October 2, 1970
They chose Gandhi Jayanti for the inauguration. A dry day. A holy day.
The new 'B-Wing' of Pratap Mills smelled of fresh paint, machine oil, and marigold garlands draped over the twelve Japanese looms. The air was thick with anticipation. The Japanese technicians, led by Sato, stood nervously by the control panels.
Rudra hadn't slept in twenty-four hours. He stood on the catwalk overlooking the floor.
"Start them," Rudra ordered into the microphone at 10:00 AM.
Sato pulled the main lever.
A deep, synchronized thrum filled the cavernous space. It wasn't the clattering racket of the old British looms; this was a hum of precision. Shuttles flew back and forth faster than the eye could track. White yarn began to weave into immaculate grey canvas—the base material for army uniforms.
Vijay Pratap stood next to his son, mesmerized. "Look at the speed, Rudra. One of these does the work of four old ones."
"Speed is nothing without consistency, Baba," Rudra said, his eyes scanning the floor like a hawk. "We run them for twenty-four hours straight. Full capacity test."
The day passed in a blur of efficiency. By midnight, the Japanese technicians left, satisfied. Only the night shift crew, handpicked by Rudra, remained.
Rudra refused to leave. He sat in the foreman's cabin, drinking black coffee, watching the floor through the glass window.
[System Alert][Intuition Warning: High Probability of Interference.]
Rudra sat up straight. The System didn't give vague warnings.
At 2:15 AM, the hum changed pitch. A sharp CRACK echoed from the far corner, near the main electrical junction box.
Suddenly, half the lights died. Three machines ground to a screeching halt, their safety breakers tripping. Smoke—the acrid smell of burning plastic and insulation—began to curl up from the junction box.
Panic erupted on the floor. Workers shouted, running towards the exit.
"STOP!" Rudra's voice boomed over the PA system, magnified by his fury. "Balwant! Seal the gates! No one leaves this floor!"
Rudra grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran down the stairs. A worker was already there, spraying foam on the smoldering panel. The damage was contained, but the production line was dead.
Rudra looked at the panel. A thick copper wire had been jammed across the main busbars, deliberately causing a short circuit meant to burn out the main transformer.
This wasn't an accident. It was arson.
The Traitor
The twenty night-shift workers were gathered in the center of the silent factory floor. They looked terrified, shifting on their feet.
Vijay arrived, alerted by phone, looking pale. "Rudra, the transformer... if that burned, we would be down for a month."
"It didn't burn, Baba. We caught it," Rudra said, his voice dangerously calm. He walked along the line of workers. He knew these men. Some he had given bonuses to.
"Who did it?" Rudra asked softly.
Silence.
Rudra sighed. He hated doing this the brute way, but he had no time.
System, Rudra thought. Scan financial anomalies among present individuals within the last 48 hours.
[Processing... Cost: ₹200.][Results Found:]
Target: Ramesh Jadhav (Junior Shift Supervisor).Anomaly: Cash deposit of ₹1,500 made yesterday at a local moneylender to clear a family debt. Source untraceable.
Rudra stopped in front of a thin, nervous man in his late twenties. Ramesh Jadhav. His hands were shaking violently behind his back.
Rudra didn't shout. He stepped close, invading the man's personal space, and whispered so only Ramesh could hear.
"Fifteen hundred rupees. That was the price of my factory? That was the price of your loyalty?"
Ramesh froze. His eyes widened in horror. How could Rudra know the exact amount?
"Deshmukh paid you to jam the wire," Rudra stated as a fact. "He hoped it would burn the building down."
Ramesh collapsed to his knees, weeping. "Malik, forgive me! My mother... the moneylender was going to take our house... Suresh Seth said it would just be a small spark..."
Balwant stepped forward, ready to drag the man away, but Rudra held up a hand.
"Get up," Rudra commanded.
Ramesh looked up, tear-streaked and confused.
"You have two choices, Ramesh. Choice one: I hand you to the police for industrial sabotage. You go to prison for ten years. Your mother loses the house anyway."
Rudra leaned in.
"Choice two: You go back to Suresh Deshmukh tomorrow. You tell him the job is done. You tell him the machines are ruined. And from now on, everything he tells you, you tell me first. You become my eyes in his camp."
Ramesh stared at Rudra. He was being offered a lifeline, but one tied to a noose.
"I... I will do it, Malik. I swear on my life."
"See that you do," Rudra said coldly. "Balwant, get the electrician. Fix the panel. We restart in two hours."
The Blockade and The Bypass
The next morning, October 3rd, the sun rose on a functional, if tired, factory. The machines were humming again.
But the mood in Vijay's office was grim.
Vijay slammed a letter onto the desk. "Kulkarni. That snake!"
"What happened?" Rudra asked, rubbing his grit-filled eyes.
"The District Procurement Officer for defense supplies. Kulkarni. He is Suresh Deshmukh's brother-in-law," Vijay spat. "He just sent this rejection letter for our tender application to supply local police uniforms. The reason? 'Lack of proven track record with automated machinery'."
"It's a blockade," Rudra said flatly. "Deshmukh knows the sabotage failed, so now he's using bureaucracy to starve us of orders. He wants us to sit on expensive machines with no buyers."
Vijay slumped in his chair. "The local market is closed to us, Rudra. We have the best cloth, but no government department in Maharashtra will touch us as long as the Coalition party is in power."
Rudra stood up and walked to the large map of India on the wall. He traced a line from Nagpur upwards.
"If the small gate is locked, Baba, we knock on the main door."
"What do you mean?"
Rudra turned. "Forget the Maharashtra police contract. It's peanuts. The Indian Army just put out a national tender for winter uniform fabric. The deadline is in four days in New Delhi."
"Delhi? That's for the giants, Rudra. Bombay Dyeing, Binny Mills... they have lobbyists living in the ministries. We are nobodies there."
"We are nobodies with the best product in the country," Rudra said. He pressed a buzzer on the desk.
Gokul Das entered.
"Gokul," Rudra said. "Pack your bags. You are taking the evening train to Delhi."
He pointed to the first roll of grey canvas that had come off the Japanese looms last night—the "sullied" batch from before the sabotage. Even that looked better than anything else.
"Take this roll. Take the test certificates from the Japanese engineers. You are going to the Ministry of Defense procurement office. You will bypass the clerks and demand a meeting with the Joint Secretary."
Gokul looked pale. "Malik, Delhi? Joint Secretary? I am just an accountant."
Rudra walked over and put a hand on the old man's shoulder.
"You are not just an accountant, Gokul. You are the herald of the future. You show them that cloth. You let them feel it. And if they ask who sent you, tell them: The new kings of cotton have arrived from Nagpur."
The Revelation
Later that afternoon, Bhau Saheb arrived at the mill for the ceremonial inspection. He knew nothing of the night's sabotage—Rudra had forbidden anyone from telling him.
The old freedom fighter walked down the aisle of the roaring B-Wing. He stopped at the end of the line where the finished fabric was being rolled onto a massive spool.
He reached out with a gnarled hand and touched the moving cloth.
It was flawless. Thick, durable, yet incredibly smooth. The weave was so tight it felt almost waterproof.
"My God," Bhau Saheb whispered. He looked at the cloth he was wearing—Khadi, rough and uneven. Then he looked at this. "This is... perfect."
Vijay stood proudly beside him. "It's 'Pratap Superfine Canvas', Baba. Our production cost is 30% lower than the competition because of the speed. But the quality..."
Rudra watched them from a distance.
That evening, the first samples hit the wholesale market in Nagpur just to test the waters.
The reaction was instant.
A major wholesaler, who usually bought from Deshmukh, rubbed the fabric between his fingers. He looked at the price tag Rudra had set—five percent below Deshmukh's inferior product.
"Is this price real?" the wholesaler asked.
"It is," Balwant, acting as salesman, grinned.
"I'll take everything you have. Now."
Word spread like wildfire through the bazaar. The Pratap Mill wasn't just back; they had leaped a decade ahead.
In his office across town, Suresh Deshmukh heard the reports. He threw a glass against the wall. The fire hadn't worked. The blockade hadn't worked.
Rudra Pratap hadn't just survived the night. He had awakened the lion.