I'm a Master in India

Chapter 241: Slaves

Yadav are 'cattle herders', Halwai are 'sweet makers', they are both low-caste Shudra.

In North India, cattle and sugarcane are everywhere, symbols of agriculture and the economy.

It's no surprise that the castes representing these two are vast in number.

Yadav number two to three million people, and Halwai, even if not as numerous, aren't far behind.

Ron had some vague ideas in his head, but they hadn't taken shape yet.

"Brother, how did things go in Lucknow this time?" Ratan walked over.

"It's resolved, The Daily News won't be reporting on us anymore." Ron shrugged.

"Those lowly Yadav didn't extort another sum from you?"

"You guessed it right, the bill will be mailed over in the next two days."

"Lowlifes are lowlifes." Ratan cursed.

Muna's heart clenched. Before, when he heard such words, he wouldn't take them seriously at all.

This was the fate of their caste, born this way.

He didn't know when it started, perhaps when he picked up a book again, or perhaps during the recent protests, but he was no longer indifferent to such words.

"Yadav still followed the rules, he gave us the coal mine in Sumbadra."

"Nobody wants that thing at all, you can't take it away, you can't sell it, it's a white elephant." Ratan was dismissive of this.

"Having it is better than not having it, at least we can solve the power problem for the cement factory and the mine."

"Brother, you are too rule-abiding, that's why Yadav bullies you. Sometimes you have to show them the gun in your hand..."

"Alright, alright, everyone is cooperating quite well now, there's no need to stir up trouble." Ron hooked his arm over his shoulder and walked towards the manor.

"This kind of business is too troublesome," Ratan grumbled, "Forget it, let's go have a drink, you haven't stopped since you came back from Mumbai. Duo Ji! Muna! Go buy some whiskey!"

"Yes, Master." The two servants replied.

There wouldn't be high-end goods like whiskey near Karna Village, not to mention the Lords wanted foreign liquor.

Duo Ji didn't like Muna, but had to hold his nose and act with him.

They had to go to Mirzapur town, where there would be shops selling foreign liquor.

The streets were noisy, and occasionally they could still see the flyers distributed by the protest teams from the past two days.

Some were pasted on the walls, some were trampled into the dirt, covered in footprints.

"Country mouse, what books have you been reading lately?" Duo Ji made small talk.

"Poetry collection."

"Poetry collection? What's that?"

"Great words."

"Only the gods are great, are you stupid?"

"You don't understand."

"Tch~" Duo Ji pointed dismissively, "Then do you recognize those words?"

Muna looked up, it was a newspaper thrown on the ground, in english.

"Look, you're not pious enough towards gods and words, you're just a half-baked person."

Muna was speechless, Duo Ji was right, he was just a half-baked person.

Not just him, most people in this country were half-baked, they simply didn't have the chance to complete their studies.

They were somewhere between illiterate and literate, their heads filled with a jumble of things, like an unorganized museum.

A few dates and events learned from history textbooks, a few formulas learned from math textbooks, political discussions read from newspapers while passing by on the street, a few triangles and pyramids seen on the tattered geometry textbook pages used to wrap snacks at the village tea stall, a few news segments heard from the All India Radio and Television news programs.

All these vague, half-understood, half-right, half-wrong pieces of information mixed together in their minds with other half-baked ideas, fighting tooth and nail, ultimately leading them to generate more half-baked ideas.

This was the process by which the worldview of most people in India was formed, and it was also their code of conduct for living and working.

Muna suddenly realized that he was essentially still a half-baked person, he couldn't even read english, what right did he have to study poetry?

"Country mouse, we're here, get ready!" Duo Ji on the side shouted.

The shop in front of them had a sign hanging outside, "First Prize United Kingdom Foreign Liquor Store."

This was the only foreign liquor store in town, and the landlords from the surrounding areas would send servants here every week to buy liquor.

And every time they went out, it was always two servants together, probably because they were afraid that the other servant might abscond with the liquor.

The shelves of the "First Prize" store were piled high with colorful, various kinds of liquor bottles, and behind the counter were two boys in their teens, busily collecting money and getting liquor amidst the customers' clamor.

On the white wall inside the store was a price list painted with red paint, listing hundreds of kinds of liquor, divided into five categories: beer, rum, whiskey, gin, and vodka.

Whiskey was the most numerous, with three categories, the top grade included johnnie walker, Black Dog, Teacher's Highland Cream...

The price started at one thousand rupee, and it could be sold by the whole bottle, half bottle, or quarter bottle.

At the end of the price list was a line of small print, stating that the store also sold more affordable whiskey, please inquire at the counter if you wish to purchase.

The interior of the store wasn't large, and the three-meter wide area in front of the counter was packed with over fifty people buying liquor.

Everyone was waving large banknotes and shouting at the top of their lungs:

"One liter of Kingfisher beer!"

"Half bottle of Old Monk rum!"

"One bottle of Thunderbolt! Thunderbolt!"

These liquors weren't for them to drink, Muna could tell from their tattered clothes that they, like himself and Duo Ji, were also servants buying liquor for their Masters.

Fortunately, it wasn't the weekend today, otherwise the counter would definitely be as crowded as a battlefield.

Once here, Muna and Duo Ji suddenly coordinated well. He was responsible for holding back the crowd, while Duo Ji made a strong push forward.

As he squeezed forward with all his might, he shouted, "johnnie walker! One whole bottle!"

johnnie walker was the first of the top-grade whiskeys on that price list earlier, and Ratan never drank other brands.

After Duo Ji got the liquor, he protected the bottle as if holding a baby. Muna began to punch his way through the crowd, carving out a bloody path.

He was already eighteen, and much taller than before. And because he ate curry grilled chicken, his body had also become much stronger.

Only in the liquor store did Duo Ji and Muna have a sense of cooperation, not ignoring each other as they did at the mine.

On the way back, Duo Ji would stop from time to time, then carefully take the bottle out of the box and play with it in his hand.

He said this was to check if the "First Prize" store had substituted inferior goods, but Muna knew this was complete nonsense.

He just wanted to hold the bottle, experience the feeling of holding a sealed bottle of top-grade whiskey in his hand, and imagine that it was liquor bought for himself.

After he had his fill, he put the bottle back in the box and walked all the way back.

Muna's clothes were also tattered, but he looked down on Duo Ji's little actions.

He thought of the line from the poetry collection that Iqbal had written:

They are ultimately slaves, because they do not know where beauty lies in the world.

The Daily News indeed fell silent, its front page replaced by a kidnapping case at a certain high-end english private school.

Such incidents were commonplace in Uttar Pradesh, and couldn't even be considered news.

However, the front page had to have something written on it to fill the empty space.

Taking over from The Daily News was The Times of India, whose reporting was a complete one-eighty.

Farmers protested for Sur Cement Factory, yes, but it was to thank the great Mr. Sur.

In The Times of India, Ron transformed into the savior of the people of Mirzapur.

He brought factories, provided thousands of jobs, and even planned to repair the terrible roads in the east.

He was clearly a great philanthropist, and the previous reports were all false rumors.

To increase persuasiveness, the newspaper also published two accompanying pictures.

One was a celebratory parade in Mirzapur town, with the slogans all changed to praise and sing the praises of Mr. Sur.

The other was a long line in front of Sur Cement Factory, those were villagers who came to apply for jobs.

The readers of The Times of India covered all classes in Uttar Pradesh, and Ron Sur's reputation reversed almost overnight.

After the news fermented for a few days, prominent figures in Uttar Pradesh began to pay attention to Ron.

They called him, not for anything specific, but purely to say hello.

They were all businessmen, and if there was a suitable opportunity in the future, cooperation would become a matter of course.

One of them strongly invited Ron to meet. His name was Subrata Roy, and he was from Bihar.

Ron inquired about him from Ratan, and unexpectedly, this guy was quite famous.

When he was young, he studied in Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh, and after graduation, instead of looking for a job, he rode a Lambretta scooter delivering fast food everywhere.

Roy didn't want to work for others, he liked to do business for himself.

After saving some money, he bought goods from low-end factories and then resold them to earn the difference.

However, there were too many poor people in India, and those things that seemed ordinary in Roy's eyes were still unaffordable for the lower class.

Once, a poor customer he was promoting to said bluntly, "If I give you my money, I will have less money. Unless you can find a way to make my money more, why should I trust you?"

This sentence opened up Roy's thinking, and a bold business plan took shape in his mind.

Roy found that banks in India were almost exclusively opened in big cities, and even small towns rarely had bank branches.

However, the majority of the population in Uttar Pradesh, or rather North India, lived in rural areas, where did they keep their money?

Poor people didn't have much money, but they always had one rupee, ten rupee, right.

In the late 1970s, Roy bought the nearly bankrupt Sahara Finance Company for two thousand rupee and officially established his private financial bank.

His main clients were in rural areas, providing high-interest investment projects for poor people such as farmers, rickshaw pullers, servants, and small businessmen who could not enjoy regular bank services.

He accepted everyone, allowing customers to deposit as little as ten rupee, and promised them a 300% annual interest return.

At first, many people didn't believe it, so Roy simply spread piles of banknotes on the table, leaving everyone dumbfounded.

After attracting the initial batch of customers with high interest rates, Roy began to lend money to those in need.

In his words, it was "mutual savings," where people with spare money helped those who needed money, and the latter paid the former interest.

Slowly, he attracted more and more customers, and as the money in his hands increased, he then lowered the interest rate to around 15%.

Because they were deeply intertwined, the poor customers did not leave Roy.

His Ponzi scheme was successful, and those poor customers would almost prostrate themselves every time they saw him.

More than ten years later, Sahara Finance Company has developed into the largest private bank in Uttar Pradesh.

Its business is no longer limited to the financial sector, and it has begun to expand into the real economy, with its presence in industries such as real estate, electronics factories, and hotels.

To be able to turn a Ponzi scheme into a real bank is also a standout in the world of oddities.

Ron was going to meet him. Since they were both in Uttar Pradesh, saying hello was not a bad thing.