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- Towns and Villages Around Delhi, Bharat -
- March 1937 -
The new year arrived quietly and the month of January and February passed in a blink of an eye— there was no grand celebrations, no fireworks in the sky—but there was something different in the air. It wasn't spoken out loud, but felt in the way people walked, in how they spoke to each other, in the eyes of children who didn't flinch at the sound of boots anymore.
Across Bharat, the signs of change were becoming harder to ignore. Roads that had long been dust trails were now beginning to be clean, paved, and more active with carts and new trucks. Police officers no longer carried the burden of serving foreign masters; their uniforms now bore the mark of Bharat, and their eyes carried purpose. The army too, had become a force not just of defence, but of dignity.
And at the heart of this rising tide was the Rajvanshi Group.
In just a few months, the factories had begun to hum. The air around industrial towns was filled with the sounds of iron being forged, machines being assembled, and ideas being tested. There were steel plants, tool factories, and workshops crafting everything from railway parts to farming equipment. A separate wing had been dedicated to research—where young minds experimented with new materials, chemical processes, and machines that could help Bharat stand tall without foreign dependence.
It wasn't just industrial. In quieter corners, the Rajvanshi Group had also begun real estate and hotel ventures—small, steady efforts that would grow in time. These spaces weren't built to flaunt luxury but to show Bharat what pride and dignity in design could look like. Every hotel employed locals. Every building was made with local materials. Every profit was reinvested into more growth.
At the centre of it all was Raghav, Rajvanshi family's old butler.
The once quiet and elderly butler had proven himself in ways no one had imagined. Under Aryan's insistence, he had taken up the reins of the Rajvanshi Group with discipline, care, and vision. Meetings that others might handle with ego, Raghav approached with humility. Where others saw numbers, he saw people. He didn't just manage a business empire—he nurtured it, and in doing so, nurtured the dreams of thousands.
But Aryan knew papers and reports could only show so much.
Now, dressed in simple khadi clothes, with his face hidden behind a minor illusion, Aryan stood on a busy street in a small village not far from Delhi—dressed and disguised as just another man in a crowd. No title. No guards. Just eyes wide open.
He passed through village markets, watched young men load sacks of grain onto bullock carts headed to newly built rail stations. He saw families standing in line at land reform offices, clutching documents that now gave them ownership over land they'd worked on for generations. There was tiredness, yes—but also relief. And in some eyes, hope.
He saw a man teaching his daughter how to write her name outside a small school, built where a zamindar's abandoned stable once stood.
But everything wasn't perfect.
In another small district near the river Yamuna he found locals complaining about inconsistent electricity. Their new water pumps stood unused because the transformers failed frequently. Elsewhere, he heard whispers that some corrupt officials were slowing land paperwork unless bribes were paid—remnants of old habits trying to survive in a new world.
Aryan listened silently, carefully. He asked questions as a common man would, heard their answers, shared their tea. No one knew who he really was, but their words burned into his mind more than any report could.
In one factory town, near Delhi in the newly established state of Devbhoomi Uttaranchal (modern day Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand), a young boy was fixing a machine with surprising skill. Aryan knelt beside him, asking where he learned it. The boy beamed, pointing to a night school run by the Rajvanshi Group. "They teach us after work. Not just reading—real things. I want to be an engineer one day."
Aryan smiled and patted his head.
Later that night, back in his temporary room at a local inn, he sat by the window and thought. Bharat was healing. Not healed, but healing. And healing was messy—it took time, it hurt sometimes, and it wasn't always visible. But it was real.
The gold he had quietly infused into the RBI had worked. The rupee was stable. The economy was beginning to breathe. But now he understood something even deeper.
Policies could change systems. Gold could build factories. But only people—heard, respected, empowered—could build a nation.
He picked up a small notebook and began to jot down everything he had seen, every pain he had heard, every improvement needed. He wasn't angry at the flaws. No system was flawless from the start. But he was more determined than ever to refine, correct, and protect what they were building.
Tomorrow, he would travel again—another region, another reality. But for tonight, Aryan slept not as a ruler burdened by power, but as a man among his people.
And that made all the difference.
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- A Small Village in Magadh (modern day Bihar and Jharkhand) -
- March 12, 1937 -
The next morning, Aryan left before sunrise. The roads were quiet, the air cool. He avoided the main highways, choosing instead to travel through smaller paths that led into the heart of rural Bharat—places where progress didn't arrive on schedule.
By mid-morning, he found himself in a village barely marked on any map. No electric lines hummed overhead. No concrete roads led in or out. The houses were made of mud and straw, and the village well was dry at its bottom. A slow silence hung over the place—not of peace, but of exhaustion.
He walked through the narrow lanes quietly, observing.
A group of children played with a broken wheel rim, their clothes torn and dusty. A few women stood near an old handpump, talking in hushed tones, glancing around as if afraid to speak freely. The moment they noticed Aryan, they stopped. One of the women pulled her veil lower and stepped back.
Then he saw it.
At the edge of the village, a small cluster of huts, separated by a narrow ditch. The people living there were barefoot, their eyes wary. An old man with a broom tied to his waist sat outside, his back bent. When Aryan greeted him, the man looked confused, almost frightened.
"You shouldn't talk to me, babu," the old man said softly, not meeting his eyes. "You're not from our side."
Aryan's stomach turned.
Despite everything—despite independence, the new constitution in the making, and every promise of equality—untouchability still lived here, in silence and distance. The village had adopted freedom on paper, but in the hearts of many, old chains still held fast.
He spent the day moving around, speaking to whoever would talk. He learned that the landowners, from a higher caste, still held unofficial power. The police came rarely, and when they did, they listened only to the wealthier voices. The local school teacher had stopped showing up weeks ago. Medicine came only when someone walked two days to the nearest town. And those who lived in the separate huts—well, they were never even counted.
At one point, Aryan watched a boy from the so-called lower caste try to enter the common well area. He didn't get far. A man twice his size slapped him hard across the face, shouting about "polluting" the water. No one stepped in. Some looked away. Others watched, but said nothing.
That night, Aryan sat beside a small fire lit outside one of the huts. A few men and women from the community had gathered—hesitant at first, but eventually willing to speak when Aryan offered nothing but quiet company and kind ears.
They shared stories—not of violence, but of daily hurt. Of being ignored, avoided, forgotten. Of their children being turned away from temple schools. Of being told that, though Bharat was free, they were not.
Aryan felt their pain deeply—not as a king, not as a leader, but as a man.
And for the first time in weeks, he didn't write notes or form plans. He simply listened.
Because sometimes, the first step toward change is not a law passed in a capital, but a heart broken beside a village fire.
Before he slept that night, under the open sky, Aryan looked at the stars and whispered a promise—not just to build a stronger Bharat, but a kinder one. One where no child was told they were born less. Where no water was denied to anyone. Where freedom meant dignity, not just survival.
Tomorrow, he would begin the work to fix this too.
But tonight, he grieved for the wounds that still lingered in the soul of his nation.
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