The world of Bhuleshwar was a gritty symphony of haggling, the smell of soldering iron, and the constant, low-grade fear of overstepping an invisible line. Harsh's life had become a closed loop of the alcove, supply runs, and the grim ledger where his dreams were quantified into three ruthless columns. He moved through his days with a focused intensity, his youthful features hardening into the mask of a strategist who saw every interaction as a potential move on a vast, unseen board.
It was a life devoid of softness. Until Priya walked back into it.
He was on a parts run to Lamington Road, a list of specific capacitors and resistors in his hand, his mind preoccupied with cost-per-unit calculations. The sun was harsh, glinting off the windows of electronics shops, and he was weaving through the crowded pavement with the single-minded determination of a man on a mission.
And then he saw her. She was standing at a bookstall, her head tilted as she browsed the spines of thick physics textbooks. She wore a simple salwar kameez of light blue cotton, a stark contrast to the garish electronics and dusty streets around her. A ray of sunlight caught the loose strand of hair that had escaped her plait, and in that moment, she looked like an entirely different species of being—something from a world of clean libraries and quiet contemplation, not this grimy battlefield of commerce and survival.
He stopped dead. The calculations in his head evaporated. The list in his hand felt suddenly trivial.
She must have felt his gaze because she looked up. Her eyes, intelligent and calm, found his. For a second, there was no recognition, just the mild curiosity of a stranger. Then, her brow furrowed slightly, and a slow, surprised smile touched her lips.
"Harsh?" she said, her voice cutting through the street's din like a clear bell.
He felt a jolt, a strange and unwelcome vulnerability. He was Harsh Bhai to everyone now—the supplier, the boss, the player in a dangerous game. But to her, he was just Harsh. The boy who'd sold her a Walkman.
"Priya," he said, walking over. He tried to inject a casual ease into his voice that he didn't feel. "Buying light reading?" He nodded at the dense textbook in her hand, Principles of Quantum Mechanics.
She laughed, a warm, genuine sound. "Something like that. It's for a project. What about you? I thought your… tutoring was in Malabar Hill." There was a subtle, perceptive spark in her eyes. She hadn't forgotten their last conversation, or the dangerous undertones.
"Errands," he said, holding up his list of components. It was a weak excuse, and they both knew it. Tutors for rich kids didn't run errands for electronic parts in the middle of Lamington Road.
She didn't call him on it. Instead, her gaze softened. "You look tired," she observed. It wasn't an accusation. It was a statement of fact, laced with a concern that felt alien to him. No one had looked at him with simple, uncomplicated concern in a long time.
The urge to lie, to maintain his facade, was automatic. But something in her direct, honest gaze disarmed him. The words that came out were more truthful than he'd intended. "It's… a lot. Building something. It takes everything you have."
She nodded slowly, as if she understood far more than he was saying. "I can imagine. My father started his own practice. I remember the years it took. The late nights. The stress." She looked at him, really looked at him, and he felt seen in a way that was both terrifying and exhilarating. "But there's a difference between building something and letting it consume you."
It was the same warning she'd given him before, but gentler. It wasn't a judgment; it was a worry.
"I'm not being consumed," he said, a defensive edge creeping into his voice. "I'm being… strategic."
A faint smile played on her lips. "Strategic," she repeated, as if tasting the word. "It's a very… mature way of looking at it." Her tone was admiring, but it also held a question. What happened to the passionate, slightly reckless boy who talked about circuits with such excitement?
He shifted his weight, suddenly conscious of the grease under his fingernails, the dust on his shoes. He was a creature of the alley, and she was a creature of the university. The gap between them felt wider than ever.
"I should let you get back to your errands," she said, perhaps sensing his discomfort. She picked up her textbook. "It was good to see you, Harsh."
"You too," he said, the words feeling inadequate.
She took a few steps, then turned back. "That strategic mind of yours," she said. "Don't forget to use it to build a life, not just a business."
Then she was gone, melting into the crowd, leaving him standing on the dusty pavement.
The encounter left him unsettled. For the rest of the day, the image of her—the sunlight in her hair, the intelligent concern in her eyes—kept intruding on his thoughts. He found himself distracted during a delicate soldering job, his usually steady hand faltering for a microsecond.
That evening, as he updated the ledger, the numbers seemed harsher, more sterile. The Ocean. The System. Us. Columns of survival. Priya's words echoed in his mind. Build a life.
He looked around the alcove. This was his life. The smell of resin, the hum of transformers, the constant, low-grade fear. It was a far cry from the world of quantum mechanics and university projects.
But for the first time, he felt a pang of something beyond ambition or fear. A longing for something he couldn't name. Something soft in a world that demanded he be hard.
Sanjay noticed his quiet mood. "Everything alright, Harsh Bhai? Did the parts run not go well?"
Harsh closed the ledger with a definitive snap. "The parts run was fine," he said. He paused, choosing his words carefully. "I ran into that girl. Priya. The physics student."
A slow grin spread across Sanjay's face. "Oh? And did your strategic mind calculate the optimal approach to that particular problem?"
Deepak chuckled, a rare sound.
Harsh didn't smile. "She said I looked tired."
The grin faded from Sanjay's face. The truth of the statement hung in the air between them. They were all tired.
"She's smart," Deepak said quietly, not looking up from his work.
Harsh nodded. She was. And her intelligence saw through the cracks in his armor. She admired his maturity, but she also mourned the loss of the passionate boy she'd first met. The realization was a sudden, sharp ache.
He had vowed to build an empire to make himself safe. But as he lay awake that night on his thin mattress, the sounds of the city a constant whisper, he wondered what would be left of him by the time he finished. Would he be a king in a fortress, alone and hardened beyond recognition?
The romantic spark wasn't just about a girl. It was a spark of his old self, a reminder of a world that existed beyond profit margins and extortion payments. It was a dangerous distraction. And yet, he found himself holding onto it, a single, glowing ember in the encroaching darkness. It was the one thing in his life that didn't have a price tag.