Lockdown had badly affected my restaurant business. Instead of protecting the remaining cash, I started trading because markets seemed like the only place where money was moving. Early profits gave me hope, and I began using business working capital for options.
Within months, I had lost around ₹35 lakh. The restaurant later closed because I no longer had enough cash to restart properly. For a long time, I blamed the pandemic, but deep down I knew the business might have survived if I had not gambled away its remaining oxygen.