Chapter 18: The Race to Build a Kingdom
Delhi — March 3, 2009 — 6:00 AM
A cold morning breeze crept through the cracked windows of Shiva's bedroom.
But inside, Shiva was burning with ideas.
His mind buzzed:
Tournament rules
Online scoreboards
Leaderboard prizes
Registration forms
How hard could it be? he thought.
Organizing a tournament sounded simple when Kunal suggested it.
Now, Shiva realized, it was a whole different beast.
Building a game was one thing.
Building an event was another.
---
7:00 AM – Brainstorming Begins
Shiva scribbled furiously in his old tattered notebook:
> "Rickshaw Rush Championship — March 25, 2009
RULES:
Players download official version (Beta 1.5)
Play in 'Championship Mode'
Highest score wins
Proof: Submit a screenshot of score screen
Bonus points for funniest crashes!"
Simple enough.
But then the tough questions crept in:
How to prevent cheating?
How to manage entries?
How to check real players from fakers?
What to give the winners?
The real battle wasn't inside the game.
It was outside.
In trust.
---
8:00 AM – The Money Problem
Shiva stared at his bank account.
Balance: ₹123.50
Not enough to even buy a cheap T-shirt prize.
He sighed.
No budget.
No sponsors.
No merchandise.
Just dreams... and an army of students playing on patched-together phones.
But then, an idea sparked.
What if the real prize wasn't money?
What if it was fame?
---
9:00 AM – The Leaderboard Plan
He sketched a new plan:
> "**Top 10 Winners =
Hall of Fame on Rickshaw Rush Website!
Exclusive Titles inside Game:
Rickshaw King
Crash Master
Delhi Drift Legend**"
People craved recognition more than cheap prizes.
Their names, immortalized forever inside the game.
Bragging rights.
That was the real currency.
And he would give it to them.
---
10:00 AM – Building the Digital Backbone
Now came the technical part.
How to host a simple leaderboard?
Shiva googled frantically:
"How to make a free leaderboard website"
"Free PHP hosting India"
"Easy database for games"
Options were ugly:
Slow free servers
Sketchy ad-filled sites
Complicated coding guides
But after two hours of painful digging, he found it:
000webhost.com — a free hosting platform.
Not fancy.
Not fast.
But free.
And that was enough.
---
12:00 PM – Coding in Chaos
Armed with weak hosting and sheer willpower, Shiva built:
A basic website: rickshawrushchampionship.site90.com
A simple PHP script to accept score submissions
A MySQL database to store names, emails, and scores
A public leaderboard page (updated manually every evening)
It was clunky.
It was ugly.
It was glorious.
By lunchtime, he had something real.
---
2:00 PM – Meeting with Kunal
Over a chaotic Skype call (with constant disconnections), Shiva and Kunal fine-tuned the plan:
> "March 10: Announce Championship on Facebook, Orkut, YouTube
March 15: Launch Beta 1.5 + Tournament Mode
March 25: Deadline for scores
March 30: Winners revealed, fame unleashed"
Kunal was hyped beyond belief.
"We'll get Pune, Mumbai, Delhi — bro, even Bangalore dudes will join!" he shouted, voice crackling. "It'll be lit!"
Shiva laughed.
Maybe it really would be.
---
5:00 PM – Marketing Blitz Begins
That evening, Shiva unleashed a content storm:
New poster on Facebook:
> "Are YOU the Rickshaw King of India?
Join the Rickshaw Rush Championship — Fame Awaits!"
YouTube teaser: 30-second gameplay with dramatic music.
Orkut invites blasted out to every gaming community.
And his favorite touch:
A meme posted everywhere:
> "Study for exams?
NO.
Crash rickshaws and WIN GLORY.
#RickshawRushChampionship"
It blew up instantly.
Beta testers reposted it.
Friends tagged friends.
Within two hours, Shiva had 130 new Facebook likes.
---
8:00 PM – Reality Check
Rohit called in a panic.
"Bro, what if cheaters fake screenshots?"
Good question.
Shiva had thought of it.
That's why in Championship Mode,
after each game over,
a special code appeared at the bottom of the score screen.
Example:
> "CODE: RR2029X"
This way, faking screenshots would be harder.
Only real Championship Mode players could see real codes.
Genius in its simplicity.
---
9:00 PM – Alone, but Not Alone
After dinner, Shiva sat by his window, gazing at the Delhi night.
Somewhere out there,
kids were playing Rickshaw Rush.
Laughing.
Competing.
Dreaming.
And he had made that happen.
A teenager, in a cramped room,
with no investors, no mentors, no guidance...
just a second chance at life,
and a hard drive full of future memories.
He smiled to himself.
He was no longer just Shiva.
He was building a kingdom.
One crash, one player, one dream at a time.
---
[End of Chapter 18]