Here is the fifth chapter of The Gurudeva of Silicon City.
Koramangala in 2001 was a strange beast. It was halfway between a quiet residential layout for retired defense personnel and the exploding chaotic hub of startups it would soon become.
The streets were wide and lined with trees, but the air buzzed with the hum of diesel generators powering the new software companies springing up in garages.
Surya arrived at "NetZone Cyber Cafe" on the back of an auto-rickshaw. The shutters were half-down. A cardboard sign hung crookedly: EVERYTHING MUST GO. SALE.
Inside, the cafe smelled of stale cigarette smoke and burning plastic. Desks were overturned. Cables lay like dead snakes on the floor.
A harried-looking man with disheveled hair was arguing with a scrap dealer. This was Mr. Pinto, the owner.
"Two hundred rupees for a monitor? Are you mad?" Pinto shouted. "It's a Samsung SyncMaster! Color!"
"It doesn't turn on, saar," the scrap dealer chewed his gutka calmly. "Tube is gone. Scrap value only."
Surya stepped over a tangle of LAN cables. "I'll give you five hundred for it."
Both men turned.
Surya walked in, his eyes scanning the room. To a normal person, it looked like a graveyard of technology. To Surya, with his newly acquired Hardware Repair Mastery, it looked like a gold mine.
[System Scan Initiated]
[Object: Desktop PC (Compaq Presario)]
* Status: Non-Functional.
* Diagnosis: Power Supply Unit (SMPS) capacitor blown. Motherboard intact. HDD intact.
* Repair Cost: ₹15 (New Capacitor).
* Market Value (Working): ₹18,000.
Surya's heart hammered. Eighteen thousand. And there were twelve of them lined up against the wall, labeled "DEAD".
"Who are you?" Pinto asked, suspicious.
"A student," Surya lied smoothly. "I need parts for a project. I heard you have a lot of dead units."
Pinto sighed, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Twelve PCs. All fried. Voltage surge last week killed the whole row. The electricity board won't pay a dime. I'm ruined."
"I'll take the lot," Surya said. "The twelve dead CPUs and the monitors."
Pinto narrowed his eyes. "They are dead, boy. Motherboards are fried. You can't fix them."
"I want the cabinets and the RAM," Surya shrugged. "How much?"
"Three thousand each," Pinto tried.
"For paperweights?" Surya laughed. "I'll give you ₹20,000 for the whole lot. Twelve CPUs, twelve monitors. Cash down. Right now."
The scrap dealer scoffed. "Twenty thousand for junk? Take it, Pinto. I wouldn't give you five."
Pinto looked at the pile of metal that had cost him lakhs just a year ago. He looked at Surya's earnest face. He just wanted to close the shop and leave.
"Twenty-five thousand," Pinto countered weakly. "And you arrange transport."
"Done."
Surya handed over half his capital without blinking. He called a tempo traveler (a small transport truck) from the stand outside. As the heavy beige boxes were loaded, Surya felt a thrill that Game Theory never gave him.
This was arbitrage.
The tempo dropped the cargo at the Bannerghatta house by 4:00 PM.
Surya dragged the first CPU onto his dining table/classroom. He pulled out a screwdriver toolkit he had bought on the way back.
"System, activate Hardware Repair Mastery."
[Skill Activated. Guiding Hand Mode: ON.]
Surya didn't need to think. His hands moved with blurred speed. He unscrewed the casing. He bypassed the burnt fuse in the Power Supply Unit. He identified the swollen capacitors on the motherboard—tiny cylindrical components that had popped.
In 2001, most technicians would look at a motherboard with a blown capacitor and say, "Replace the board." That cost ₹8,000.
But Surya knew better.
He heated a soldering iron. With surgical precision, he removed the bad capacitors and soldered in new ones he had bought for ₹2 each from an electronics shop.
Solder. Snip. Clean.
He plugged the power cord in. He pressed the button.
Whirrrrr.
The fan spun. The hard drive clicked. And then, the most beautiful sound in the world: the solitary BEEP of a successful POST (Power-On Self-Test).
The monitor flickered to life. Windows 98 clouds appeared on the screen.
"One down," Surya grinned, wiping grease from his cheek. "Eleven to go."
He worked through the night. The soldering iron fumes mixed with the smell of old incense. By 3:00 AM, twelve computers were humming in the courtyard, their screens casting a ghostly blue glow on the ancient wooden pillars of the house.
He had turned ₹25,000 of junk into inventory worth nearly ₹2 Lakhs.
But inventory wasn't cash. He needed to sell them. And he couldn't sell them one by one in the classifieds; he needed the money in 5 days.
"S.P. Road," Surya decided, collapsing onto his bed. "The Silicon Alley of Bangalore."
The next morning, Surya hired the tempo again. He loaded the twelve pristine, working computers and headed to the heart of the city.
S.P. Road (Sadar Patrappa Road) was a narrow, congested lane in the older part of Bangalore that served as the electronics capital of South India. If you wanted a microchip, a server, or a pirated copy of Photoshop, you came here.
Surya walked into "Mahalaxmi Computers," one of the largest wholesale dealers. The shop was crowded with people shouting orders.
The owner, a shrewd man named Mr. Jignesh, looked up as Surya walked in.
"I'm not buying scrap," Jignesh said automatically, seeing the tempo outside.
"I'm not selling scrap," Surya replied, leaning on the glass counter. "I have twelve Compaq Presario units. Pentium III. 128MB RAM. 15-inch Color Monitors. Pre-loaded with Windows 98."
Jignesh paused. "Second hand?"
"Refurbished. Like new. Six-month warranty from me."
Jignesh laughed. "Warranty from you? Who are you? Bill Gates?"
"Test one," Surya challenged.
Jignesh signaled his technician. They brought one unit in.
The technician ran diagnostics. He tried to crash it. He checked the board for burnt marks. It was clean. The soldering was so professional it looked factory-made.
"It's good," the technician whispered to Jignesh. "Original Compaq parts. Hard to find these days."
Jignesh did the mental math. He could sell these to the new engineering colleges popping up in Mysore for ₹20,000 easily.
"How much?" Jignesh asked.
"Fifteen thousand per unit," Surya said.
"Too high. I'll give you ten."
"Twelve units. Bulk deal. ₹14,000. Or I go to the shop next door. They seemed interested."
Jignesh tapped his calculator. 12 x 14,000 = ₹1,68,000.
He could sell the lot for ₹2,40,000. It was a solid profit for ten minutes of work.
"Thirteen thousand five hundred," Jignesh offered. "Cash. Right now. No bills."
Surya smiled. "Deal."
₹13,500 x 12 = ₹1,62,000.
Jignesh opened his safe and counted the bundles of cash. Thick, rubber-banded bricks of notes.
Surya shoved the money into his bag.
He had started with ₹50,000.
He spent ₹25,000 on junk and parts.
He now had ₹1,62,000 from the sale + ₹25,000 remaining cash.
Total Cash in Hand: ₹1,87,000.
He was still short by ₹13,000 to clear the ₹2 Lakh debt completely. But he had 5 days left.
As he walked out of S.P. Road, the sun hitting his face, a notification chimed.
[Quest Update: The Debt Collector's Clock]
* Progress: 93% Complete.
* Bonus Objective Unlocked: Pay the debt 2 days early to intimidate the enemy.
Surya checked his watch. It was only noon.
"I have enough money to pay most of it,"
Surya thought. "But I need that last 13k. And I need to start my real job."
He looked at the busy street. He saw a shop selling second-hand books.
Physics. Mathematics. Chemistry.
"Karthik comes tomorrow," Surya realized. "I need to buy textbooks. And... I need a whiteboard. The blackboard is too dusty."
He walked into the bookshop. He wasn't just a businessman today. He was a Principal.
[System Alert]
[Karma Points Gained from Creative Engineering: +50]
[New Shop Item Unlocked: 'Pill of Memory' (Increases retention by 100% for 2 hours).]
Surya paused. A memory pill?
If he gave that to Karthik before the exam... no, that felt like cheating. Or was it? Was it any different than rich kids taking supplements?
"No shortcuts," Surya decided. "I'll use the System to teach, not to drug them."
He bought a stack of books and hailed an auto. The debt was manageable now. The real challenge was about to begin: turning Karthik into a topper in 25 days.