13th October 2024

Dear Diary,

13/10/2024

My name is Atif Quraishi. I'm 22, from Lucknow, and I just finished my engineering degree in computer science. I'm still jobless, though. I've been hunting for cloud engineering roles since, you know, I'm AWS certified, but I've had no luck so far. I even got an AI certification recently. But yeah, finding a job feels like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Sometimes, I think I should stop applying and just dive headfirst into my own startup idea.

The thing is... I do think my idea could work. But, man, starting something from scratch? That's terrifying. I keep asking myself—what if I mess it up?

Anyway, while brooding over life, I grabbed my phone to check for the latest update of Reborn in 19th Century India on Webnovel. To my horror, instead of a new chapter, there was this heart-wrenching notice: The author had decided to drop the novel.

It was a great novel, too. It's about a man reincarnated in the 1940s as the son of the last Mughal emperor. He tries to fight for Indian freedom by leading a rebellion during the 1857 revolt. Honestly, the story had everything—strategy, politics. I thought about it sometimes and wondered, If that novel somehow came true, would I still be unemployed?

I mean, if India had won its freedom back then, maybe the country would be in a much better place today. Maybe we'd even have more jobs. Heck, I might already have landed one by now.

But no. Reality's not a Webnovel, and I'm still stuck scrolling job portals.

I let out a long, frustrated sigh. Seriously, why do authors always leave readers hanging mid-story?

And then... well, my life turned into the first chapter of a Webnovel.

I was still fuming about the novel when—CRASH! I heard the deafening sound of metal smashing, followed by the squeal of tyres. I spun around just in time to see a Porsche 911 flying right toward me.

And BAM—impact. I knew instantly—this was it. Game over.

And my last thought?

I hope the driver knows how to write essays. (If you know, you know.)

Then everything went black.

When I opened my eyes, I was sitting in some strange, blindingly white room... and there was a bhai calmly feeding grass to a blackbuck.

"Wait... are you a ROB? You know, like in all those Webnovels?" I asked him, still half-expecting this to be some sort of weird dream.

The guy frowned and said something that made absolutely no sense.

"Aajao... kya... mai apni pe..."

Before I could figure out what on earth he was saying, he pointed toward two giant wheels—one for my power and one for time.

I figured, meh, why not? If I'm already dead, might as well spin the stupid wheels. So, I gave both a good spin.

The first wheel stopped—"ChatGPT" in bold letters. Huh? What's that supposed to mean?

The second wheel landed on "1979".

Before I could even ask what the heck any of that meant, the guy got into a car, grinned, and—

BAM! The car hit me again.