"I am waiting for you dear."