The Two Shutters

In a small town in Jabalpur, two friends, Arjun and Rakesh, grew up on the same street.

Arjun’s father ran a small grocery shop. Every morning at 7 AM sharp, the metal shutter would roll up with a loud rattle. By 10 PM, when the shutter finally came down, his father’s feet would ache, his back would hurt, and a notebook full of credit entries would stare back at him.

Rakesh’s father, on the other hand, worked in a nearby city. Nobody clearly understood what he did. Some said he “played in the stock market,” others said he “sat at home and made money from his laptop.” All they knew was that he didn’t have a shop, didn’t stock goods, and didn’t shout prices from behind a counter.

As they grew up, both boys absorbed what they saw.

The Shop Life

One summer, Arjun’s father fell sick and Arjun had to manage the shop.

He woke up at 6 AM, swept the floor, arranged the biscuits, chips, and soaps, checked the milk packets, and counted change for the cash box. By 7, the first customer had arrived. By afternoon, he had repeated the same conversation a hundred times:

“Bhaiya, thoda udhaar likh dena.”
“Chhutte nahi hai?”
“Kal de denge paise.”

He realized a few things very quickly:

• He had to be physically present, all day, every day.
• Sales were limited to the people walking in that street.
• Profits were small because of rent, electricity, stock, and expired items.
• Even on bad days, the costs did not stop.

When there was a festival, he couldn’t go out with friends. The shop was busiest. When there was rain, fewer customers came, but he still sat there, staring at the wet road.

The shutter controlled his life.

The Trading Screen

Meanwhile, Rakesh went to college, discovered charts, and got hooked on the markets.

One day, he invited Arjun to his room.

On the table was a simple laptop, a notepad, and a cup of tea.

“No shutter?” Arjun joked.
“This is my shutter,” Rakesh smiled, pointing at the laptop. “Market khul gaya.”

On the screen, colorful candles moved up and down. Prices changed every second.

Rakesh explained:

• He could buy and sell shares from anywhere: home, café, or while traveling.
• His “customers” weren’t just people on one street, but the entire market—millions of participants.
• He didn’t need stock in a godown; his inventory was digital: shares, options, futures.
• His main investments were knowledge, strategy, and discipline, not rent and electricity.

But he also showed the risks:

• Prices could crash suddenly.
• Emotional decisions could destroy capital faster than a bad business month.
• Without a plan, trading was more dangerous than any shop loss.

The difference was clear: in a shop, risk was slow and visible—unsold goods, rising costs. In trading, risk was fast and invisible—bad decisions, no stop loss, overtrading.

The Turning Point

One evening, the town announced a new flyover plan. The main road in front of Arjun’s shop would be diverted. Fewer people would walk past his shutter. Business dipped. His father worried.

“Rent the same. Bijli the same. Customers kum,” his father sighed. “What to do?”

Around the same time, Rakesh was studying how infrastructure projects affect nearby real estate and certain companies. He had bought a stock related to construction when news first broke. The price had already climbed.

Arjun noticed something strange:
The same news that threatened his shop had helped Rakesh’s portfolio.

For the first time, Arjun saw the core difference:

• A shop reacts to news after it hits his street.
• A trader positions himself to benefit from the news before it hits the street.

Why Trading Felt Better to Arjun

Over months, Arjun started learning trading from Rakesh after closing the shop.

He didn’t romanticize it. He knew:

• Trading was not easy money.
• Most people lose when they treat it like gambling.
• It needed education, risk management, and emotional control.

But he also discovered clear advantages over the shop:

• Time flexibility: After some experience, he could trade for selected hours, not 15 hours a day.
• Scalability: In the shop, to double income, he needed more space, more stock, more staff. In trading, a better strategy and more capital could scale without physically expanding.
• Location freedom: The market was on his phone and laptop. No more being tied to one street.
• Lower fixed costs: No rent, no inventory that expires, no fear of theft or damage. His main cost was his own ignorance, which he could reduce by learning.
• Global reach: He could participate in large companies, sectors, and even global trends, instead of just selling items in a 2 km radius.

The biggest change was mental: he was no longer waiting for customers. He was going out into the market with a plan.

The Two Futures

Years later, both shutters still existed.

Arjun’s father still ran the shop, but now Arjun used its small backroom as his trading office. The front shutter opened for customers; the back “shutter” opened to the markets.

On some days, the shop did better. On some days, the trades did better.

But over time, as Arjun’s skill grew, his trading income crossed the shop’s profits. He didn’t shut the shop immediately; it still gave stability and a sense of identity to his family. But he knew something clearly in his heart:

If he had to choose his own path, he would choose trading over running a traditional shop.

He wanted:

• A business not limited by geography.
• A life not controlled by a metal shutter.
• Growth limited only by his knowledge and discipline, not by shop size.

One evening, as he exited a profitable trade and watched the candles freeze after market close, Arjun whispered to himself, “The old world runs on physical shutters. The new world runs on digital ones. I choose the screen.”

And in that quiet room, with no customers and no noise, he realized why, for him, trading was better than running a store.