The workshop was secured in a nondescript building in Kalbadevi, not far from the Zaveri Bazaar but far enough to avoid casual notice. It was a space that spoke of quiet industry: long tables under bright lights, the gentle hiss of gas torches, the soft rustle of polishing cloth. Under Rohan Kumar's efficient, if slightly arrogant, management, the machine began to hum.
The five kilos of gold were transformed. Kumar's filigree became delicate necklaces that seemed woven from light. The stone-setter crafted bold, modern pieces that appealed to a newer, wealthier clientele. The enamelers added flashes of vibrant color to traditional designs. Rohan proved his worth immediately, leveraging his contacts to secure their first major order: a set of wedding jewelry for the daughter of a prominent Marwari industrialist.
The money flowed back to Swami's empire, laundered through the impeccable, if fictional, books Mr. Dalal maintained. The operation was a perfect, self-cleaning engine. Harsh was the silent lubricant that kept it running smoothly.
But he was running a double ledger.
In the official books, managed by Dalal, every gram of gold was accounted for, every rupee of profit recorded. But Harsh kept his own, secret ledger. In his apartment, hidden behind a loose brick, his notebook grew. It didn't just contain names anymore. It contained numbers.
He had discovered a tiny, systematic leak. A flaw in the alchemy of the workshop.
Goldworking creates waste. Tiny shavings, dust from filing and polishing, microscopic particles that would cling to tools and cloths. This "swarf" was usually collected, melted down, and the recovered gold was deducted from the craftsman's next allocation. It was a standard practice.
But Harsh, with his repairman's eye for detail, noticed something. The amount of swarf being officially recorded and returned by the craftsmen was less than it should have been. Not by much. A fraction of a gram per day. But it added up.
They were skimming. Not out of dishonesty, but out of habit. It was the ancient, quiet practice of every underpaid artisan throughout history—taking their "tip" from the unavoidable waste of their craft.
Instead of cracking down on it, Harsh institutionalized it. He quietly instructed the craftsmen to be "less efficient" in their swarf recovery for him. He would collect the difference himself each week—a tiny, glittering pile of dust and clippings that he would meticulously melt down in a small crucible over a butane stove in his apartment.
The result was a slowly accumulating stash of "free" gold, completely untraceable, unknown to Dalal, to Rohan, and to Venkat Swami. It was his. A tiny rebellion, melted into small, crude buttons of pure value.
It wasn't enough to build an empire. But it was a seed. A seed of independence.
This secret operation required a second, more dangerous deception. He needed to launder this illicit gold into usable cash. He couldn't sell it back to the bazaar; that would be instantly noticed.
So, he turned to the one person he had built a connection with outside of Swami's web: the municipal clerk, Ajay Joshi.
He met Joshi not at the tea stall, but at a small, quiet park. He didn't offer him money. He offered him a gift, wrapped in a simple cloth.
Joshi unwrapped it to find a small, beautifully crafted gold pendant in the shape of Lord Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. It was worth perhaps two months of his salary.
"For your wife," Harsh said softly. "A token of thanks for your understanding."
Joshi's hand trembled as he held it. This wasn't a bribe for a specific favor. It was a gift. An investment in a relationship. The debt between them deepened, became more personal.
"A week from now," Harsh continued, his voice casual, "my cousin is getting married in Pune. There is a tradition in our family to give raw gold to the newlyweds. A blessing for their new home. But the prices in the bazaar are so high... I was wondering, with your contacts, if you knew someone... discreet? Who might sell me a small amount, off the books? Just ten grams."
It was a perfect, plausible story. And it gave Joshi a way to repay the gift, to balance the scales and feel like a player, not a pawn.
Joshi, flushed with a sense of importance, nodded eagerly. "I may know a jeweler. A friend. He might be able to help. For a good price."
Of course, the "jeweler" was a fiction. A week later, Joshi delivered ten grams of gold to Harsh, purchased at a slight discount from a shady source he'd found. Harsh paid him in cash.
The circle was complete. Harsh had taken his skimmed, untraceable gold, melted it into a neutral form, used it to indebt a useful connection, and then used that connection to convert a portion of it back into clean, untraceable cash.
It was an absurdly complex and risky maneuver for a minuscule financial gain. But the gain wasn't the point. The point was the proof of concept. He had created a closed loop, a tiny, self-sustaining economy that existed entirely outside of Venkat Swami's vision.
He was no longer just stealing gold. He was practicing alchemy of a different kind: turning the oppressive weight of Swami's empire into the building blocks of his own freedom.
One evening, as he added a new, tiny gold button to his hidden stash, he looked at his secret ledger. The numbers were small. Insignificant.
But they were his.
And for the first time since he'd stepped into the black car, the walls of his gilded cage felt not like a prison, but like a challenge. A system to be understood, manipulated, and one day, perhaps, broken.
The double game had begun.
(Chapter End)