The sun blazed like molten gold above the vast Saudi Arabian horizon, its brilliance stretching endlessly across the desert sky. The air shimmered with heat, the sand below glowing in hues of ochre and amber. From thousands of feet above the ground, Saravanan plummeted through the open sky, his body slicing through the wind like a blade. It wasn't fear he felt—it was liberation. The adrenaline coursing through his veins matched the wild roar of the wind in his ears. For a brief, surreal moment, he was not bound by gravity, or history, or expectation. He was just a speck in the endless sky.
Then, with a forceful tug, his parachute burst open behind him—flaring out like a revelation, like an unspoken truth finally surfacing. It pulled him back gently, as if the sky itself was reluctant to let him go. The desert wind softened, and his descent slowed. The earth welcomed him not with harshness, but with a quiet urgency—as if destiny waited for him there.
Saravanan was young, just stepping into adulthood with a degree in hand and dreams too big for his modest frame. His heart burned with ambition, and he often told himself that the sky wasn't the limit—it was the beginning. He had studied hard, lived clean, and believed in carving his own path. But while his thoughts soared among clouds and future empires, life down on the ground moved to a quieter, heavier rhythm.
In a modest apartment tucked away in the city, his mother Meenakumari waited patiently. Her heart was a quiet place, filled with memories and unspoken fears. She knew her son was chasing greatness, and she smiled at his bravery, though her eyes often filled with worry. Life had not been kind to her, not entirely. She had borne the burdens of widowhood with grace, raising Saravanan alone after her husband, Subramaniyan, had passed away under unassuming circumstances. He had been a gentle man—simple in manner but carrying a legacy buried deep beneath layers of silence.
Saravanan had never really understood his father. To him, Subramaniyan was a kind presence that had vanished too soon, like a candle snuffed before its time. But he left behind more than fond memories—he left behind questions. Quiet, unsettling questions that lingered in the corners of the family's story.
And one day, while searching for business records in his late father's old cupboard—documents he thought would help him understand the enterprise he was meant to inherit—Saravanan's fingers brushed against something unexpected. Hidden beneath invoices and folders was a leather-bound diary. Its edges were frayed, its surface worn and cracked, yet it pulsed with a strange energy, like it had been waiting to be found.
He opened it slowly. The scent of aged paper rose up to greet him—faintly musty, yet comforting. Inside, the pages were dense with handwriting. Not dry notes or daily complaints, but thoughts, dreams, and memories. It was more than just a diary. It was a portal into the private world of a man Saravanan never truly knew. It was a map—of places his father had visited, people who had mattered to him, ventures he had begun and abandoned, promises kept and others heartbreakingly left unfulfilled.
But it was one line, scrawled in a moment of painful honesty, that cut deepest:
"Being alive and rich, I can't able to fulfill myself."
The grammar was imperfect, but the message was clear. His father, despite his success and survival, had felt hollow. He had lived a life filled with resources but devoid of personal satisfaction.
Saravanan stared at the words, a cold stillness washing over him. For a man to possess wealth and still feel unfulfilled—it shook something in him. It was not the business he had inherited that now seemed urgent. It was this: the unknown journey, the fragments of a man's life that had been left behind like breadcrumbs in a storm.
He closed the diary slowly, as though afraid the truth might spill out further. He no longer felt the clarity he had earlier that day, when falling through the sky. Something had shifted. A new purpose had taken root.
The business could wait.
This journey—this mystery, this legacy—could not.