The Man Who Said He Was Someone

It was sometime in 2021, in Dharamshala—the kind of year when the world had quietly folded into itself. COVID had shut everything down, but not entirely. Some places still breathed, faintly, like embers refusing to die.

Up in Dharamkot, not far from a Hyatt Regency Dharamshala, there was a café. It wasn’t remarkable in the usual sense, but it carried a strange gravity. People drifted there—tourists who stayed too long, locals who didn’t quite belong anywhere else, and those in between.

And then there was him.

A tall, bearded man with an air that suggested authority—something about the way he stood, or the way he spoke, made people assume he mattered. That he had rank. Influence. Power.

He called himself Tarique.

He said he was a co-founder of Spotify.

Which, of course, was not true. Anyone could look it up in seconds. But that didn’t seem to matter—not to him, and strangely, not always to others either.

His story shifted depending on the day.

Sometimes his mother was Persian, his father Indian.
Other times, she was Kashmiri.

He claimed to have studied at places like Harvard University, University of Oxford, or University of Cambridge—always spoken with just enough confidence to make you hesitate before doubting him.

No one really knew where he came from. Or how he ended up there.

But he had built something.

The café itself was part performance, part illusion. People around him recited a story—of a man arriving in a suit with a million dollars, discovering this quiet corner of the mountains, and deciding to stay. To build. To contribute. To create something meaningful.

It sounded like a myth he wanted people to believe.
Or maybe one he had started believing himself.

He talked about ideas constantly—big ones. Vague ones. The kind that made you feel like something important was about to happen, even if you couldn’t quite explain what.

And then there were the people.

I used to sit in a corner, mostly silent. I wasn’t the kind who walked into groups easily. I would come alone, drink my tea, observe, and leave.

There was always a mix—people talking, smoking, laughing, forming connections that seemed both intense and temporary. It was new to me. Being stuck in a tourist town during a pandemic, surrounded by strangers who seemed to be living differently, thinking differently—it had a certain pull.

For days, I stayed on the edge of it.

Until one day, he walked up to me.

He introduced himself as Tarique.

With him was a woman—a foreigner, white, the kind you often saw in places like this. They said they were partners. A couple. That they were building this place together. She had designed it, he said. He had made it happen.

There was something about the way they spoke—subtle, but noticeable. Like they were trying to draw me in. Not aggressively. Just enough to make me curious.

And I was.

Over the next few days, I started talking to them more. Slowly at first. I shared things about myself—where I came from, who I was.

One day, I brought my flute.

I played for them.

That’s how it began.