The city of Mumbai, on that particular morning, was not just a city; it was a living, breathing organism of pure, unfiltered celebration. A festival spirit, thick and palpable as the humid air, had seized its millions of inhabitants. The cause for this collective euphoria was the promise of a spectacle—a grand, formidable naval exercise by the Western Fleet, set to unfold just beyond the harbor walls, visible to all. For the average Mumbaikar, the prospect was irresistible. It was a day of national pride, a day to witness the iron might of the motherland, and for the people of India, such occasions demanded a singular response: to dance.
Why? The question was irrelevant. If one needed a reason to dance, one had already lost. The city's mayor, swept up in the fervor, had declared a public holiday, urging every company, factory, and school to release its charges to better immerse themselves in the national pageant. By a little past eight in the morning, the areas overlooking the naval harbor were a heaving, undulating sea of humanity. Every vantage point—flat rooftops, sloping hillsides, the sturdy branches of trees—was claimed, each body a pixel in a vast, eager mosaic straining for a better view.
Amidst the throng, vendors wove with eel-like agility, their carts laden with steaming vats of chole bhature, sizzling pans of pav bhaji, and pyramids of glistening jalebi. The air was a rich tapestry of scents: turmeric, cumin, frying oil, and the unmistakable, earthy odor of fresh cow dung, upon which countless unsuspecting feet landed with soft, squelching regularity. None seemed to mind; the expressions were uniformly lit with joyous anticipation.
On the flat rooftop of a two-story building overlooking the scene, Sharukh Singh, a junior photojournalist for ZEE TV, adjusted his telephoto lens with trembling, excited fingers. His viewfinder was filled with the sleek, grey silhouettes of warships. His focus, however, was unwavering: the three Kolkata-class destroyers, the pride of the indigenous defense industry, lay tethered to the docks like slumbering leviathans. To Sharukh, they were not mere ships; they were poetry in steel, a testament to national resilience.
True, the centerpiece of the exercise would be the INS Vikramaditya, the lone aircraft carrier, even now beginning its stately procession from the harbor mouth. But that was a bought thing, a hand-me-down from the Russians. The Kolkatas were born of Indian sweat and—he conveniently ignored the German engines, Israeli radars, and Russian armaments—Indian genius. So what if they took two decades from blueprint to launch? So what if analysts whispered they were obsolete before their commissioning? That was just jealousy, a blatant smear from those who feared India's rise. Sharukh's chest swelled with a fierce, irrational pride. Ours are the best, he thought stubbornly, snapping another dozen high-resolution photographs of the pristine warships.
Sharukh Singh, a name that marked him as a son of privilege, was a product of a very specific Indian mindset—one brimming with a brittle, often illogical, nationalistic fervor. His Twitter feed was a shrine to this belief, filled with images of indigenous military hardware and posed questions that made foreign observers blink in disbelief. 'Our mountain warriors are so fierce, one can surely defeat three PLA soldiers, minimum, no?'or 'Both our nations have a city called a financial capital. Looking at current development, is Shanghai lagging behind Mumbai by at least a decade?'He would then bask in the supportive, equally fervent replies from fellow Indian accounts, carefully avoiding the flood of Chinese responses. Those, he believed, were all state-sponsored trolls. Particularly the infuriating ones who, in response to his photos of Mumbai's bustling streets, would post images of dazzling, futuristic Chinese metropolises ten times more vibrant, always with the sardonic caption: 'Come quick! Found a sincere Indian friend online. Remember, no posting photos of Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen to bully them.'Sharukh dismissed them all. Photoshopped, obviously. Everyone knew China's photo-editing skills were the best among the Asian 'Four Great Sorceries'. How could a place where most people couldn't even afford tea eggs have cities like that?
"Still not even nine," he muttered to himself, pulling a Xiaomi phone from his pocket. The wait was interminable. To pass the time, he turned his lens to the street below. A group of young men, faces flushed with passionate zeal, were taking turns hurling bricks at a hapless Sanyo washing machine, reducing it to a sad sculpture of twisted metal and plastic shards. "Boycott Chinese goods!" one of them yelled hoarsely, and the crowd roared its approval. Sharukh leaned over the parapet and cheered along, his voice joining the chorus, before carefully tucking his Chinese-made phone back into the pocket of his Made in Chinajeans.
A pang of hunger reminded him of his early start. He leaned over the roof's edge again, spotting a nimble vendor below. "Hey! One plate of curry rice! And a bottle of water—make sure it's Ganga Jal!" he bellowed. Minutes later, he shoveled the fragrant rice into his mouth, then unscrewed the cap of the murky water bottle. He took a deep swig, the uniquely earthy, slightly organic taste flooding his mouth. Ah, he thought with satisfaction, the authentic taste of Mother Ganges. Nothing compared.
As ten o'clock drew near, the human sea grew denser, more turbulent. A flicker of unease crossed Sharukh's mind. He hated to admit it, but such massive gatherings in India had a grim historical footnote, often written in tragedy. Right on cue, salvation arrived in the form of the police. Wielding their signature lathis—long, heavy wooden sticks—they waded into the crowd. Their targets were the men who pushed and jostled, particularly those who seemed overly interested in pressing against groups of women. The police acted with a brutal, efficient choreography.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
The sound of seasoned wood meeting flesh and bone was a sharp counterpoint to the festive noise. Men yelped, crumpled, or fell to the ground clutching their legs or backs, their clothes now smeared with the ever-present dung. Order, of a sort, was swiftly restored. Inspired, Sharukh swung his camera around. Click-click-click!He captured the policemen, now aware of the lens, puffing out their chests, adjusting their turbans, and striving to look every bit the imposing guardians of the peace. It was a perfectly harmonious tableau of civic duty.
Then, a long, low blast from a ship's horn echoed across the water. The exercise was beginning. A fresh, eager surge ran through the crowd. Necks craned, bodies pressed forward against the flimsy barricades. The police responded with renewed vigor, their lathis rising and falling. The security was, in fact, layered: a police cordon at the front, and further back, a line of stern-faced Marines in full combat gear, their rifles held at the ready. Sharukh scoffed inwardly. Overkill, he thought. Who would be mad enough to disrupt the might of the Indian Navy? It would be suicide.
The universe, it seemed, was listening.
The sound was not from the harbor. It came from behind and to his left—a catastrophic explosion of shattering glass and rending metal. Sharukh spun around, his heart leaping into his throat. The third-floor facade of the adjacent apartment building erupted outward. From the cloud of glittering debris and billowing dust, a shape descended—a hulking, five-meter-tall silhouette of grey-green armor. It hit the asphalt of the street below with a ground-shaking CRUMP, the impact spider-webbing the road surface in an instant. Chunks of shattered pavement became lethal shrapnel, sending the nearby crowd screaming and scrambling in panic.
Sharukh's camera, almost of its own volition, found the figure. His mind, trained on military hardware, scrambled for a reference. It was humanoid, but monstrously large. Its head was a rounded, utilitarian dome. Its shoulders bore weapon mounts—one a blocky missile pod, the other a skeletal, corroded frame. In its hands, it held a slab of metal that could only be described as a sword fit for a giant. It wasn't sleek or elegant; it was brutally functional, a tool of pure, industrial war.
Is that… an American Transformer?his mind gibbered. Or a Japanese Gundam? A secret project?
The machine stood up from its crouch with a hydraulic whine, its optical sensors—or what he imagined were its eyes—glowing with a faint, malevolent red light. It took one heavy, earth-trembling step, then another, its trajectory unmistakable. It was heading straight for the harbor, for the neat lines of warships, for the heart of the national spectacle.
Understanding, cold and terrifying, flooded Sharukh's veins. It's here to ruin everything!He acted on pure, panicked instinct. Leaning over the parapet, he screamed at the cluster of policemen below, who stood frozen, their lathis dangling uselessly from their hands. "Officers! That monster! It's going to sabotage the exercise! Stop it!"
One of the policemen looked up at Sharukh's frantic face, then at the advancing metal behemoth, then down at the slender stick in his own hand. A look of profound indignation crossed his features. In a single, fluid motion, he cocked his arm and hurled his lathi like a javelin straight at Sharukh on the rooftop. "You stop it, you motherless dog!" he bellowed. "You go down there and stop it with this!"
Sharukh ducked, the wooden club clattering harmlessly behind him. "Useless! Worms! A disgrace to India!" he hissed, his fear now mingled with contempt. His eyes darted, searching for other heroes. They landed on the group of young patriots, the very ones who had been so valiantly destroying the washing machine. The fire of youth! They would act!
The young men met his gaze. A silent understanding passed among them. With deliberate, unhurried movements, they let the bricks in their hands drop to the ground. Then, as one, they melted back into the panicking crowd, disappearing from view.
The giant machine took another step, its heavy footfall crushing an abandoned vendor's cart flat. The Marines in the distance were shouting, bringing their rifles up, but their formation was too far back, the crowd between them and the machine too dense and chaotic. The first line of defense, the proud police with their lathis, was utterly irrelevant.
Sharukh could only watch, his earlier nationalistic fervor replaced by a cold, sickening dread, as the war machine from another world began its unstoppable march towards the pinnacle of his nation's naval pride. The roar of the crowd had changed from celebration to pure, unadulterated terror. The day of national glory had just taken a violently unexpected turn.