The monsoon rains had left the streets of Bhuleshwar slick and gleaming, the morning light reflecting off puddles that hid treacherous depths. The air was thick with the smell of wet earth, damp concrete, and the faint, greasy scent of machinery. Harsh set up his small operation in his usual spot, laying out his devices on a piece of plastic to keep them dry. Each Walkman and radio was polished, tested, and priced with a careful margin.
He didn't have to wait long for the day's conflict to arrive.
Ravi's stall was just twenty feet away. He was a man in his late thirties, with a permanent sheen of sweat on his brow and a mouth that seemed to default to a sneer. His stall was a mess—a jumble of devices in various states of (dis)repair, piled atop one another. He'd watched Harsh's methodical rise for a week, his initial amusement curdling into resentment.
Today, he'd decided to act.
He didn't engage Harsh directly. Instead, he unleashed his weapon: his nephew, a loud, pimply teenager with a booming voice.
"Best prices! Best prices in all of Bhuleshwar!" the boy shouted, his voice cutting through the market's din. "Walkmans! Thirty-five rupees only! Don't be cheated by fancy talk! Solid machines!"
He held up a device that, from a distance, looked identical to Harsh's. But Harsh's trained eye saw the truth—the ill-fitting battery cover, the mismatched screws. Ravi was selling refurbs, hastily thrown together with whatever parts were cheapest.
A family, clearly from out of town, hesitantly approached Ravi's stall. The father picked up a Walkman. "It works?" he asked, his voice hopeful.
"Of course it works!" Ravi's nephew declared, slapping the man on the back. "Full guarantee! One week!"
Harsh saw his opportunity slipping away. He couldn't compete on price. He'd lose his margin. He had to compete on something else.
As the family debated, Harsh made his move. He didn't shout. He simply pressed play on one of his own devices. The clear, crisp opening notes of a Lata Mangeshkar song spilled into the air, a tiny island of musical perfection in the chaotic noise of the market.
The father's head turned. He could hear the difference.
Harsh caught his eye and gave a small, confident smile. He then mimed putting on headphones and offered his own set to the man.
Intrigued, the man walked over, leaving Ravi's nephew mid-sentence. He put the headphones on. His eyes widened slightly at the sound quality. He took them off and looked at the device in his hand, then back at Ravi's pile.
"This one is fifty rupees," Harsh said quietly. "But you will not need to buy another next week. Or the week after."
It was a direct, calculated strike. No drama, no argument. Just a simple statement of value.
The man's wife nudged him. "Better to pay a little more now than again later," she whispered, the universal logic of thriftiness winning out.
The sale was made. Ravi's face, watching from his stall, was a thundercloud.
But Ravi wasn't finished. His next move was more insidious. An hour later, a boy sidled up to Harsh's spot, holding a Harsh-repaired Walkman.
"This is not working," the boy announced loudly for everyone to hear. "You cheated me! I want my money back!"
Harsh recognized the boy. He was one of Gopi's friends. This was a setup.
A few people turned to look. Reputation was everything, and a public accusation of selling faulty goods could be fatal.
Harsh remained calm. He took the device. "Of course. Let me see." He examined it. The casing was his, but the internal mechanism was a mess of broken solder and stripped wires—sabotage, and clumsy sabotage at that.
Instead of arguing, Harsh did something unexpected. He pulled out his tools.
"I apologize for the trouble," he said, his voice clear and carrying. "Let me fix it for you right now. Free of charge. My guarantee is real."
He proceeded to perform a very public, very meticulous repair. He made a show of replacing the ruined components with new ones, explaining what had gone wrong in a technical but accessible way. "…you see, this connection here was made with cheap solder, it gets brittle and breaks… see how I'm reinforcing it now…"
By the time he was done, he hadn't just fixed the Walkman; he'd performed a masterclass in quality and customer service. He handed it back to the flustered boy. "There. Good as new. Better, actually."
The boy slunk away, his mission a spectacular failure. The small audience that had gathered didn't see a cheat; they saw a skilled, honest craftsman.
The rest of the day, Harsh's sales were brisk. People were now actively seeking out the "boy who fixes things properly." Ravi's cheaper devices sat untouched.
At day's end, as Harsh was packing up, Ravi finally approached him. The sneer was gone, replaced by a look of bitter resignation.
"You think you're smart," Ravi muttered, not meeting Harsh's eyes.
"No," Harsh replied, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "I just think further ahead than tomorrow."
He walked away, leaving Ravi standing in the gathering dusk. The victory was complete. He had defended his territory not with aggression, but with superior strategy and undeniable quality. He had turned his rival's attack into a public demonstration of his own value.
The taste of victory was sweet. But as he walked home, he knew this was just a skirmish. Ravi was small-time. Bigger rivals, with sharper teeth, were waiting in the shadows of the Mumbai night. And they would be much, much harder to outsmart.