It was one of those Sundays -- the usually the "YEOW" day for someone who has been through the grinds for the past six days -- the phone number of dear old friend popped out from the small old diary, which had almost resembled a PUYA, while cleaning up the mess on the shelf.

As soon as ones eyes got a glipmse of his name, one could not resist the urge to call up the childhood chum who had been a partner in all of our misadventures. It had been ages since we spoke last, yet thankfully his home number had not changed.

Tring tring....

"Hulloh, Kanano?" a sleepy voice picked up.

"Bhai einey. Kaorabara? Birbal.."

"Asssh bondhu, yadrey hai Akbar se tum ba hougaptada ngairi," came the reply.

After the initial pleasantries, and catching up on the lost time, it was time to speak about practical reality.

"So how is your business doing?" I asked, hoping being a software engineer, he must have been able to monopolise the Manipuri market.

"Man I have shut down my cyber cafe," came the reply.

"What? You have been running a cyber cafe all these years and that too you have shut it down," I asked angrily. "What a waste of a talent??"

"Man here at Imphal computers are either used for cyber cafes or to make wedding invitations," came a sarcastic reply.

"Fine but why did you have to shut down your cyber cafe?"

"It is simple, the second week of opening of my cafe, two others came up in the neighbourhood and it spread like cholera. By the second year of my cafe operation there are at least 60 to 100 or more cyber cafes in and around Imphal only. Some started charging even Rs 5 for an hour," he said

"YOU TELL ME HOW AM I EXPECTED TO SURVIVE WHEN HALF THE TIME THERE IS POWER CUT AND HALF THE TIME THE PHONE LINE IS CUT BY EITHER PHED OR PWD WHILE DIGGING UP THE ROAD and the bloody customers just run away to the cheapest cafe?" Many other cafes also suffered similar fate.

I could sense he was pretty incensed on a Sunday morning. Hoping to calm him down I asked, so what have you done to your computers?

Nothing, my son uses one of them to play games and the rest I have sent to my wife's place as I don't have that much space at home....

Crazy, I felt. For someone who was amongst the best student in REC, having to listen to parents' desire to see him working at home, he is now left in the lurch....

"So man what have you decided to do?" I asked.

"Well thinking of running an NGO," he said adding these days it has become a very profitable business.

Every second house has an NGO, he said. "I am thinking of setting up one claiming to work on HIV/AIDS as everybody does, with focus on infected children," he sounded pretty confident.

But what about experience and permission to run such a social organisation?

"Hulloh, mangra yonbi eney Ekasini faoba houjik achouba NGO gi makok oirey. Bondhu Birbal, paisa su yamna paikhre. Yen loiba tokladana car thoukhre midi!!"

The picture seemed to be clearer.

"But what about 'competition', the very word that killed your cyber cafe?" I asked

"Don't worry. No Unity in Downfall here. As long as there is HIV/AIDS there is going to be aids to the NGOs," he sounded upbeat.

So from failed software engineer to a social entrepreneur-- may you succeed dear old pal!!