July 1, 2001. First Day of the Bridge Course.
The monsoon had hit Bangalore in earnest. The sky was a bruised purple, and rain lashed against the unfinished red bricks of the Gurudeva PU College.
Inside the ground floor hall, forty students sat on the newly purchased wooden benches. They were nervous. This wasn't a shiny campus like Christ College or St. Joseph's. It was a construction site with a roof.
Surya stood at the podium. He looked at his watch. 9:00 AM.
"Welcome," Surya began, his voice projecting over the sound of rain. "You are the founding batch. Years from now, when this institution is a university, you will say, 'I was there when there were no windows'."
The students chuckled nervously.
Dr. Rao sat in the front row, looking bored and twirling a scalpel. Moorthy, the mechanic-turned-physicist, was pacing at the back, itching to take apart the ceiling fan.
"We begin with—"
BOOM.
A sound like a cannon shot echoed from the street.
The lights in the hall died. The ceiling fans slowed to a halt. The hum of the computer lab in the adjacent block cut out. The comforting, subtle vibration of the Sanctum of Clarity aura vanished, leaving the air feeling heavy and humid.
Surya froze. He looked out the window.
A plume of black smoke was rising from the electric transformer on the main road.
"Power cut?" a student whispered. "On the first day?"
Surya's phone buzzed.
Message from V. Seth: "Oops. Surges can be so unpredictable in rural areas. I hear BESCOM takes weeks to replace transformers. Stay cool."
Surya clenched his jaw. It wasn't just a power cut. It was a siege. Without power, the dark classrooms would be unbearable. The "Arena" gaming center—his only source of daily cash—would be dead.
"Karthik," Surya said calmly. "Go check the fuse box. Moorthy, come with me."
The Street Outside.
A BESCOM (Bangalore Electricity Supply Company) line-man truck was already there. That was suspicious. Usually, they took hours to arrive.
The lineman was standing near the smoking ruin of the transformer, chewing gum.
"What happened?" Surya asked, walking up in the rain, an umbrella shielding him and Moorthy.
"Transformer blown, Sir," the lineman said, not looking at him. "Overload. Coil burnt."
"How long to fix?"
"Requisition takes time. Maybe two weeks. Maybe a month. No stock in the depot."
"Two weeks?" Moorthy shouted, stepping forward. He smelled the air. "That doesn't smell like a coil burnout. That smells like thermite! Someone sabotaged the core!"
The lineman shrugged. "I don't know science, Sir. I just know it's broken. File a complaint."
He hopped into his truck and drove off.
Surya stood in the rain. Seth had bribed the local engineer to delay the replacement.
"We have forty kids in the dark," Surya said. "And I have zero revenue if the computers don't run."
Moorthy looked at the transformer, then at the college. He wiped rain from his face, his eyes gleaming with a manic energy.
"You want power?" Moorthy asked. "I can give you power. But it will be loud. And illegal."
"I don't care about noise," Surya said. "Can you fix the transformer?"
"No, that's toast. But..." Moorthy pointed to the scrapyard behind the house, where Surya had stored the junk form the cyber cafe purchase. "I saw an old diesel pump set in the shed. And the chassis of a tractor in the neighbor's field."
"What are you proposing?"
"I propose we build a Frankenstein Generator," Moorthy grinned. "Give me three hours and 20 liters of diesel."
The Classroom.
Surya returned to the hall. The students were fanning themselves with notebooks. The humidity was rising.
"Small technical snag," Surya announced brightly. "But at Gurudeva, we don't complain about darkness. We make our own light."
He looked at Dr. Rao.
"Dr. Rao, take the class. Teach them about... the electrical impulses of the nervous system. Since we have no electricity, let's talk about the electricity inside us."
Rao stood up, groaning. "I need a drink."
"Coffee is coming," Surya promised. "Keep them occupied."
The Backyard.
For the next three hours, the backyard of the college looked like a scene from Mad Max.
Moorthy was in his element. He had stripped the diesel engine from an old irrigation pump. He was welding it to a rusty alternator he had salvaged from a truck.
Surya helped, using his Hardware Mastery to wire the output.
"The RPM needs to be stable," Moorthy yelled over the sound of his welding torch. "If it fluctuates, we fry the computers!"
"System," Surya whispered. "Purchase Schematic: Voltage Stabilizer (Heavy Duty)."
Cost: 50 KP.
Information flooded his brain. Surya grabbed a soldering iron. He cannibalized parts from three old UPS units to build a makeshift regulator board.
"Connect this to the output!" Surya shouted, tossing the board to Moorthy.
Moorthy looked at the circuit. "What is this? This isn't a standard stabilizer. This is... a feedback loop?"
"Just install it!"
By 1:00 PM, the monstrosity was ready. It looked ugly—a greasy engine bolted to a wooden pallet, connected to a bundle of wires and the custom circuit board.
"Moment of truth," Moorthy wiped grease on his pants. He grabbed the crank handle.
Heave.
Chug-chug-chug... phut.
"Again!"
Heave.
ROAR.
The engine exploded to life, belching black smoke. It sounded like a tank. The ground vibrated.
Moorthy ran to the voltmeter. "230 Volts! 50 Hertz! Stable! It's working!"
Surya ran to the main switchboard of the college. He flipped the isolator switch.
Clack.
Inside the hall, the tube lights flickered and buzzed to life. The fans began to spin, cutting through the humid air.
The students cheered.
Surya walked back out, soaked in rain and sweat. He looked at the smoking, roaring machine.
"It's loud," Surya noted.
"It's the heartbeat of the college," Moorthy corrected, patting the hot metal. "Let Seth try to cut this wire. I'll shock him into next week."
The Lecture.
Surya walked back into the class. Dr. Rao had just finished drawing a neuron on the whiteboard.
"And that," Rao said, pointing to the lights that had just come on, "is how a synapse fires. All or nothing. Just like this college."
Surya stepped up.
"Class," Surya said. "Physics Lesson Number One."
He pointed to the window, where the sound of the generator thump-thump-thump could be heard.
"Energy cannot be created or destroyed. But it can be stolen, and it can be fought for. That noise you hear is the sound of thermodynamics working in our favor."
He looked at Moorthy, who was standing at the door, beaming with pride.
"This is Mr. Moorthy. He built that generator from scrap in three hours. He is your new Physics HOD."
The students looked at the greasy, short man.
"He looks like a mechanic," a student whispered.
Moorthy walked in. He slammed a heavy wrench on the table.
"I am a mechanic," Moorthy barked. "And do you know what a mechanic is? A mechanic is a physicist who actually gets his hands dirty. Open your books to Chapter 4: Rotational Motion. Today, we calculate the torque required to crank a 5-horsepower diesel engine."
The students sat up straight. This wasn't theoretical physics. This was real.
That Evening. 8:00 PM.
The power was still out in the rest of the neighborhood. The street was dark.
But the Gurudeva PU College was a beacon of light. The "Arena" gaming center was full. The generator roared in the back, consuming diesel but generating cash.
Surya sat in his office (a plastic table in the unfinished staff room).
[System Notification]
[Crisis Averted: The Blackout.]
[Karma Points: +50.]
[Facility Unlocked: 'The Industrial Workshop'.] (Due to Moorthy's influence).
Surya looked at the notification. His "College" was becoming a strange hybrid. A medical doctor who taught from a bar, a mechanic who taught physics with engines, and a Principal who was a reincarnated gamer.
"It works," Surya smiled.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown Number.
"Hello?"
"Surya." It was Ananya, the reporter.
"Miss Rao. To what do I owe the pleasure? Want to report on our noise pollution?"
"No," Ananya sounded serious. "I'm calling to tell you that you made the front page of the local supplement. 'The College That Runs on Diesel'. It's a good human interest story."
"But?" Surya sensed the hesitation.
"But... I dug into the transformer incident. The lineman who refused to fix it? He just bought a new motorcycle. Cash."
"I figured," Surya said.
"Be careful, Surya. Vikram Seth isn't just a rich kid. I looked into his father's trust. They have a history of 'acquiring' small colleges that refuse to sell. Hostile takeovers. If they can't shut you down, they will try to buy your staff."
Surya looked at Rao, who was in the corner, grading papers and drinking black coffee (sober for 2 days). He looked at Moorthy, who was explaining the generator to a group of fascinated boys.
"My staff isn't for sale," Surya said confidently. "They are... defective goods. Only I know how to use them."
"I hope so," Ananya said. "By the way, I found something else. There is a third player entering the market. A foreign educational conglomerate. 'Global Ed'. They are looking for partners."
"Let them come," Surya said. "I'm busy building a university."
He hung up.
The lights flickered once as the generator coughed, then stabilized.
Surya looked at the map of his land.
"Arc 2 is about expansion," he thought. "I have the Science faculty. Now... I need the Commerce side. And I need money to build the second floor."
He needed a Commerce HOD. Someone who understood money better than God.
"System," Surya asked. "Scan for Commerce Talent."
[Scanning...]
[Target Located.]
[Name: Shakuntala Devi (Not the famous one).]
[Location: Bangalore Central Jail - Women's Ward.]
[Crime: Embezzlement / Stock Market Fraud.]
[Talent: Macro-Economics (Rank S) / Forensic Accounting (Rank S).]
Surya choked on his coffee.
"A convict? You want me to hire a convict?"
[Correction: She is innocent. Framed by her corporate boss. She needs a savior.]
Surya sighed. A drunk, a mechanic, and now a convict.
"Fine," Surya stood up. "Get the lawyer. We are going to jail."