MANISH VIJ, 24 THEN: In December 2000 started Kabaribazaar.com for second-hand goods. NOW: Web strategist in mega portal Rediff.com

Manish Vij cannot forget the balmy autumn of October 1999. Just 22, he was doing his management studies-and he was the CEO of his own company. kabaribaazar.com was born from the hostel of International Institute of Public Affairs in Indore. A friend doing his MCA at the same institute was the CTO. In January 2000 he moved to his office premises: his uncle's godown in Gautamnagar, Delhi. With eight computers, one laptop, a printer and 11 charged-up youngsters stuffed into the crummy office, their ''business'' was under way. The camaraderie was great, everyone attended all meetings: technical, creative, or business. They worked 24x7 and Manish mostly lived in his jeans, T-shirt and office. It was just that kind of an era.

Today, Vij, a mature 24, lands up at his office at 9.30 every day. He straightens his tie, attends meetings and confabulates with his boss Vinod Chaudhary. Then he is off working the streets as he meets clients. Vij is selling an e-mail package to corporate clients. He advises, services, and helps his clients on media campaigns for his company-that's the giant portal rediff.com. He laughs as he recalls the day met his present boss, Ajit Balakrishnan, when they were both CEOs. ''Now he doesn't even know I work for him,'' Vij says with a laugh.

Vij is one of the several irreverent poster boys and girls from those heady days. He has come down to earth from those clouds of invincibility and learned to walk on solid business ground, to talk the corporate talk, and get on with life after the dotbomb. But Vij was just a student, you might say. Do remember then that for every Vij, there was a Piyush Gupta, (chief of Citibank Indonesia), Sunil Lulla (Director, Marketing of Liquor Major UDV), and Jayesh Vaidya, (Director, Marketing of Discovery). They and many others chucked up bright careers for the chance to be masters of their own destinies. BT tracked down some of the poster boys and girls from an almost forgotten era and found they are surviving the after-life well, enriching the companies they now work for and, stubbornly, keeping their faith.

PRITHVI GIL 24 THEN: In Feb 2000 started Pingdelhi.com with two other friends. NOW: Studying for an MBA, also running a DVD library

Easing Into Real Life

Hema Parameshwaran, 28, an IIM-C graduate and formerly CEO of buyasone.com likes her job as Vice President with Cross-Domain, a Business Process Outsourcing company. Santoshi Nadkarni, 28, formerly CEO of footforward.com, is using her background as a McKinsey consultant to push her prospects at grandaddy Infosys. Some like Prithvi Gill, 24, formerly CEO of pingdelhi.com and netgaddi.com, have gone back to studies and, of course, some like Manish have joined surviving dotcoms.

"They have enhanced their experience and this is viewed positively by the industry, especially the experience of running the general management of a whole concern," says Sunit Mehra, senior partner at Horton Consulting, a headhunting firm. As every successful entrepreneur worth his rupee will tell you, failure is learning experience, always. "I believe that any entrepreneurial experience is great,'' says Balakrishnan. Legendary venture capitalist Kanwal Rekhi freely declares that he never finances anyone who doesn't have a failure under his or her belt.

But while America's freewheeling corporate culture thought nothing of the dotbombers, failure of any sort in India is still a matter of shame. That was evident when a host of former dotcom CEOs refused to speak to BT about their experiences. ''It has been a learning, humbling, and hard experience emotionally and financially,'' is all one said.

Those who imbibed the lessons of failure seem to be those whose dreams refuse to stay down. As he works at his day job, Vij has been working on integrating his site with a new telecom platform. All he will reveal is that it will be ''mindblowing''.

Another former CEO of a Chennai-based career site, works now for a net consulting company and keeps his site alive. "I am waiting for the Internet market to mature and become more conducive before going gung-ho again," he says. He's not joking. He's even saving for better times. Gill is doing management school and runs a small DVD-rental business, a remnant of netgaddi.com, a b2c site. His one-time partners, Gobind Akoi and Arjun Kochhar, are variously involved with family businesses, waiting for their chance to break free again. They wait and they learn. Vij says he's now honing his selling skills at Rediff, something he was lacking at Kabaribazaar.

HEMA PARAMESWARAN, 24 THEN: Started Buyasone.com--a deals and bargains site on May 5, 2000. NOW: Vice President, Cross-Domain

Living And Learning

In short stints of one year and some months all of them lived through an entire business cycle of boom till doom. Before the boom, most were greenhorns or had experience in particular functions like marketing. It taught them valuable skills and lessons on life. Parameshwaran, the IIM-C grad who started Buyasone had done stints in HLL and LG Soft, before she set out on her own. Buyasone.com gave her first experience of consumer marketing. ''It also brought a lot of can-do attitude, but with it a lesson that entrepreneurship is a lot more difficult than it looks,'' she says. Many with fancy degrees learned that when it comes to selling on the field, the rookie with no degrees is equally effective.

They learned that small transaction margins required large volumes. They learned that there was a vast difference between being a team leader and the actual head of the business. They learned VCs were not gods. And they learned that one, great overriding lesson: the need to make money, because every little thing has to be paid for, starting with the electricity bill. ''We were thinking like a dotcom about what to do next, not about earning money,'' says Gill candidly. ''People started waiting for contests, promotions and there was no relation between the costs and the fulfilment,'' says Parameshwaran. ''It was a humbling and a rich experience in terms of people and finances.''

Getting a job was easy for some, tough for others. People were wary of hiring someone who had done so much in so little time. Some employers thought they would expect lofty positions and salaries. ''Most of them have joined at the same positions in brick-and-mortar companies as their peers; the aberration has been corrected.'' says Ajit Isaac, CEO of People One Consulting and himself an ex-dotcommer. Parmeshwaran had nearly seven job offers, but before CrossDomain, nothing that enthused her after the life of the lone ranger. Vij says he got his job because of his dotcom contacts. Santoshi sold out to rediff.com, remained there for some time, then moved on.

Regrets? Not one. No exceptions. ''On second thoughts,'' muses Vij, ''I should have sold out when a US fund offered a million dollars for the website.'' Why didn't he sell out? He was hanging on for a million more.