West Bengal, India – 1958–1965
The village was called Parnauli, and it smelled of earth and mustard oil, monsoon clay and burning cow dung. Life here was patient, almost bored of itself. Bullock carts ruled the road. Lanterns flickered at night. No television, no calculators, no steel chairs—just woven charpoys and transistor radios whispering cricket scores and Nehru speeches through the evenings.
Aryan was the only one who wasn't patient.
His first six months as a baby were torture.
He understood every conversation in the room, but could say nothing back. His mother—a tough, sweet woman named Snigdha—thought he was unusually calm for an infant. The village called him "Saavdhaan Bachcha"—the cautious baby—because he rarely cried, rarely fussed, and always seemed...watchful.
Only Aryan knew why. His mind was still 27 years old.
He studied everything—milk distribution, family debts, village meetings, local caste politics. When his uncle beat his wife, Aryan memorized how his father justified it. When the schoolmaster drank in the afternoons and came late to class, Aryan noted every excuse. When a neighbor sold his farmland to the zamindar for half its value, Aryan remembered every clause of the handshake.
His first lesson from rebirth wasn't just about the economy.
It was this: "India is broken in invisible ways."
And if he was to fix it... he had to start now.
By Age 6, Aryan was already taking apart broken radios.
Not with clumsy curiosity—but surgical purpose. He recreated schematics in notebooks. He memorized transistor configurations from American magazines passed around by traveling engineers. His father, Omkar, didn't understand him, but he didn't stop him either.
"Let him do his madness," Omkar would say, chewing paan. "He'll burn one wire and learn what real life is."
Snigdha, on the other hand, had only one rule: "You can take apart anything you want—but you will not take apart my kitchen radio."
Aryan obeyed. That radio kept him connected to the outside world. To Nehru. To Soviet space programs. To China's rapid reforms. To Kennedy's speeches. He was building a political map in his head by the time most kids were still learning subtraction.
At Age 10, something strange happened.
The System returned.
He was lying on his cot, staring at a cracked ceiling when the now-familiar hum returned.
[Congratulations, User.][Cognitive Integration 90% complete. System stability at 98.7%.][Tutorial Phase Ending.][Would you like to unlock the System Dashboard?]
Aryan whispered yes inside his mind.
And then, his consciousness was flooded with a neon grid—blue, orange, and violet, humming with potential. Floating panels. Stat categories. Locked tasks. Mission logs.
He could now "see" his journey as a tree of choices. Missions, branching timelines, probable success rates. It wasn't full control—but it was enough.
His first actionable ability?
[Scan Node – Situation Awareness Tool]Effect: Analyzes socio-political, economic conditions of your immediate surroundings.
He tested it on his school.
The result made his blood freeze.
"Parnauli Government School: 64% teacher absenteeism; 38% students permanently dropped out before Class 5; 12% girls attending classes; 0% access to science equipment."
It was worse than he imagined.
But it made one thing clear: Fixing India wasn't going to begin in Delhi. It had to start in places like this.
1966 – Kolkata
At 18, Aryan used the savings from his father's tiny farm to enter Presidency College in Kolkata. It wasn't easy. His marks were exceptional, but his caste wasn't. His English was better than some professors', but he was still dismissed as "a village boy with delusions."
He didn't care.
Kolkata was a battlefield. Trade unions. Communist rallies. Police violence. Textile strikes. Naxalite whispers spreading. Power outages were routine. But amidst all this, Aryan found a rhythm. He started writing columns under a pseudonym—"The Second Republic."
These essays critiqued India's post-independence governance. Not just Nehruvian socialism, but the layers of red tape, dynastic favoritism, and fear of private innovation. His column gained underground fame in student circles.
And it earned him enemies.
One night in 1969, a group of radical student leaders tried to corner him in a hostel alley.
"You talk like you're better than the country," one of them sneered, holding a rusted blade.
"No," Aryan said calmly, "I talk like I believe the country can be better than this."
They didn't stab him—but they remembered him.
So did the professor who'd overheard the exchange, and recommended Aryan for a national youth forum in Delhi.
1971 – The National Youth Thinkers Conference
It was here that Aryan met the real machinery of Indian politics: the bloated ministries, the flailing opposition, the hungry journalists, the bored bureaucrats. And through it all, he realized something deeper.
"India isn't corrupt because of bad people. It's corrupt because the system has no memory, no accountability, no urgency."
That's when he realized: he wouldn't write the revolution. He would become the revolution.
And so, at 21, Aryan Sen Gupta made his choice.
He would join politics. Not to serve a party.
But to serve a system that could one day replace them all.
And from the hidden corner of his System Dashboard, a new quest unlocked:
[Main Mission Updated: Become Prime Minister of India by 1990.][Time Remaining: 19 years, 4 months.]