Standing in his balcony is a young boy with sheer determination and focus and with all this effort he is making something that he is sure will get him millions one day. The detailing on that thing is immaculate. It looks like something only someone mad enough to make it, could ever actually make it.

Two of his friends both appear to be older than him, call him from the ground floor.

“Armaan”

He doesn’t listen. They shout again.

“ARMAAN”

This time he hears them. They were signaling him to come down.

“I’ll be there in a minute” replied Armaan.

Armaan never liked hanging around with them and tried to avoid them as much as he can mainly because of the boy with blonde hair. He was someone who rarely ever appeared happy or smiling and was always angry and complaining about something or the other. Talking about the other boy, he seemed normal, with short black hair and a calm smiling face he always appeared to be positive. Armaan always liked the boy with black hair, he was someone who always encouraged and appreciated Armaan’s artistic work. He never understood why both of them so different from one another hung out together, the only reason that he thought made sense was because they both couldn’t find anyone else of their age group in the locality.

Although Armaan would have avoided them like any other today he was excited to meet them. In the next instance, he took the thing he was working, which is still only half-finished, and ran downstairs.

He was excited to show his rare piece of art to the world and hear some praise about how great an artist he was. On reaching downstairs he ran towards them and showed them the thing he was working on.

“What’s this?” asked the boy with black hair.

“It’s an art, it’s called mandala art. I have been making it on big papers for long now so I decided why not challenge myself and try to make it on a chest button badge.”

“WOW! dude, this is quite detailed, but it’s not finished yet.”

“Yeah, it’s taking a lot more time than I thought. I will try to finish it by today.”

“What are you planning on doing with this?” asked the other boy.

“Well, I will try to sell it with my other arts.”

“Really! and who do you think will buy something as stupid as this?”

“This is not stupid, just shut up you idiot, you have no idea what real art is.”

“Oh really, you seem to be very knowledgeable. Well, go on keep daydreaming.”

“It’s not a dream, this will become a reality, I am going to be a world-famous artist and this mandala-themed badge of mine will be sold for millions one day.”

“Yeah we will see about that, you are way too young so just keep dreaming about being an artist and this stupid badge of yours selling for millions, even I had dreams of becoming a cricketer when I was your age”

“So, what happened?”

“Life happened. After some years the only dream you will be left with is to get into a decent college and get a regular pay job.”

“Well, you are way too stupid and depressing to talk with, I am not like any other normal people out there I am special and I have a gift. So, you can just keep your unnecessary wisdom to yourself and I will go work on my million dollar art”

Annoyed with the boy Armaan took his mandala badge and left.

“You just had to be mean to him.” asked the black-haired boy

“What’s my fault? I am just trying to be realistic. He will have to come to a realization sooner or later” replied the blonde hair arrogant boy.

“Dude you could have just appreciated his work. It looked like some real hard work.”

“Yeah well, he is just wasting his time.”

While they were arguing they saw one of their friends passing by with a heavy bag on his shoulder, he looked a lot more mature than these two. They shouted his name and told him to stop.

They reached out to him and started talking.

“Hey, Armaan bro, what’s up? Seeing you after a long time” asked the boy with blonde hair.

“Yeah, I was just really busy with all these coaching classes and assignments.” Replied Armaan.

“What are you preparing for?” asked the black-haired boy.

“Don’t these dark circles and sadness on my face tell you what I am preparing for,” replied Armaan in a furious tone.

“You are preparing for the Engineering exam right” guessed the boy with blonde hair.

“Yeah man”

“So, how are the preparations going.”

“Well, no matter how much I try they never seem to be enough. It’s just so exhausting solving all these long assignments and question papers”

“Yeah well cracking these exams isn’t everyone’s cup of tea”

“Don’t you worry about it, just wait another year till you come to 11th class, real study starts from there.”

“What do you mean I still have to study a lot”

“Just shut up, what you studied till now will not be in any way near to the level of hard work that goes into cracking these exams”

“Oh, just stop fighting you two” interrupted the black-haired boy.

Noticing a really attractive badge on his bag the boy asked.

“Hey, what’s this thing on your bag”

“Where?”

“On the right shoulder of your bag”

“Oh this, this is just something stupid I made a few years back. I never noticed it was on this bag. I should probably hide it.”

Slightly embarrassed the boy noticed this Armaan took out the badge from his bag and kept it in his pocket.

“OK guys, I am getting late for my class, see you later.”

After he left the black-haired was still confused and thought he has seen the same badge somewhere.

“I think the badge on his bag looked familiar”

“What?”

“I think I saw it somewhere else too.”

“Really”

“I must be seeing things, leave it. Let’s just walk around.”

After a few minutes of walking around the blonde-haired boy seemed to recognize someone from a distance.

“Hey do recognize him?”

“Who?”

“Look there by the tree. Isn’t he the one that went to IIT?”

“Yeah that’s him”

“What was his name again?”

“I guess it was something with A”

“Amit?”

“Nah”

“Arvind?”

“Nope, I know his name sounded familiar. I guess it was yeah, I remembered now. His name is Armaan.”

“We have three people with the name of Armaan in our locality”

“Yeah weird coincidence”

"Wait let wave to him."

“Hey, Armaan bro” waved the blonde hair boy.

Armaan who appeared like a man with a full beard and simple clothes was attending a call so he simply waved back and walked around.

Armaan on-call “Yeah man, I just wish we get a great placement offer. I mean we worked hard these four years.”

While on call he noticed something in his pocket. He took it and noticed. It was the same mandala art badge that he used to work on when he was small. Seeing it he went into a flashback of emotions of the old days when he dreamt of being an artist. He realized now this badge doesn’t serve him any purpose. So, he tossed it out and threw it away.

.    .    .