Chapter 1: When Titans Clash
Connaught Place in Delhi bathed in the winter sun seemed to live up its colonial character to the ambition of the city. Delhi’s elite converged on the Imperial Hotel for the Business Summit, where the air hummed with power. Aryan Khanna emerged from his black Mercedes, smoothing his navy suit. His piercing brown eyes swept the crowd, his mind already calculating through presentation slides.
At 32, Aryan had been one of India’s most promising tech entrepreneurs. His logistics start-up, Skyline Tech, was now worth over ₹800 crores – but he had not forgotten the sleepless nights he spent coding in his one-bedroom apartment.
Inside the hall, Rhea Malhotra was putting the finishing touches on her espresso as she pored over sales projections for her luxury brand, Lumé.
Within, Rhea just finished her espresso, and the dark eyes of her faced centered and deepening as she looked at the projected sales figures for her luxury brand, Lumé.
Rhea was twenty-nine; she was the reigning queen at the New Delhi fashion circuit, but her story was no fairytale. From sampling in a corner of her house to the point the fight stumbled upon a super competitive investor, each factor about Lumé was discovered within grit.
Their traffic literally merged them, for he just barreled into Rhea while checking his emails. His sleeve was splattered with coffee.
“A really pissed off?” He tipped an eyebrow upward as he looked down at himself rather ruined.
Rhea chuckled. So, would you qualify it as one of those “you’re really dumb” wake-up calls?
Aryan stared at them. That would be nice to hear from you.
“I always make the most memorable of entrances.” She left him with only the scent of jasmine and an air of mystique that Aryan couldn’t shake off.
Chapter 2: From Dreams to Boardrooms
There were no legacy funds that Aryan and Rhea should have inherited; buddy was quite the mark of poverty in both households. Aryan’s father also used to have a shop, dealing with electronics, just in Karol Bagh while Rhea’s mother used to stitch sarees for others as a side business.
And thus Aryan, as the sole breadwinner of the three of us, trudged through his teens with 18-hour days totally committed to programming software for some of the smallest businesses while I was supposed to be sleeping in his office. He had already seen so many closed doors and no’s from potential backers.
Rhea did not have the ease of an easy-loan account. Not even 20,000 bucks came to her own disposal. She therefore switched to a tour to Chandni Chowk to get herself a piece of cloth and stitched into a very specific piece of clothing preferred by many other girls, which she could later sell through her own active Instagram account. With a large closed bill that has been diligently gathered for her just by gentler moments of persuasion from the client… that happened to be the “most unpaid bills” because of serious trouble with getting any clients to pay on time!
They were both painfully hungry as a result, yet they had peace within their hearts.
Aryan followed because he had been hit by a stroke from where Skyline Tech closed a deal with a well-known online merchant for refining all the processes down to the last checkmark in its distribution system. Rhea exemplified another superstar moment, for she made a massive advantage when a famous Indian film star appeared in one of his most exotic creations ever, wearing it basking in Lumé.
Yet, all struggle battles will surely leave behind many highly visible scars and completely make them turn out the most fierce-determined business leaders in the industry.