Living with the dream

“Last time I had visited here five years back, while in the Final Year of MBA. Nothing has changed much except the life style.” I was murmuring myself while seating at Sunset point in Mahabaleswar and thinking about those days….

DAY -1

“Let’s go for trekking tomorrow”. All of a sudden I had proposed the idea while solving the case study at 5 pm in the classroom No-402.

“What the hell???” Priya screamed.

“We are struggling here to solve the case and you are giving some stupid idea.” (A big pause)

“Hmm but its not a bad idea…” Priya laughed.

“Please guys we have to complete this case by 7 pm and give presentation to Prof Maru. please be serious.” Rahul commented while working out in excel. “What the amazing tool, just got the clue. Great dude?”

“Yah, I am ... Hahaha…” Shilpa laughed.

Rahul stared at shilpa and replied “Cooool it’s over; I am in for the trekking.”

“What is going to be the benefit to the customer and what will be the ROI after 3 Years? Is it sustainable?”  Everyone looked at Rohit.

Rohit reiterate “Guys just look in to the case. We are showing a profit increase of 50 % and a sales increase of 85% by re structuring of Highvalue retail chain.There is no where we are talking about sourcing and managing of resources.  How do we sustain the growth like this? Rahul, can you workout for some fund for strengthening backward integration chain”

It was a big silence and all started thinking about the case “Building Indian Walmart: Transformation of Highvalue retail chain”. Atlast we managed an excellent case study analysis and by 11:30 pm, we were free from the classroom.

DAY-2

Morning at 3 am Rohit called me up and asked for the trekking plan.

“Now??? Dude are you crack?”

“Ajit, nothing can be more adventurous than this… Pack up”

Within 15 minutes we make everyone ready for trekking. It was the craziest decision. We started our bike and headed towards Mahabaleswar.

“Wow!!! What a beautiful morning, so fresh and look at the sky so clean. It seems we are the only living animals in this world...” Priya screamed while laughing.

Others joined with the spirit “We are free”

After parking our bikes we all started walking with the tunes from the movie “Dil Chahata hai…”

  

We had not been for any outing since last 3 months due to classes and exams. Again the Placement season scheduled after one month. After placement there are projects, seminar, final exam etc were lined up. May be it was the last time we all were going out together for a trekking.

 “Dil chahta hai… Hum Na Rahein Kabhi Yaaron Ke Bin...” Rahul started singing

Everyone joined in.

“Can we really make an Indian Wal-Mart?” Rohit asked for a serious discussion. We all started discussing while walking. It was fun with all type of crazy ideas coming in mind. Almost we executed a business plan. Followed by Lots of gossips, PJs, serious discussion, jokes etc we didn’t realize how the day got over.  We returned in the evening.

From next day onwards again all of us were busy with routine life.

During campus placement we all got placed and after few months joined the job. Afterwards hardly there was any time to meet each others.

After almost 4 years, I received an invitation call from rohit to attend his engagement at Mahableswar. After I reached there i found Rohit successfully running a well established strawberry farm with a retail chain and lots of new things in pipeline. I was so happy and couldn’t believe what he was doing…I realised this was all discussed during our trekking and afterwards all had forgotten. But he believed in building Indian Walmart and living with the dream.

As some one quoted “Dreams are like stars...you may never touch them, but if you follow them they will lead you to your destiny.”

“Let’s jump from here”

I looked behind and saw Priya with all other guys running towards me.

“Ohhh no… You are Still....…” I shouted     (To be Contd.)