May be! I Love You

by Kuldeep Sarvaiya

  In his group, there was Jaydeep and Jignesh, and now I was the fourth person. Naman was the son of a wealthy doctor and used to come in his car with a driver. He was quite wealthy and with a big heart. He used to pay a food bill for all of us, and we used to hang out in his car only. Jaydeep was a tall, muscular, and quiet type of person. I guess he and his family were only "Darbars" who are so gentle. Jignesh's character was a bit awkward, and none of us ever get him fully. Sometimes you might feel like he is the dumbest guy you might encounter in whole life, and in other instances, he might fool you, and you never know. Yes, he was the famous "Patel" of our group. He was among the people who scored almost cut off marks but didn't get in the medical college and end up in Pharmacy College. So after practically about the one month, I get used to them, and our circle was virtually complete.

  Our daily routine was to come for a lab in the morning and waste 3 hours doing nothing there and then going for lunch in Naman's car in the nearby Swaminarayan Gurukul. We used to go there because the food there was unlimited at a fixed price, and the quality was of no match. After about half an hour of eating like the beast, we return to college via the same route and enter the class. The going was smooth, but the return was never steady. We used to race to sit on the second bench as the loser had to sit on the very first bench, and in college, nobody likes to sit on the first bench. We used to have a 1-hour lunch break, and so after all this, we used to have the time of about 15 minutes to talk. We used to pull each other's legs at that time and contribute our sound as well to make the class environment more market type. I used to listen to the lecture when I was not part of this group, but when I entered this, I almost lost my goal and started enjoying my college life. We used to tie up shoelaces of each other or pass on the bag to the last bench or hide books and likewise. It was like a daily routine, and I quickly get bored with my daily routine. So one day I just prompted, we are wasting out our time here we should do something so that we can earn money. We should be independent.

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  Chapter II: The Business

  I just prompted those lines, and all three just looked at me like I just abused them in the highest possible version of abuse. They seem curious after 5-10 minutes, so I started again explaining that we are studying is okay, but we get lots of free time, which we waste doing nothing so we should do something so that we can earn money. Naman said sounds exciting, but what should we do. We don’t know anything, or we have no idea what to do and what not. I said we are not adults; we can’t invest much, so we have to start it from a small investment. We can start something like a biogas plant or bio-fertilizer plant which do not require much of investment. We can start it from our savings itself. We all four agreed that we would start something, and we will contribute as much as we can from our side.

  We used to plan then what and how it should be done. We collected the money, and almost 10000 rupees were there in our finance. Later we again contributed and made the sum of 15000. We were quite excited, but then we talk on what should we start first? The biogas plant or the bio-fertilizer plant? The primary need we had for both businesses was Land. The price of land nearby Ahmedabad was out of our budget, and we knew that. So Naman asks his driver to search in a nearby village about 20-25 km far from the Ahmedabad but with a low land rate. We had funds by which was sufficient enough to purchase 3 or 4 square feet of area, which is nothing for our project. So we decided to get the land on a rental basis with the lowest possible price. Meanwhile, I searched for how biogas plant looks like, what are its applications, how we will get raw material for it, and all the geeky stuff required.

  After about three weeks, one day, Naman told us that he located a place where we can go and look at the site. So I, Naman and Jignesh decided to go there and have some sightseeing. The college gets over at 4 in the evening, and we were in the car at 4.10. After about an hour and a half, we finally reached there. I thought Naman knew accurately the place where we are going, but he was firing in the dark. We reached some obscure village, and in one shop he asked is there any place which anybody wants to give on rent. I was surprised by his question. I mean, how you can say so plainly that I located a place and now asking this question on some random shop. The shopkeeper was too lazy to answer, so after waiting for one minute to get a reply from him, we move a bit ahead. The impressive part of Gujarati villages is that you always get people roaming here and there doing nothing, and they are ready to point directions as well. So he asked again in a group of about ten people sitting under a tree and talking. Each of them looked at us, and Naman repeated his question. Out of all those, one person stood up and said, “Yeah, my uncle wants to give his land on rent. I know his place, come along with me.” After saying this, he rushed to the car and pulled the door, and got adjusted with us in the back seat.

  Now I reached the height of my awkwardness because that man doesn’t know us, we don’t know him, and he just came inside and sat like he is our relative. But it was a good sign that we didn’t waste our time visiting there. He started dictating directions to the driver, and about half an hour of travel, we finally stopped at reconstructing the house. Half of it was new and modern, and the rest was like building about to be nominated as a heritage site. We entered through a small door and sat or “Charpai,” which quite common in villages. That person was a bit older than us, might be having the age of 22 or 24 at that time. He started calling on some random numbers and asking for his uncle. After 15 min this thing ended and he looked at us and said my uncle is at the house which is therein his farm. We have to go there, and that answer ground my gears. I mean, why that stupid fellow wasted half an hour and brought us to his house in the first place. He could have dialed numbers the place we met instead of rushing into the car.

  Our journey began one more time, and we reached his uncle’s house. He welcomed us, and then we talked to him about our project. I started explaining to him what are we going to do and how about the project and spoke for about 10 minutes. He listened to me very carefully, and when I ended he asked me, “You are not going to deal with chemicals here, Right?” and I said to myself, “Oh crap, he didn’t get a word I explained to him.” I replied to him that we are not going to use any chemical on his land, and no inspection from the pollution control board will be there. We are eliminating the waste from his village.” Again he nodded blankly and said, let me show you the place. We all stood up and followed him. He brought us to one of the corners in front of his house and said, “That corner part is yours. You can use it in any way you want to.” The hole was adjacent to the place where he used to keep his animals. The waste from those animals used to pass from making the soil marshy, and it was smelling like anything. I looked at Naman and gestured him to ask about the rent. Naman asked that fellow, “So uncle, what will be the rent?” Uncle replied, “Oh, not much. Just 5000 per month.” Naman looked at me, and I nodded in No, and then Naman told uncle that give me your number, we will contact you back when we decide-up.

  On the way back, we discussed that this is too much. We can’t afford this price, and we need to find a bit cheaper land, and gradually, loud music of car faded away from our talk. It was almost 8 p.m. when we reached Ahmedabad. They dropped me at college, and Naman went to drop Jignesh at home, and from there, he had to go to his house, which is totally in the opposite direction. After a few days, Naman got a call from that uncle that “another party” (in Gujarat, another party means another rich person) is ready to have that land. Are you interested or not? Naman replied No, and the whole case of that person ended there, but we were stuck in our fundamental question that what now? How to make money? What can be done at this sum of money?

  Again after a few days of brainstorming, I came to the idea that we can sell personal hygiene goods. I told them that I know how to make toothpaste and have a formula for it if you all agree we can proceed. We all agreed, but none of us knew ABC of business, and we had a low fund in our budget. Meanwhile, we gave our exams in which I did great, but my
full attention was on the product and becoming independent. So we distributed work and started gathering knowledge about what can be done to launch a product in the market.

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  After about one week, Naman initiated the topic and said that yes, we could launch the product in the market. My dad is a director in one pharmaceutical company as an inactive member, but our manager knows the process. He can provide us guidance, and based on that; we can start. I said, “Okay, let's visit him today itself.” So we planned to visit him. After college, our journey began in the traffic of Ahmedabad and reached some inner area of the satellite. He was living in a flat but flat too was awesome. It was for the very first time that I was going to meet a person with such a position, so I was quite excited. He told us to register a company first and get the necessary license documents for this purpose. Then we should proceed with the product launching.

  The idea was quite exciting as it was my dream to found a company and run it to success. I don’t know about Naman, but he was enthusiastic as well, and thus, after talk of about 30 minutes, we came back via more hectic traffic of Ahmedabad. He dropped me at college and left. All we had to do was to start a company, manufacture the product, and sell it and get money. Sounds easy when you say these things, but it’s us who know how much you have to pay for it. None of us ever built a clinic even in our childhood plays, and we were about to start the whole company. When you ask a person who hasn’t achieved legal age to vote to start and run a company, you might be able to imagine the scene they might make. But we were active from our heart and dedicated to the planning of self-independence and started “googling” how to register a company.

  Experienced people always give one advice, actually the golden advice that "never does the things which you don’t know or have half knowledge about it." It is understood that half knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge. But I guess these rules don’t apply to students, they always have half knowledge and do things. So we gather the knowledge we could find and started contacting people who could help us. Again contact of Naman was useful here. He found one guy who was a graphic designer and working with many companies for that purpose. We went to his place after college in the car itself. The car was our second home; we used to spend more time in the car then we do at home. He welcomed us, and we made us comfortable on the sofa over there. The couch was warm, and I double-checked it by jumping twice on it after sitting softly in the first place. It was not misbehavior as the owner of the house didn’t notice our gestures. He instructed his wife necessary information and came back to us and asked, “Okay, so tell me what you want to know?”

  I thought he already talked to Naman and knew our intention of paying him to visit, but some people have their way to start a conversation. So this time, I started talking like a robot as the whole phrase was set in my brain, explaining it to each person I contacted for help. He listened to me very carefully and said, “Don’t you guys think you are small enough to do this? Do you guys have spare time for all this stuff? I don’t think you have any idea what you are dealing with.” It was not the first time that someone made us interpret those lines in our brain. So it was Naman now as a defender who throws a fastball at him saying, “Yes, we are small college-going kids, but if possible, can you give us a reference of some person who can help us with registration and guidance.” He said okay, fine. Let me see what I have in my contact list and started scrolling his mobile screen. After a few scrolls, his thumb stopped at one name and said, “This man is useful. His name is Gaurav Joshi. He is an attorney lawyer and works on company-related matters.” And before finishing his sentence, he dialed his number, and in no time, Gaurav was on the line.

  “Hello Gaurav, how are you? What is going on?”

  “Hi, I am just fine. Nothing much is happening.”

  The conversation started most commonly, and it proceeds further directly on the point. Our referrer hit the nail and explained Gaurav what we discussed with him. He replied, “Okay. No issue. Send them to my office; I will explain to them everything from start to end.” He narrated the address, and we wrote down on a piece of paper. People might think that it is too common to find a piece of paper in a college-going boy’s bag, but the truth is its rare combination. Paper and pen are hard to find in a boy’s bag, and if you found one, he must be a geek. It was around 8 pm, and he said to send them to my office. So we said goodbye to our helper and started our journey to a new destination, Lawyer’s office.

  I always heard from people around me that never do such things that you need a lawyer, but here we were about to make that mistake. We reached his office, and to our surprise, it was on the top floor of one hospital. It is still not clear to me that if it is a hospital or teaching institute? We took the stairs to reach his office and sat in the waiting room, even though there was nobody other than us. He noticed and waved his hand in such a way that he was telling us to go inside. So we stood up and went in. Again the whole thing needs to be explained to him, and so I started an explanation. He said okay, it’s good that you people are doing such a thing. You are young and enthusiastic and can do great. He was the first person to say those words. However, it was for his good too because he was going to have a client for him and he can make some money by registering our company. It was around 9 pm, and we left his place. Naman dropped me at my place and left for his home.

  The very next day, we all three went to Gaurav’s office for further counseling and asked for the requirements to register a company. He gave us a big list of documents necessary for registering a company. I have usually seen such a big list during marriages in India, the list of items required for dinner, or lunch during weddings. We were 17, and we didn’t even have our license of voting id then how could we provide him. Naman and I were going to be 18 within three months, but Jignesh, he needed about seven months to become 18. The lawyer applied for all necessary documents, and we waited for about three months.

  Meanwhile, our friendship went to its height, and on our vacation, we decided to go for a trip of “Sasan Gir” to see one of the awesome wild cats, Lions. Again the car of Naman was our vehicle to roam around. Naman picked me from my hometown, and we ride along to Amreli, the birthplace of Jignesh. From there, we didn’t go to the sanctuary because Naman wanted to see free-roaming lions. Thus he called again his one of the relatives (I never find out how big his network was as wherever we went, his relatives were there.) who was in this department to know the location of Lions. That uncle instructed us to be at his home first, and then he was going to send his son along with us for wild safari. They served us food, and we get busy eating our dinner, and that boy dialed some numbers to locate lions in some areas. By the time we finished our meal, he had got some clue, and after spending a little time for chit chat, we again get adjusted in the car. The driver of Naman had remarkable stamina to drive the car nonstop. The boy we took along with us started giving instructions to driver (Yeah! Google maps don’t work over there.) And we all started chit-chatting, which then fade away in a loud volume of songs. After the drive of one hour, we finally stopped in one place, which was far away from the village, in the farmland. The clock showed a time of midnight, and we started moving towards the house. The night was dark and silent, and knowing that Lion can be around here roaming free was scary enough to make us speechless.

  The boy moved faster and banged the door to notify our presence in their land. He already instructed us not to come along with him. After a few bangs on the door, one older man of age around 60 came out, and they both had some conversation, which lasted only about 5 minutes. The boy waved his hand to tell us that come over here, and we immediately moved towards him. The older man took out one battery and walked ahead without uttering a word, and we followed him with curiosity. We reached in open field, and with every step, we move forward, we were getting tensed, but the older man was familiar to his place and was taking steps longer than ours. He stopped at one place and pointed torch on the dead animal; it was Ox. He sai
d, “Lions killed this poor animal about 2 hours ago, but he left because of noise, and he might return to take his pray away anytime.” This sentence was scary enough to explain our conditions. Still, we went to see Lion, and with the heart of Goat, this can’t be done, so we started examining how he killed that Ox (This is the fundamental problem with science students. We review a lot and conclude very little). The older man moved torch here and there, and we had an excellent glance of dead Ox. Everything was fine except one area where Lion hit his big claw may be. The flesh was wide open, and few organs were already missing from there, but it seems that Lion was not able to get his full meal due to interruption.

  “This animal is dead, and it will cost me too much. A few days ago, these animals took away my cattle. Please provide me with refunds as soon as possible.” The older man breaks the silence.

  Then I got the whole scenario that what might that boy talked with him. The older man thought we were the inspectors who went there to see whether the animal is dead in real or not. We waited for some time, and that boy started moving towards the car, and we followed him. This time the older man was behind us and pointing the direction. We might have walked about 50 meters, and we noticed a boy sleeping in bed in the open.