• What business? Poultry framing, I believe, once.

I trekked extensively, cycled across south India when I was 15 or 16. Later, I graduated to a motorcycle and criss-crossed the country. I went to the Nepal border, the Pakistan border, but they wouldn’t let me cross without papers. I had dreams of travelling across the world on a motorcycle. So I decided to do business, and since poultry farming was blooming, I decided to go for that — from scratch. My father was a well-known physician and for him it was a no-no. I did it all on my own and it came up well. I made money, got into the construction business and then various other businesses. I made enough money for myself. But then on a certain afternoon, between two business meetings, when I had nothing else to do, I just rode up to Chamandi hill near Mysore. Three o’clock in the afternoon and I just went and sat there. Just went and sat on a rock, a huge rock, and my eyes were open and till that moment I thought: this is me. Suddenly, I did not see which is me and which is not me. What was me was just all over the place. This might sound ridiculous and illogical but this was my experience and I thought this lasted just for five-ten minutes, but when I came back to my senses, about four and a half hours had passed. For the first time in my adult life, there were tears in my eyes. I cried so much that my shirt was wet. I was blissed out and every cell in my body was burning with ecstasy.

... contd.