March 25, 1990 – Prime Minister's Digital Innovation Lab, New Delhi
Aryan sat at the newly created Data Innovation Wing beneath the PMO — a secretive yet critical unit housing a cluster of technocrats, programmers, logistics officers, and data scientists.
On the smartboard in front of him were three words underlined in red:
VillageCode Project
He looked at the senior GIS officer, a bespectacled woman named Dr. Vaidehi Rao, who was sketching a grid-based heatmap of India.
"So," Aryan said, "how many villages in total?"
"Around six hundred and fifty thousand," Vaidehi replied without flinching. "But that's the tip. We don't know what lives inside most of them. Demographics, economic traits, dialect clusters, health vulnerabilities… right now, India is largely a blind map."
Aryan paced. Then stopped.
"So let's fix that. Let's give every village an identity. A six-digit neural code."
He walked up to the smartboard and drew a box:
yaml
Copy
EditCode: 040216 State: Odisha District: Cuttack Block: Narsinghpur Village Serial: 016
"I want this code linked to a live national database: health, employment, literacy, land use, water, and telecom connectivity. The moment a village changes, the code should reflect it."
Dr. Vaidehi hesitated. "That'll take years to build."
Aryan just stared. Then said calmly:
"You have three months to launch Phase 1."
The room went silent.
Then Vaidehi, smiling faintly, said, "You really don't do 'impossible,' do you?"
"No," Aryan replied. "I just reroute the difficulty."
April 1, 1990 – Address to the Planning Commission
Aryan stood in front of India's top administrative and economic planners. Many were skeptical. Some hostile.
"We've spent decades guessing. Planning based on old census data. Forecasting with projections, not precision."
"That ends today."
He unveiled the first mockup of VillageCode: India's Neural Map.
The six-digit code would become India's new layer of governance — intelligent, trackable, responsive.
Linked with:
BharatLink (infrastructure)
DeshNet (communications grid)
AgriNova (smart agriculture)
SwasthyaSetu (public health)
EduReach (school & adult literacy mapping)
IndustryWings (rural industrial zone interface)
Opposition leaders whispered among themselves. One shouted:
"This sounds like a surveillance state!"
Aryan responded, calm but firm:
"No. It's a service state. For the first time, India will know its own heartbeat — not every five years. Every five minutes."
April 7, 1990 – Surat District, Gujarat
Pilot testing began. The first ten villages were coded and mapped. With real-time information, Aryan's team spotted patterns no one had seen before:
Malaria hotspots aligned perfectly with water stagnation maps.
Women's literacy rates spiked in villages near informal training centers.
Small cooperative businesses in dairy and textile flourished where roads and cold storage hubs met.
The data turned into decisions.
And the decisions became results.
April 18, 1990 – National Rollout
Aryan appeared live on Doordarshan.
"To every Sarpanch, every district officer, and every young Indian dreaming of doing something meaningful for their home—your time is now."
"Every village will soon have a code. And with that code, your village becomes visible—not to Delhi, not to files, but to itself."
"From now on, the center will not wait for complaints. We will detect suffering, predict shortage, and act before collapse."
"We are not building a welfare state. We are building an aware state."
Across India, engineers, teachers, and volunteers joined the VillageCode Corps — a newly launched civil tech force.
April 30, 1990 – Internal System Notification
[Ding! Achievement Unlocked: Digital Roots]"For reimagining rural governance through real-time precision tracking."
Reward: Satellite Imaging API + Micro-Drone Swarm Blueprint (Level 1)Unlocked in: UAV Research FacilityTemporary Storage: 10 Days Remaining
Aryan muttered, "System, remind me in five days. I'm not losing this again."
[Ding! Noted.]
Final Scene – Aryan's Vision Board
On his board were the words:
"Bharat is no longer a geography. It is now a network."
He wrote below:
"Where the smallest village pulses like a living cell. No longer forgotten. No longer invisible."
He circled it.
Then underlined it.
Twice.