The sun over Bellary wasn't just a light source; it was a physical weight. At noon, the sky turned a bleached, metallic blue, and the air shimmered with the heat rising from the hematite-rich earth. In this landscape of rusted hills and jagged quarries, sixteen-year-old Shoaib stood by the side of the State Highway, his face masked by a cheap cotton gamcha to keep the red dust out of his lungs.
To any passerby, he was just another waif in a faded shirt, a rusted bicycle leaning against a nearby neem tree. But Shoaib wasn't waiting for a bus or begging for coins. He was counting.
Seventeen, he noted mentally as a massive Leyland truck thundered past, its bed piled precariously high with raw iron ore. Heading toward the Mangalore port. Suspension low on the left side. Overloaded by at least three tonnes.
He pulled out a dog-eared notebook, its pages stained with sweat and grease. He didn't write down the license plates; he wrote down the patterns. He knew which companies moved their loads at midday to avoid the weight-bridge inspectors who took their lunch breaks at 1:00 PM. He knew which drivers were tired, and more importantly, he knew which trucks were returning empty.
The Hoysala Tea Stall
Shoaib's "office" was a rickety wooden bench at the Hoysala Tea Stall, a place where the scent of boiling ginger tea struggled against the overwhelming stench of diesel and hot rubber.
"Kaka, another half-cup," Shoaib said, sliding a coin across the scarred counter to the owner, a man whose skin looked like cured leather.
"You're going to turn into a tea leaf, Shoaib," the old man grumbled, but he poured the thick, sugary brew. "Why aren't you at the ground? The boys are playing a match against the Hospet team."
"Cricket doesn't put diesel in a tank, Kaka," Shoaib replied, his eyes never leaving the road.
A few minutes later, a heavy-set driver named Bashir slumped onto the bench beside him. His uniform was stained with the red grime of the mines, and he looked defeated.
"Empty again, Bashir-muhammad?" Shoaib asked casually.
Bashir spat into the dust. "The contractor in Toranagallu cancelled the return load. I have to drive back to Hospet with an empty bed. That's five hundred rupees in fuel wasted. My wife will have my head."
Shoaib leaned in. This was the "Connect."
"What if you didn't go back empty?" Shoaib whispered. "There's a fabrication yard three kilometers behind the main market. They have six tonnes of scrap metal—old pipes and rusted girders. They've been waiting for a cheap way to get it to the foundry in Hospet."
Bashir looked skeptical. "The foundry won't pay for a special pickup. It's too small a load."
"They won't pay for a pickup," Shoaib agreed, "but they'll pay for a delivery. If you pull up at their gate this evening, they'll give you five hundred rupees on the spot. You keep four hundred. Give me one hundred for the information."
Bashir calculated the math in his head. Four hundred rupees was more than his daily wage. "How do you know they'll take it?"
Shoaib smiled, a flash of white teeth against his dust-streaked face. "Because I spent my morning talking to the yard manager. I told him a truck might be passing by 'by chance' if the price was right."
The First Commission
Two hours later, Shoaib watched from a distance as Bashir's truck pulled out of the scrap yard, the bed no longer empty, the engine straining under the new weight. As the truck passed the tea stall, Bashir slowed down just enough to toss a crumpled note toward the neem tree.
Shoaib picked it up. It wasn't one hundred rupees; it was fifty. Bashir had cheated him on the commission.
Most boys would have been angry. Shoaib simply smoothed the bill and tucked it into his pocket. He wasn't upset about the missing fifty rupees. He was exhilarated by the proof of his concept.
He realized that the trucks, the mines, and the massive cranes were just hardware. The software—the thing that actually made the world move—was Information.
He looked at his rusted bicycle. It was a humble tool, but today, it had carried him to a realization that would eventually build empires. He wasn't going to be a miner, and he wasn't going to be a driver. He was going to be the man who knew where everything was going before it even got there.
As the sun began to dip, painting the Bellary sky in shades of bruised purple and crimson, Shoaib hopped on his bike. He didn't head home. He headed toward the railway sidings. He had heard a rumor that a coal shipment was delayed, and where there was a delay, there was a gap. And where there was a gap, there was money to be made.