✨ Chapter 1 — The Boy Who Remembered Tomorrow
[Location: Bombay — 1970, Monsoon Morning]
The first thing he noticed was the ceiling fan — slow, creaking, and real. Not a prop, not a set. The second thing was the smell of the rain — the monsoon kind, heavy and alive, filling the air with wet earth and street noise.
Arjun Malhotra sat upright in a small cot, heart pounding. He was breathing too fast, hands smaller than they should have been, voice higher when he whispered,"...This isn't real."
But it was.
He stumbled off the bed, running to the window. Outside, the street was alive with another time — tramlines, hand-painted signboards, men in bell-bottoms, and the soft hum of a world without mobile towers. A boy ran past with a radio, Kishore Kumar's voice carrying through the rain.
Arjun's pulse spiked. Kishore… still alive.
He turned toward the calendar — June 1970.A tremor of disbelief ran through him.He had died in 2030 — a washed-up actor, forgotten by the same industry he once worshipped. And now, somehow, he was five years old again.
A voice called from the kitchen."Arjun, breakfast! You'll be late for school!"
He froze.That voice. It wasn't anyone he knew.
A woman stepped into the doorway — elegant even in a plain cotton saree, eyes tired but warm. Meera Malhotra, television scriptwriter, thirty-one years old, a quiet creative force in the shadows of Bombay's booming entertainment world.Behind her, a man adjusted his tie, flipping through a file of budget sheets. Vivek Malhotra, minor producer, eternal dreamer, the kind who believed every next film would be the one.
They looked at him with genuine love — the kind his previous life had long forgotten.
He smiled weakly. "Coming, Ma."
[Location: Malhotra Residence — Later That Evening]
The living room was cluttered with half-finished scripts and reels. A television played the evening news — Doordarshan's crisp, monotone broadcast. Arjun sat cross-legged, staring not at the TV, but at the typewriter.
His mother noticed. "You've been quiet all day.""I'm just… thinking.""At five?" she teased. "That's dangerous."
He smiled faintly, but his mind was racing.He couldn't act now — not yet. Not in this tiny frame, not without drawing suspicion. But he could learn, watch, study. If fate had given him another start, he'd make this one count.
He glanced at his father, rambling about a low-budget film deal. A minor producer, Arjun thought. Perfect cover for a future star.
[Location: Bombay — 1975, Film Studio Backlot]
Five years passed like a montage.The boy who once dreamed of fame now spent afternoons watching sets from behind barricades — quiet, observant, eyes wide. Crewmen let him stay because his father's name carried just enough weight to open studio gates.
He watched Amitabh Bachchan film an early action scene once — a young man still on the edge of greatness. Arjun remembered the decades ahead — he knew what was coming, what kind of actor the audience would crave next.
He whispered under his breath, "This time… I'll be ready."
And for the first time since waking in this strange, borrowed life, he smiled — not out of confusion, but out of conviction.