I am a master in India

Chapter 127: Power
"Take out the word 'Soul'." Ron frowned in disgust.

Sur Ghetto? Who came up with that? It's so unrefined.

"Well, anyway, that's where the workers live. You have to go see it."

Ashish was talking about the land that Ron had temporarily obtained from the city hall, which was a legal slum.

Anand and his group of first workers built a wooden house there, and Ashish also moved in.

A few months later, that small space had transformed dramatically. Not only had the number of residents rapidly expanded from thirty to two hundred.

Various facilities began to be improved, public toilets were built, messy electrical wires were densely covered on the roof, and even the road surface that was originally rolled over by bulldozers was paved with gravel.

To be honest, Ron hadn't been there for a long time, even though they were only a ten-minute walk away.

"What happened there?" he asked.

"For water, that bastard plumber charged exorbitant prices." Ashish gritted his teeth.

"I remember you guys left the water pipes in place at the beginning, didn't you?"

"One tap is not enough, and we have 2,000 to 3,000 people."

Ron gasped, "Two or three thousand people? There are less than three hundred people in the Suer Electric Factory. How could there be so many more?"

"Not much at all," Ashish shook his head. "Three hundred workers means three hundred families. With eight or nine people in each family, that's two to three thousand."

Ron was stunned. He had forgotten another skill of his three brothers, giving birth to piglets.

"Boss, you have the final say in this entire area. You have to uphold justice." Ashish pleaded.

The Soul Electric Factory was a well-known name in the area, and the workers' slums depended on it. The only person with the right to speak here was Ron.

In a sense, he already had a similar role to that of Taj Ali, the slum boss.

"Where's Anand?" It was too hot and Ron was too lazy to move.

"He's been away for the past two days. He went south to look for that Brazilian guy."

They had just completed a smuggling business, and Luca decided to stay in Mumbai permanently. Anand volunteered to help him familiarize himself with the rules here.

"Okay, I'll be right there." Ron stood up helplessly.

When problems cannot be solved within the workers' ghetto, he needs to step in and make the final decision.

This is a common idea among everyone, after all, people privately call it the Sur Slum.

Lazhu did not hide in the office to enjoy the coolness. She followed Ron closely and acted as his assistant.

The gate of the Su'er Electric Factory faced south, while the workers' slums were to the north. After they walked half a circle around the wall, they were all sweating profusely.

When they arrived at the place, Ron was shocked by the scene when he looked up.

“Ashish, how many people are here?”

"I don't know, probably tens of thousands."

"Didn't you just say two or three thousand?"

"Two to three thousand are our own people, and the rest are outsiders."

Ron remembered that when this place was first planned, it was only a few thousand square meters. A bulldozer leveled the land, surrounded it with barbed wire, and that was it.

At that time, the place was empty, surrounded by wasteland. Anand and his friends built a wooden house here, which was almost the same as clearing the land.

Now, surrounding those rows of neat wooden houses, all kinds of huts are expanding outwards unscrupulously and without restraint like mushrooms.

It wasn't even a house; it was made of various cardboards held up by two bamboo poles, and covered with layers of black tarpaulin to keep out the rain.

Ron suspected that if he kicked it a couple more times, the house would collapse.

"When did they gather here, and how do they survive?"

"Boss, you know, workers also need to consume. They want to drink tea, buy daily necessities, and sometimes they even want to find women."

How much do workers at the Sur Electrical Factory earn? For the past two months, the factory has been operating at full capacity, with two shifts. Workers working 12 hours a day are paid at least 100 rupees.

A monthly salary of 3,000 rupees, starting from 1,000! This is almost equivalent to the monthly income of an average middle-class family in Mumbai, which is a bit too outrageous to be true.

The first wave of entrepreneurs flocked in, setting up small shops right next to the wire fences: milk tea shops, small grocery stores, vegetable shops, tailor shops, and small restaurants.

The workers were also happy to see this scene. They didn't have to go to the markets farther east and south. They could just tear a hole in the wire fence and bend over to buy things.

Later, gambling dens and shady places selling liquor also appeared. The area along the barbed wire fence was completely occupied, and Ron could no longer tell the boundary between legal and illegal slums.

With the establishment of these small shops, more and more people naturally came. The people living on the sidewalks, like sharks smelling blood, surrounded the small shops outside almost overnight.

They originally lived on the street, with no shelter from the wind and rain, and their only possession was a piece of plastic sheet.

They wait for a new place to be vacated in some slum; this is their only way out, a long and hopeless one.

There are too many poor people in Mumbai and there are limited places in slums.

But there is one situation that is like a jackpot for sidewalk residents: the birth of a new slum.

It is not difficult to imagine the frenzy that would ensue when the news of the legal slum in Sur spread. Many people rushed from South Mumbai overnight just to grab a spot closer to the barbed wire.

"Is there no one who cares?" Ron was so shocked by the scene that he was speechless.

The land he expropriated was only within the barbed wire fence. The wasteland outside, in principle, still belonged to the government.

"After a while, people from the municipal committee will come and symbolically demolish a few huts."

"Symbolic?"

"Because it doesn't work. Those people will hide and watch them tear it down. The Municipal Council will leave, and within two hours, those huts will be built precariously again in the same place." Ron understood. This was impossible to manage. There were over 2,000 slums in Mumbai. How many manpower did the Municipal Council have to waste?

"In fact, the municipal committee is just following orders. They don't want to do this." Ashish surprisingly has no ill feelings towards the people who are doing the demolition.

"Boss, can you imagine that? A woman standing there in a dirty sari. She doesn't even have water to drink, so how can she have extra water to wash clothes?
The children were naked, without even a decent piece of clothing, their homes were bare, and the council men were going to come in like savage demons and take away what little they had.

No normal Indian would do this. It is Mumbai that is sick, not the poor people living in the slums.”

Ron began to look at Ashish with a new appreciation, thinking that he was not just a technical nerd.

"But this place won't expand indefinitely. When it reaches a certain scale, the municipal committee will take real action." Ashish is experienced.

"We really can't go on like this. There will be a lot of trouble." Ron sympathized with them, but he also didn't want his factory to be surrounded by slums.

Who knows what will happen when there are too many people? The outrageous actions of the three brothers are always hard to guard against.

"It will be soon. It won't exceed 10,000 people. This is the limit of the municipal committee's tolerance." Ashish knew that only because the Sur Electrical Factory was located in a remote area could there be such a large slum.

In South Mumbai, a place with only a few hundred people would be demolished because the place is too crowded.

Ashish took Ron to avoid the illegal slums and walked along a dirt road surrounded by barbed wire, directly to the legal slum area.

The wooden houses here are obviously much tidier. They were all built by workers from the Sur Electrical Appliance Factory using pieces of wood.

Some houses were even reinforced with bricks. The lanes between the houses were also clean, and they must have been maintained by someone.

Everyone cherishes this legal shelter, and everyone protects its dignity from the bottom of their hearts.

Following the direction of Ashish's finger, Ron saw a group of women chattering around a plumber.

The man, wearing a uniform from a water company, ignored the crowd's protests.

Ron walked over and everyone automatically made way for him, and the quarrel gradually subsided.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Ron, one tap isn't enough," Anand's wife, Frieda, said, standing out from the crowd. "The water supply here is only two hours a day. When we're waiting in long lines at public taps with buckets, the water supply is suddenly cut off."

"This is the rule, I have no right to interfere." The plumber immediately retorted.

"You're the one behind this, you bastard!" The crowd started to curse loudly.

Ashish took the opportunity to explain to Ron that this water shutoff operation was usually a common tactic used by local plumbers who colluded with the government water supply company to enrich themselves.

"One tap isn't enough. You can add a few more. Connect a quarter-pipe, and four households will have taps. It'll cost 16,000 rupees, and we can start work today."

"See, boss. This guy is just asking for an exorbitant price!" Ashish wanted to beat him up.

Sixteen thousand rupees, this price is simply outrageous for people living in the slums.

Facing the crowd's angry curses, the plumber was not afraid at all. He knew that the people here were rich and their monthly salary of more than 3,000 rupees was higher than his.

It's only 16,000 rupees. If divided equally among four households, each family will get 4,000. How is that too much?
"Are you from the Municipal Services Company?" Ron turned to the plumber.

"Yes, we are employed by the city government. No one can make us change the regulations except the Shiv Sena. That's what Boss Rafiq said." Seeing that Ron was so impressive, the plumber immediately brought up the Shiv Sena, the local tyrant in Mumbai.

Ron smiled. "I just met Rafik not long ago and had a cup of coffee with Thackeray at his villa."

"Who are you?" The plumber became confused and felt that the person in front of him looked familiar.

"Didn't Thackeray tell you not to mess with Dr. Sur?" Ashish said, trying to bully others.

"Ah!" cried the plumber, "Doctor Soule!"

He was so frightened that he was at a loss for words, and then he immediately knelt down and touched the dirt in front of Ron's toes.

"I didn't know it was you, Dr. Soule!" the plumber pleaded pitifully.

If Ron told Rafiq about this, he would be in big trouble. Shiv Sena leader Thackeray had personally spoken, and no one dared to disobey.

He also didn't expect that Dr. Sur, a noble Brahmin, would come to a place like the slums. It was simply impossible.

"Okay," Ron waved his hand. "How much does it cost to add a quarter pipe and a tap?"

"Two thousand. No, free of charge!" the plumber replied hurriedly.

"Never mind, let's just go with two thousand." Ron looked at Frieda, Ashish and the others. "Is this a reasonable fee?"

"Makes sense! It makes perfect sense!" Ashish smiled happily, and the crowd burst into cheers of victory.

"Also, the water supply time will be extended by two hours every day." Ron took out a few rupees as a tip.

"No problem, Dr. Sur, I'd be happy to." The plumber, who received the money, also smiled happily.

"I'll go to the municipal company and say hello. I'll know what to do next time, right?"

"Of course, there will be no problems with water supply, electricity supply, including public toilets."

Very good, once and for all, Ron doesn't have to show up again.

But it feels really good to hold power.

Daiquan is the abbreviation of "agency power".

It is not a power you inherently possess, but one that is specifically bestowed upon you.

Tej Ali in the slums and Bal Thackeray in the Shiv Sena were both people with representational power.

Of course, Ron is also one of them. He is the most powerful person in Soul Electric and the workers' slums behind it.

(End of this chapter)