(August 1–August 20, 2015)
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I. Arrival in Gujarat
The Kutch plains stretched wide under the August sun. The monsoon had only half-kept its promise here—occasional showers had left dark stains on the parched soil, but the air still carried dust, and the horizon shimmered with heat.
On the outskirts of Mundra, where salt fields met barren ground, a convoy of trucks rolled in. They carried steel beams, crates the size of shipping containers, and polished machines wrapped in tarpaulin. Local villagers stood at the roadside, shading their eyes with their dupattas, watching the strange parade pass.
The lead truck bore the freshly painted insignia:
Bharat InfraWorks Pvt Ltd.
Few in the village had heard the name, but the sheer scale of activity left no doubt: something large was being built here.
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II. The Groundbreaking
On August 3rd, under a pale dawn sky, construction began.
The site was vast—nearly two hundred acres fenced off overnight by security guards in crisp uniforms. Surveyors marched across the terrain with laser levels and digital tablets, marking foundations. Excavators roared to life, scooping away the topsoil.
By noon, a ceremonial groundbreaking was staged. Arjun Rao himself was present, dressed not in a suit this time but in a plain white kurta-pajama, blending with the cultural expectations of Gujarat. He pressed a button on a golden control box, and the first pile driver hammered into the earth.
Applause rose from the gathered local officials and contractors.
But the villagers who watched from behind the fence noticed something odd: the pile driver was unlike any they had seen. Sleek, noiseless except for a low electric hum, it drove steel into the soil faster than traditional diesel machines.
One man whispered to another, "This machine… it moves like it already knows where the earth will give way."
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III. The Local Workers
Among the hundreds hired to work at the site were groups of laborers from nearby towns—Rajkot, Bhuj, even a few from Rajasthan who had followed rumors of good pay.
One of them was Ramesh Chauhan, a wiry man of thirty-eight with calloused hands from a lifetime of bricklaying. He had never seen such an operation before.
On his first day, he was given a hard hat, gloves, and led into a hangar-like tent where imported tools were being unpacked. But these were not like the hammers and spanners he knew.
Some tools had grips that molded themselves to the hand. Others emitted a soft blue glow when switched on, drilling through iron beams without sparks.
Ramesh stared, wide-eyed.
"Bhai," he whispered to his fellow worker, "these don't look like Indian tools. Even foreign ones don't look like this. Where did they come from?"
The supervisor barked at them in English-accented Hindi to keep moving.
Ramesh obeyed, but unease settled in his chest.
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IV. The Assembly Vision
The official blueprint called the project a "Heavy Equipment Assembly Facility." In truth, its purpose was far stranger: to build and maintain the tunnel boring machines that would reshape the very geography of India.
The central structure would be a hangar capable of housing machines over a hundred meters long. Side workshops would handle alloy treatment, precision calibration, and electronics integration.
But what truly unsettled those who glimpsed inside was the cleanliness.
Unlike typical Indian factories—dusty, noisy, chaotic—this place seemed almost sterile. Workers had to wear white coveralls. Air vents hummed, filtering every speck of dust. Even the smell was unusual: not grease or oil, but a faint metallic tang, like ozone after lightning.
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V. Side POV – Ramesh's Notebook
That night, sitting in his one-room rented shack, Ramesh borrowed his son's school notebook and scribbled in broken Hindi:
August 5 – Today I saw a wrench that bent itself to the nut without my turning it. It moved like water, fitting every shape. The supervisor said it is "adaptive torque." I do not understand. How can steel flow like water?
I asked where it is made. They laughed and said "Bharat InfraWorks designs everything." But I have worked construction for twenty years. I know machines. These are not made here. Not even in America. They look like they fell from the sky.
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VI. The Political Theater
By August 10th, the Gujarat Chief Minister arrived for a press visit. Cameras flashed as he and Arjun Rao shook hands in front of half-completed hangars.
"The future of India's infrastructure begins here!" the Chief Minister declared. "This factory will make Gujarat the manufacturing hub of Asia."
Reporters scribbled headlines. But none noticed that behind the dignitaries, the machines assembling steel girders worked without operators, their arms guided by invisible patterns.
Only the workers whispered about it later, over cups of sweet tea.
"Those machines don't need drivers," one said. "They see on their own. Like they have eyes."
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VII. Arjun Rao's Precision
Throughout, Arjun Rao remained the same—calm, precise, never sweating under the heat. He walked the site daily, inspecting welds, foundations, machine lines. Every instruction he gave seemed impossibly detailed, as if he already knew the measurements by heart.
To the senior engineers, his knowledge was awe-inspiring. To the workers, it was unnerving.
Ramesh muttered to a friend one evening, "Bosses don't usually know which bolt goes where. But this Rao-saab, he points to a box of bolts and says, 'Size 14.3, 92 pieces missing.' And when they count—exactly 92 missing! How can he know?"
His friend shrugged nervously. "Maybe some people are born different."
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VIII. Shadows of Suspicion
Not everyone was impressed. A local journalist, assigned to cover the construction, noted the strange secrecy around supply shipments. Many crates arrived without customs documentation. Some were unloaded only at night, under strict guard.
When he tried to photograph one, his camera malfunctioned, the battery draining instantly.
He wrote in his notes: Either these are military shipments… or something much stranger.
But his editor never published the story.
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IX. Worker's Diary, August 15th
Independence Day today. They gave us a holiday lunch, sweets, even raised the tricolor on the half-built factory. Arjun Rao stood in front of it, hand on heart, looking almost like a freedom fighter reborn. The men cheered. I cheered too.
But later, when the flag fluttered in the hot wind, I saw him looking at it in a way I cannot explain. Not pride, not joy… but something like calculation. As if he was asking himself: how does this symbol fit into my design?
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X. The First Frame
By August 20th, the skeleton of the hangar rose against the sky, its steel ribs gleaming in the sun. Cranes swung like skeletal arms, lifting prefabricated trusses into place.
The facility, though incomplete, already looked alien compared to any other factory in India. Clean lines, symmetrical, precise—as if drafted by something that hated imperfection.
The villagers who walked past the gates in the evening shook their heads.
"This is not a factory," one old man muttered. "This is a temple to machines."
And somewhere deep inside, Ramesh Chauhan's unease hardened into certainty: whatever was being built here was far beyond human understanding.