The first thing that hit him was the smell. It was a thick, living thing in the air—a mix of frying samosas, exhaust from old Ambassador cars, the heady scent of marigolds from a nearby temple, and the ever-present underlying note of hot, damp concrete. It was a smell he hadn't breathed in thirty-five years. A smell he'd forgotten could even exist.
Harsh's eyes snapped open.
He was staring at a ceiling fan, its blades caked with a fuzzy layer of dust, wobbling in a lazy, hypnotic circle. The rhythmic thump-whoosh, thump-whoosh was the only clean sound in a symphony of chaos filtering through the window. The blare of horns, the sputter of two-stroke engines, the distant cry of a kala-khatta vendor.
This wasn't his quiet, air-conditioned apartment. This was…
Home.
The thought was a cold fist around his heart. He pushed himself up, the thin mattress beneath him crackling with old cotton. His body felt… light. The familiar ache in his knees from years of sitting at a desk was gone. He looked at his hands. Smooth. Unlined. The hands of a boy.
"No," he breathed, the word lost in the din from the street. "This is a dream. A stress dream."
He swung his legs off the bed, his feet meeting the cool, rough texture of the red oxide floor. He knew this floor. He'd spent his childhood tracing its cracks. He stumbled to the window, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs, and pushed aside the stiff, nylon curtain.
The sight stole the air from his lungs.
Mumbai,Bhuleshwar. The narrow street below was a clogged artery of life. Cycle rickshaws weaved through crowds, their bells ringing. Women in bright saris bargained fiercely with vendors over pyramids of oranges and coconuts. A line of black-and-yellow Premier Padmini cabs sat bumper-to-bumper, their drivers leaning on horns with a sense of grim duty.
And everywhere, the signs. Faded, hand-painted Hindi script advertising "Lamington Radio" and "Chor Bazaar Specialists."
His eyes fell on a stack of newspapers tied to a bicycle rack. The headline of the Mid-Day was unmistakable: "Budget Session Begins: PM Vows to Steady Economy." The date beside it screamed at him.
Jan 16, 1990.
A wave of nausea washed over him. He staggered back from the window, collapsing onto the edge of the bed. His fingers brushed against something on the rickety nightstand.
A stack of rupee notes. Not the Gandhi notes he was used to, but the old ones. The ones with the proud Ashoka Lions. A few fives, a ten. And on top, a single, crisp hundred-rupee note.
He picked it up. The paper felt substantial, important. In his past life, this was the tip he'd leave for a coffee. Here, it was a fortune. It was his father's half-day's wages. It was a week's groceries for this entire household.
It was a seed. And he was the only man alive who knew what forests could grow from it.
The bedroom door creaked open. His mother stood there, her sari neatly in place, her expression a familiar tapestry of love and worry.
"Harsh? How many times do I have to call you? Breakfast is cold already!"she said, her voice the same melodic scold he remembered. How many times do I have to call you? Your breakfast is getting cold!
He blinked, his fist closing tightly around the hundred-rupee note. "Sorry, Ma. Just… woke up."
She gave him a look that could see right through the walls of time. "Too much staring at walls. Your Papa spoke to Mr. Iyer in the Life Insurance office. A clerk's position might be open. A sarkari naukri, beta. Steady. Safe."
Steady. Safe. The words were the bars of a cage his spirit had rebelled against in his first life. He'd taken that clerk job. He'd hated every minute of it for forty years.
He forced a smile, the expression feeling foreign on his young face. "That's… great, Ma. I'll definitely think about it."
He followed her out, the note burning a hole in his palm. He would think about it. He would think about how to avoid it forever.
---
The Mumbai heat wrapped around him like a wet blanket the moment he stepped onto the street. He moved through the chaotic, familiar lanes of Bhuleshwar on autopilot, his senses drowning in a past he'd fought to forget.
And then he heard it. The sound that shut out everything else.
Tsssss-zzzt-tap-tap-tap.
The sizzle of a soldering iron. The sharp tap of a component being settled into place.
He turned the corner onto Kika Street, and there it was. The electronics repair market. A dozen men sat cross-legged on gunny sacks, surrounded by the eviscerated corpses of radios, tape decks, and calculators. Sparks flew like tiny stars in the dim, crowded space.
His eyes locked on one man, his fingers blackened with resin, expertly bringing a dead Sony Walkman back to life. The man plugged in a pair of headphones, and a tinny version of a popular film song whispered into the air.
A jolt, like a live wire, went through Harsh.
I can do that. This is simple. This is basic.
He approached, trying to shed the skin of his old self and wear the confidence of a twenty-year-old.
"Bhaiya," he said, nodding at the pile of broken Walkmans beside the man. "Kitne ka discount doge ye sab bekar cheezon ka?" ("What discount will you give for all this junk?")
The man looked up, a smirk playing on his lips. He wiped his forehead with a greasy rag. "Junk? This is my pension, brother. Twenty rupees each. No guarantee. No returns."
Harsh's mind was a calculator. Twenty rupees. His entire net worth could buy five. Five lottery tickets.
He nodded, his throat dry. " Okay. But… give me the sixth one for free. It's totally finished."
The repairman threw his head back and laughed. "Oh man, are you the next Ambani or what? Fine,Six for a hundred. Your first lesson in business is free."
The joke landed like a prophecy. Harsh handed over the note, a visceral pang of loss shooting through him. He now held six pieces of broken plastic. His entire empire.
He found a sliver of shade next to a temple wall, the stone cool against his back. One by one, he pried the plastic casings open. The world narrowed to the circuit board in his hands. A broken wire here. A corroded battery contact there. He used the edge of a key, a bit of wire stripped from the "free" unit, and sheer, desperate focus.
The sun climbed, baking the street. Sweat dripped from his nose onto the circuitry.
But by late afternoon, three of the six devices sat beside him, whole. He plugged in the headphones. The clear melody of a popular film song filled his ears.
A feeling he hadn't felt in decades bloomed in his chest. Triumph.
He walked up to a pair of college boys in tight jeans, looking at watches in a shop window.
"Almost new. Sony. Fifty rupees," he said, holding it up.
One of them, hair slicked with oil, scoffed. " I can get a new one in Chor Bazaar for two hundred!"
"But this one you can have in five minutes" Harsh replied, his voice calm. But you can get this one in five minutes. And you don't have two hundred.
The boy stared, then grinned. He dug into his pocket and pulled out two twenty-rupee notes and a ten. "You're a brave guy. Fine."
The notes felt warm in Harsh's hand. Real.
Within the hour, the other two were gone. One for forty-five, one for fifty. He stood at the corner of the street, the evening light painting the chaos in gold. He had one hundred and forty-five rupees in his pocket.
A forty-five rupee profit. It was nothing. It was a cup of chai and a vada pav.
But as his fingers closed around the crumpled notes, stained with the grease of his new trade, it felt like the foundation of everything. He had done it. He had taken the first step.
The game was on.