January 5, 2009 – St. Xavier's High School, Dehradun
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The classroom buzzed with the nervous energy of a surprise math test.
Mrs. Kapoor moved between desks, handing out the printed papers with a smile that did little to calm the panic in the room.
Ram sat quietly, pencil ready, watching.
He didn't need to study.
He already knew the answers.
But he wasn't here to ace the test.
He was here to spot brilliance.
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The Girl in the Corner
Anika Sharma, third bench from the window.
Shy, always quiet, glasses slightly too large, hair always tied in a messy ponytail.
In his first life, she had faded into the background—just another "nice girl" no one remembered after school ended.
But Ram remembered.
Because in 2023, a YouTube video titled "Unknown Genius Solves DNA Problem with Homemade Simulation" briefly went viral. The girl in the video?
Anika. A flash of brilliance, then gone. No funding. No support. No future.
Ram wouldn't let her disappear again.
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As the class solved their equations, Ram stole glances at Anika's paper.
Her pencil flew across the sheet.
But something wasn't right.
She was solving the questions in binary.
Ram blinked.
She wasn't just doing arithmetic.
She was converting decimal to binary to check her logic.
She was nine.
He leaned sideways.
"You like computers?" he whispered.
She looked startled. "What?"
"You're converting in binary."
She froze. "How do you know what that is?"
Ram smiled.
"Let's just say… I know a few things."
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The First Spark of Trust
After class, he caught up with her near the staircase.
"You ever used a real computer?"
She shrugged. "Just in the lab. Windows 98. It's slow. But I like it. I try to build logic puzzles at home."
"Logic puzzles?"
She reached into her bag and handed him a crumpled paper filled with a hand-drawn flowchart, mapping out a number-guessing game.
Ram stared at it, stunned.
"You're a programmer," he said.
She looked confused. "What's that?"
He chuckled. "Never mind. But you will be."
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The Gift
The next day, Ram brought a small gift wrapped in brown paper.
Inside was a USB stick.
On it:
Python 2.6 (lightweight enough for old PCs)
Scratch programming language
A folder named "Anika's Universe" with beginner projects and challenges
A .txt file titled "Start with Curiosity"
He handed it to her without ceremony.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Magic," he replied. "Just tell your parents you want to learn something useful. Plug it in. Try it out."
She hesitated. "Why are you helping me?"
Ram paused.
"Because the world doesn't know how badly it needs you yet."
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A New Ally
A week later, Anika whispered to him during library hour.
"I finished the first five challenges. Built a calculator. And a game. My dad says I'm weird. But it's fun."
He grinned.
"Good. Let's build more."
He handed her another sheet—this one a drawing of a basic neural net with handwritten notes on weights and biases.
"I don't understand this," she whispered.
"You will. We have time."
Anika didn't know it yet, but she had just become the first member of Ram's future team—The Circle.
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The Circle Begins
That night, Ram opened his quantum phone and created a new encrypted folder:
> Project: Bharat Renaissance
Subfolder: Phase 1 - Core Circle
Entry #1: Anika Sharma – Codename: Spark
He added notes:
Intelligence: 9/10
Creativity: 10/10
Confidence: 3/10 (needs building)
Parental support: Weak
Potential: World-changing
Underneath it, he typed:
> "With one spark, we light the fire."
He smiled, closed the file, and looked at the stars outside.
The revolution had quietly begun—with one girl, one USB stick, and one whisper of belief.
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End of Chapter 4