Chapter 5: Arav—Dreams Beyond Earth

When he was eight years old, a little boy was already wondering, "When will humanity be able to travel to space?" From a very young age, Arav had his head in the clouds—quite literally. As other children played cricket in the lane, he would lie on the terrace, the concrete still warm from the day’s sun, counting stars and listening to distant auto horns. His parents indulged him, buying him science kits from the local market and letting him watch ‘Captain Vyom’ late into the night.

By the time he was twenty, he gradually realised that to make this dream a reality, three conditions were necessary: He stared at the piggy bank shaped like a rocket, knowing pocket money wouldn’t launch him to the stars. 1. To have a great deal of money. As he grew older, Arav’s dreams sharpened into plans. He realized that to build a rocket, one needed not only brains and guts, but also serious paisa—a truth as clear as the blue sky over his childhood colony. He began jotting down his plan on the back of his old notebooks, determined to tick off every requirement, no matter how impossible it seemed. For Arav, the sky was never the limit—it was only the beginning.