The video begins and the camera pans across a sea of young and eager faces. It pauses at the stage where the announcer requests Sid to come up. There’s loud applause as Sid walks across to the announcer towards the podium holding on to some papers, presumably his speech. He has a restrained but slightly proud smile on his face as he begins his key note address.

‘I had a dream,’ he begins and a hush falls over the auditorium as every audience member is straining to listen to him. ‘And this city helped me realize it!’ There is a smattering of applause from the proud Bangaloreans in the audience. Sid smiles, aware that he has their attention.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my love story with Bangalore with you today.’ Sid adjusts his reading glasses and looks at the papers before him, before he looks up at the audience once again.

‘Today, people may recognize me because of the billion dollar acquisition. But just a few years ago, I was like any other small entrepreneur - unknown, struggling, fighting but proud and enjoying it while it lasted.’ The camera pans towards the audience and many seem to be nodding their head and then it focuses back on Sid who is shuffling his papers.

Sid then pushes away the papers and takes off his glasses. He looks more comfortable as he smiles at the audience and poses a question to them.

‘Let me start with a question. How many of you believe in luck, karma or whatever you like to call it?’

In the audience, people seem to be confused but most of them slowly raise their hands while looking at each other.

‘Do you know what I believe in?’ he asks the audience but doesn’t really wait for an answer. ‘Luck is when opportunity meets preparedness. If you’re always ready, you can’t complain that you missed an opportunity. Neither can you get jealous if someone else gets hold of the opportunity because you have to remember that you weren’t prepared for it when it came your way. So, the first lesson is that you have to plan to be lucky, and then…get lucky!’

‘Everyone remembers the great innovators, their success stories, their passion, and mainly their billions.’ There are a few laughs across the auditorium.

‘These were the guys who were lucky to be prepared when opportunity came to them. But no one really wants to consider their struggle and all the difficulties they faced to become the men and women they became. That’s the unfortunate part of these corporate fairy tales. No one will tell you about the struggles but will only paint the glorified successes.

‘Let me tell you a story,’ he started out in his typical way of grabbing attention. ‘XYZ struggled for ten years in this very city before we could make some impact. It wasn’t just one idea; we came up with many ideas and most of them even failed. A few were mediocre and even though some were good, we sold them to others just so we could survive. I can’t tell you the names of some of these innovations and we sold them when they were just conceived but the companies who bought them from us made millions!

However we couldn’t just crib and stop what we were doing right? That was when our first big innovation happened - the Pinch N Drop.’

Loud applause resonates across the auditorium and Sid smiles brilliantly. ‘Oh, that’s good. Everyone here knows Pinch N drop.’ He nods to no one in particular before continuing to speak.

‘When we developed it, at least 50 VCs rejected it and we almost shelved it’, Sid says. There’s an almost audible hush in the audience. Everyone’s surprised.

‘Yes’, he continues, ‘so the next lesson for us is to never give up on a good idea. Work on it, adapt it to the changing needs of the people, environment, technology and all the other factors and make those ideas attractive.’

'See, a straight line is the shortest path between 2 points. So there’s no point in taking short cuts. Always do what’s right. A short cut might yield a lot of gains initially but inside, you will always know the truth. The day you are unable to face yourself because of your short cuts will probably be the worst day of your life. Never compromise on your principles. These and your values make you the person you are!’ Sid shakes his head and takes a deep breath and goes on.

‘I ask you to consider my own example. We were getting desperate and our families were getting jittery. But we stayed put. We had a few options that we thought were a bit underhanded and hence we rejected them. We managed to survive just so we could stay on the straight path and focus. We prevailed and hence we can proudly claim our success, whatever little it may be, as ours and not compromised.’ There’s a thunderous applause as the audience looks at Sid with renewed respect.

The camera zooms to Sid’s face in a close up and Yash can see that he’s brimming with confidence. Yash recalls his mother telling him about Sid’s insistence on never paying bribes, on never jumping signals, never taking short cuts of any sort. It often irritated many people who would claim that everybody was doing it while Sid would merely respond that someone had to change and the change began with him.

Sid speaks once more when the applause dies down. ‘In despair, there is opportunity,’ Sid pauses for impact and the camera pans across the audience who look extremely focused. Sid continues. ‘Now, Bangalore is going through one of its toughest times but I believe that there are huge opportunities that come with it. Opportunities to set our beloved city right, to put it back on track and to rebuild it. With these opportunities there are the possibilities of innovations, and therefore recognition and money. So now is the time to plan to get lucky all over again! Go and grab that opportunity! It won’t be easy and it won’t happen immediately but it’s a battle worth fighting. ’

‘You don’t need a Batman to save Gotham city. I mean – you don’t need a Super hero to save our beloved Bangalore. All we need is ‘us’ – the normal everyday heroes and we can do it!

Since the day I've arrived in Bangalore, everyone has been asking me, what’s next. I think saving Bangalore will be my next. What's yours?

Thank you.’

The camera moves towards the audience who are giving Sid a standing ovation. Sid smiles, waves and walks away from the stage.

Yash closes the video, wondering why a man brimming with such confidence would take such a step just five days later. Watching the video hasn’t offered any clues but has merely hardened his resolve to find the truth.

In those painful days stewing in the aftermath of his father’s suicide, Yash had scanned his father’s business transactions with a kind of fervour, hoping to find some clue, somewhere. But his father had seen the kind of success that everyone dreamt of but few achieve. On the business front, his father had made millions with his innovations or by exiting ventures at the right time, gaining most profitably. From his investigations, Yash had ruled out the money/business factor as a reason behind his suicide. So what was it then?

Yash looks at his watch and does a quick calculation of the time difference. He wants to talk to his mother but she’s probably asleep. He worries about her immensely, wondering when this reversal of roles took place. Seeing her so hurt and affected, Yash wishes he can take away her pain but knows that only time will help her. But in the process it will gnaw at her insides and make it immensely difficult for her to forget and move on. That is why he needs these answers. That is why both of them need closure.

Yash scratches his chin, decides he needs to shave and with a sigh shuts down everything and heads to the bathroom. Later that night, sitting alone in the huge Bangalore house,

Yash picks up his tablet and pulls up his father’s journal. The police were unable to open it because it was password protected and they just gave up because they were treating his suicide as a straightforward case.

Yash discovered the journal just before he came to Bangalore and it took him a couple of hours to crack the password. But he has been reluctant to get drawn into it, wondering what it would bring. Now that he’s here in Bangalore, the place where it all happened, he finds that the journal is like an intimate yet elusive connection with his father, one that he wants to sustain. It feels like his father is speaking to him.

With a slow shake of his head, Yash starts reading.