The Sigma Electro-components deal unfolded with a terrifying, frictionless efficiency that was the hallmark of Venkat Swami's operation. The cash deposit was delivered to a bored-looking Mr. Dalal in a sterile office overlooking Nariman Point. The "difficult-to-source" components arrived at the factory in unmarked trucks two days later, their quality superior to anything on the legitimate market. Mr. Iyer was a whirlwind of grateful activity, and the massive order for the telephone department was completed ahead of schedule, earning him a glowing letter of commendation.
Harsh received another banker's draft. Larger than the last. It was payment for his "consultancy," a reward for his role in greasing the wheels of Swami's machine.
He stood at the edge of the Andheri factory floor, watching Iyer proudly oversee the packaging of the finished boards. The air hummed with productivity and purpose. It was a scene of honest success, built on a foundation of utter lies.
And it was then, amidst the whir of machinery and the smell of success, that the realization struck him. It wasn't a loud epiphany, but a quiet, cold settling of truth in his gut.
Money alone isn't power.
He had money now. More than he'd ever had. He could buy a better scooter, a nicer apartment for his parents, anything he wanted. But it meant nothing.
The municipal officer hadn't been swayed by Harsh's money. He'd been terrified by the ghost's presence. The Sigma deal hadn't happened because of Harsh's capital or business acumen. It had happened because Venkat Swami's web of influence reached into the telephone department, into the shipping lanes, into the very offices that issued import licenses.
Harsh's money was just a tool. A convenient, liquid asset that Swami allowed him to accumulate and then directed him to use. The real power, the immutable currency of this new world he was trapped in, was connections. It was the silent understanding, the owed favor, the whispered name that made obstacles vanish and opportunities appear.
He had been thinking like a street hustler, counting rupees and scheming for margins. Swami thought like an emperor, mapping networks of influence and moving people like pieces on a chessboard.
The ghost wasn't just an enforcer; he was a connection. Mr. Dalal wasn't just an accountant; he was a connection. The nameless official in the telephone department was a connection. This entire, thriving factory was a connection, a node where illicit goods were transformed into legitimate wealth and political capital.
Harsh was a connection, too. A useful one, for now. But a connection that could be severed as easily as it had been forged.
He thought of Inspector Sawant, the one man who operated outside this web. Sawant had power because he refused to be a connection. He was a stone in the river, and the water had to flow around him. That was a kind of power, too, but it was brittle, isolated. It could resist, but it could not build.
Harsh didn't want to be a stone. And he refused to remain just a strand in someone else's web.
He wanted the web itself.
The ambition that had driven him from a hundred-rupee note to this factory floor mutated. It was no longer about wealth. It was about sovereignty. He would play Swami's game. He would learn the rules, map the connections, and become so indispensable, so woven into the fabric of Swami's empire, that he could not be removed.
And then, one day, he would start spinning his own web.
He left the factory, the congratulatory noises fading behind him. He didn't go back to Bhuleshwar immediately. He walked through the crowded, anonymous streets of Andheri, his mind racing, plotting.
He needed to build his own connections, starting now. Not rivals to Swami's—that was suicide—but independent ones. Small, weak threads that Swami would deem beneath his notice.
He thought of Prakash Rao, with his ears to the ground. He thought of the truck driver, Jagdish, who knew the highways and checkposts. He thought of the Soviet engineers he'd read about in newspapers, men who might be looking for work as their own country crumbled. He thought of the junior clerks and bureaucrats, the ones who did the actual work and were never shown respect.
These were the pieces Swami ignored. These could be the foundation of something new.
He arrived home late. His father was listening to the new radio, a contented smile on his face. His mother was sewing in the light of a brighter bulb he had installed.
"Your consultancy is going well, beta?" his father asked, without a trace of the old suspicion.
"Very well, Papa," Harsh said, the lie now a comfortable, heavy coat he wore. "It is all about building the right relationships."
He went to his room and took out a fresh notebook. On the first page, he did not write a number or a business plan.
He wrote a single word: Connections.
Below it, he began to list names. Not of rivals or enemies. But of the invisible, the overlooked, the useful. It was a pathetic, nascent little web. But it was his.
The empire's shadow was vast and deep. But even the smallest spider starts with a single thread.
Harsh Patel had stopped trying to fight the current. He had decided to learn everything he could about it, until he was finally ready to become the ocean.
(Chapter End)