My Autobiography

  Chapter 3-First Love And The Magic Begins I’d seen her before, that faint memory at the Sarasvati Temple during Durga Puja in 1992, but it wasn’t until November 1993 that my world truly began to shift. I was 17, and Pooja was 13, still young in the eyes of the world, but what we felt was the first whisper of something real. Some might scoff at the idea of love at such an age, but 27 years later, at 45, I can tell you it was the beginning of a magic that has stayed with me, a flame that burns even now, despite the years, the pain, and the distance. Pooja might still be angry with me for not handling things with more patience, but I couldn’t surrender to the hate I felt for the situation that tore us apart. That’s a story for later, but to understand how we got there, you need to know how it all began—how a badminton court, a little girl named Aashima, and a few unspoken glances turned into an epic love story. C.B.R.I was always a place of life and energy, as I’d come to know in th...

  Chapter 2-C.B.R.I Days: Friends, Fun, and Her First Glimpse A New World at CBRI In 1987, when I was 11 years old, my life changed in ways I couldn’t have imagined. We moved from Civil Lines to the Scientist Apartments in C.B.R.I, a perfect square of 64 houses, no more than 80–90 meters across, nestled in the heart of Roorkee. For a kid who’d been an only child for 11 years, this was a dream come true—suddenly, I had a whole colony of kids to play with, boys and girls who became my world. C.B.R.I was a happening place, a high-profile government organization with every facility a child could dream of: huge playgrounds, tennis courts, badminton courts, volleyball courts, and a community center with indoor games like table tennis, carrom, and cards. The main C.B.R.I building even had an auditorium where they’d show movies and documentaries—a big deal in a small town like Roorkee back then, when cinema was a rare treat. The Scientist Apartments were a hub of cultural activity, buzzing...

Chapter 1-Before Love: A Roorkee Childhood I had everything, or so I thought—until I had nothing. At 48, I sit in a quiet house in Noida, the echoes of my dad’s old songs long gone, my wife and child a fading memory, and my friends scattered like leaves in the wind. All I have left are the memories of her—my Girl, my Pearl, the one who understood me like no one else. But to tell you how I got here, I need to go back to the beginning, to a small town called Roorkee, where a boy dreamed of Spiderman and had no idea how love would one day break his heart in two. I was born on September 27, 1976, in New Delhi, a true Libran with a belief in the stars that’s followed me all my life. My family, a liberal Sikh household, moved to Roorkee soon after, a town better known for its engineering college, Roorkee University, which later became IIT Roorkee. That campus wasn’t just a backdrop—it was part of the air I breathed, a sprawling playground of red-brick buildings, dusty paths, and the faint hu...