When Qiao Ge regained consciousness, he discovered that he had been reborn as a sixteen-year-old boy named Qiao Ge Gupta, in a middle-class family in Bombay in 1986.
He could have chosen to lie flat. His family had a decent income, and he attended an expensive private international high school.
But his father had just gone bankrupt, owing the bank a million in loans. They had gone from millionaires to a million in debt.
To keep their home and avoid losing everything and ending up in the slums, Qiao Ge first had to pay off the million-dollar debt within a month.
In 1991, India's version of reform and opening up began, allowing private companies to enter industries previously controlled by the state, such as energy, power, and mining.
From then on, India's major private monopolies expanded rapidly, affecting every aspect of the lives of its people.
He hadn't managed to catch China's reform and opening up in his previous life, but at least he had caught India's. Qiao Ge figured he should accumulate as much capital as possible before 1991, so he could reap greater rewards once the reforms began.
