The praise for Pyaar Ki Jeet came in a warm, steady wave. The trade papers called it "the feel-good hit of the season." Distributors from Punjab to Tamil Nadu wired advances, demanding more prints. The music was on every other radio channel. For a brief, heady week, MANO Pictures wasn't just a corporate subsidiary; it was a name moviegoers recognized.
In the modest but growing MANO headquarters—a rented floor above a bank in Fort—the mood was a mix of exhaustion and triumph. Shanti presided over a team of four young accountants, their desks buried in order forms. Rajendra watched from the doorway of his glass-walled office. This was the legitimate empire, growing in real-time. It felt solid. It felt real.
Shanti looked up, caught his eye, and came over, a sheaf of papers in her hand. "We need to talk about scaling. The pressure cooker demand in the South has jumped thirty percent since the film's songs aired there. It's a branding halo effect. But our Pune workshop can't keep up."
"Find a second workshop. In Gujarat. They know metalwork. Use your father's contacts to vet the owner," Rajendra said. His mind was already moving past production logistics. Success was a bright light. It illuminated your path for others to see, too.
As if on cue, a young office boy approached, holding a cream-colored envelope on a tray. "Sir, special delivery. From Delhi."
Rajendra took it. The letterhead was formal: Government of India, Ministry of Commerce & Industry. The letter was an invitation to a "Roundtable Discussion on Emerging Exporters and Foreign Exchange Generation," to be held in Delhi in ten days.
Shanti read over his shoulder. "It's a generic invite list. But we only premiered the film a week ago. For our name to have reached a ministry desk, been vetted, and added to this list so quickly…"
"...means someone is paying attention," Rajendra finished. He tapped the paper against his palm. "They're not just inviting us. They're probing us."
"Probing for what?"
"For usefulness. India is broke, Shanti. The IMF is at the door. The government is desperate for dollars, for any scheme that can bring in foreign goods without draining reserves. We've just shown we can create a product that captures the public's imagination. They want to see if we can do the same with something that fills the treasury."
He handed her the letter. "You'll go. You're our acceptable, respectable face. I'll be in the background. Listen more than you speak."
She nodded, a glint of challenge in her eyes. "I know how to talk to bureaucrats. They're just like my father's board members, but with cheaper suits and more power."
The next morning, Ganesh arrived early. His usual calm demeanor was charged with a suppressed energy. He waited until Rajendra had closed the office door.
"Moscow, bhai. Our contacts there, the traders, they've sent word. It's happening."
He laid out the report, pieced together from drunken whispers in port-side bars and coded messages from clerks with access to ministry typists.
First, a purge. The Soviet Oil & Gas Ministry had been quietly gutted. A dozen senior officials, the old Communist guard, were "on extended leave." Their replacements were a mix of younger technocrats and, notably, two officers seconded from the Red Army's Logistics Corps. The army's hand was now visibly inside the state's richest cupboard.
Second, Elena Volkova's primary patron, a deputy minister she'd cultivated, was under house arrest. Her sleek Dubai deal for the diesel fuel was frozen—a ship stuck between bureaucratic ice floes. She was exposed, her gold-plated ladder kicked away.
Third, and most critical, was the military move. The GUMR—the vast, rotting military logistics network—was being "streamlined." A new committee had been formed, answerable directly to the Defense Council. Its rumored head was a General Yevgeny Krylov, a legend from the Afghan war, known for ruthless efficiency and a disdain for party politics. The whispers said his mandate was simple: "Identify redundant state assets and secure their value for national continuity." In plain language: find what can be sold to keep the army fed and clothed.
Rajendra leaned back, the chair creaking. The pieces were aligning with terrifying speed. The "sneeze" Anya had said to wait for wasn't a sneeze. It was the first cough of a dying giant, a spasm that shook loose the very controls.
"He's consolidating power," Rajendra murmured. "The army is moving from defending the state to managing it. They're the only institution left with any cohesion." He looked at Ganesh. "This is our signal. The warehouse now has a foreman. And he's taking inventory."
He went to a locked drawer in his desk, not the one with the System tablet, but a ordinary one. From it, he took a single, blank postcard. On it, he wrote in neat block letters: READY. He signed it with a simple, pre-agreed symbol: a small circle with a diagonal line through it, like a simplified rocket.
He handed it to Ganesh. "The sailor on the Baltic Star. He docks tomorrow. Give him this, and the usual payment. He knows where to drop it."
It was their dead-drop to Anya. A Mumbai-based sailor on the India-USSR run who, for a fee, would leave a coded message in a specific locker in the Murmansk port seamen's club. Clumsy, analog, untraceable.
"The 'Ready' is for her," Ganesh confirmed, pocketing the card.
"It's for us," Rajendra corrected. "Now we build the offer."
That night, he and Shanti worked late, the sounds of the city fading outside. They spread charts and lists on his desk. This was no longer about film or cookers. This was macro-economics meets gangster diplomacy.
"We can't just offer money. Rubles are trash. Dollars we don't have enough of," Shanti stated, her finger tracing a column of numbers. "And if we somehow get millions in hard currency, the Indian government will want to know where it came from before we can even spend it."
"Barter," Rajendra said. "We trade things they desperately need for things they have too much of. But it has to be a test. Small enough to fly under the radar, valuable enough to prove the channel works."
They built the package together, a strange fusion of humanitarian aid, consumer desire, and cultural soft power.
The MANO Offer (Phase 1):
Medicine: 5,000 doses of broad-spectrum antibiotics (sourced legally but discreetly from their Karjat medical herb stockpile, enhanced with "proprietary extraction").
Food: 2 metric tons of canned lentils, ghee, and sugar (staples vanishing from Soviet shelves).
Technology: 100 MANO Supreme Pressure Cookers (as a novelty of efficient design), and 50 Japanese VCR units (sourced via MAKA's quiet channels).
Culture: 100 VHS copies of Pyaar Ki Jeet, subtitled in Russian by a scholar at Mumbai University.
In Return, They Requested:
Personnel: The temporary secondment of three (3) Soviet aviation design engineers for a period of one year, to serve as "consultants" to MANO on "light industrial machinery design." Their salaries to be paid in the goods listed above.
Material: A sample shipment of 10 metric tons of D16T Aluminum Alloy, a high-strength, corrosion-resistant metal used in aircraft construction.
"The genius of it," Shanti pointed out, her eyes gleaming with the thrill of the scheme, "is that we're asking for brains and a sample. The engineers get paid in food and medicine for their families—real value. The alloy is valuable but not strategic enough to trigger a Politburo alarm. It's a proof of concept. If we can get three engineers and ten tons of metal out of the USSR, we can get anything."
"And if the engineers have friends," Rajendra added, "or if the alloy is useful for something we design… it becomes a pipeline."
They drafted the proposal in dry, technical language, framing it as a "private-sector technical and cultural exchange initiative." It was signed under the letterhead of their Singapore shell company, Ascendant Pte Ltd.
The proposal was encoded into a microfilm strip—a paranoid touch borrowed from spy novels, but practical for smuggling. Ganesh would give it to the same sailor, for the same dead-drop.
The Commerce Ministry roundtable in Delhi was held in a cavernous, dusty hall in Udyog Bhavan. The air smelled of old files and ambition. Shanti, in a conservative silk sari, was a poised figure among the mostly older, male business owners. Rajendra lurked at the back, near the tea urn, playing the anonymous assistant.
The speeches were dull—exhortations to "increase export thrust" and "explore new markets." The real action was in the breaks. A senior bureaucrat, a Mr. Iyer with tired eyes and a sharp mind, sought Shanti out.
"Miss Sharma. Your father's daughter, I see. And now a film producer. A fascinating diversification."
"Thank you, sir. We believe in integrated brand building."
"Indeed." He stirred his insipid tea. "Integrated. That is the key word. Your group seems to have… vertical reach. From soil to screen, as it were." He paused. "In the current climate, with the foreign exchange coffers rather bare, the Ministry is particularly interested in entities that can demonstrate lateral reach as well. International sourcing capabilities. Counter-trade arrangements. Things that don't strain our dollar reserves."
The probe was gentle, but the hook was sharp. We know you're up to something. Can it help us?
Shanti smiled her most disarming smile. "MANO is fully committed to exploring all lawful and innovative channels to support our national import-export objectives, sir. We believe creative partnerships are the future."
"Quite." Mr. Iyer nodded, his message delivered. "Sometimes, a small, successful pilot can be more convincing than a grand proposal. The proof of the pudding, as they say." He moved away, leaving Shanti with a racing heart.
Later that evening, at their guest house, Priya Singh called.
"Shanti? It's Priya. I heard the roundtable was a snore."
"It had its moments," Shanti said, switching the phone to speaker so Rajendra could listen.
"My grandfather asked about it. He said to pass a message. Informally, of course." Priya's voice was light, but every word was chosen. "He said that in times of scarcity, the most valuable currency is demonstrated capability. A theoretical plan is just paper. But a small, tangible result… that gets noticed. He said to tell your partner that."
The line went quiet. The message from the Finance Minister himself was clear: Show us you can deliver something we need, and the doors will open.
Two weeks of tense silence followed. The routine of business continued—the film's wide release, textile orders, cooker production—but beneath it thrummed a wire of anticipation. Then, the signal came.
It was a telegram, delivered to the mill office, its wording bland and commercial.
TO: SHAKUNIYA MILLS, MUMBAI
FROM: ASCENDANT PTE LTD, SINGAPORE
RE: SHIPMENT B-77
PACKAGE SECURED. THREE SPECIALISTS AND SAMPLE CARGO ABOARD NEUTRAL-FLAG VESSEL MV SURYA KIRAN. ETA BOMBAY PORT BERTH 14, 48 HOURS. HANDLE DISCREETLY. ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT. – A.
Rajendra read it twice. Package secured. Anya had done it. She had pushed the proposal through whatever shadowy military-logistics committee now held power. The engineers and the alloy were on the water.
"Ganesh," he said, his voice steady. "We have forty-eight hours. Secure a warehouse near the docks. Not our usual one. A new, clean one. Arrange two flats in a decent, quiet building in Bandra for the engineers. Furnished. Stock the kitchens with food. And hire a translator—a retired professor, someone discreet and smart."
"Yes, bhai." Ganesh turned to leave, then stopped. "Security?"
"Unobtrusive. Our best men. They are guests, not prisoners. But I don't want anyone else knowing they're here."
The machinery of MAKA shifted into motion, a quiet, efficient ghost in the city's bowels.
The tension should have been peak, but a strange calm settled over Rajendra. The first move in the real game was made. He was playing on the board now, not just staring at it.
The calm shattered that evening. A street urchin, one of the many who ran messages for the grey market, delivered a dirty, folded note to Ganesh at a chai stall. Ganesh brought it straight to Rajendra.
The note was written in uneven English on cheap paper:
"The Russian woman is scrambling. Her patron is gone. She knows she was outflanked. She is asking about you in the bad places. She says you have something she wants back. She is angry, not smart now. Watch your berths at the port. – A friend."
Elena. Cornered, desperate, her golden escape hatch slammed shut. She knew he had moved behind her, cut her out. And she knew something was coming to Bombay that was meant to be hers. A desperate animal is the most dangerous kind.
Rajendra crumpled the note. The threat was clear. She wouldn't go to the police. She'd go to the sharks she knew—the Dubai network, or local Mumbai thugs hungry for a payday from a frantic foreigner.
"Ganesh," Rajendra said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Change of plan. The pickup at Berth 14. Assume we're being watched. Use a decoy truck. Have our men ready for trouble. And send a message to our 'friend' who sent this. Find out where Elena is staying. I want to know her every move."
The night before the ship's arrival, Rajendra stood alone at the end of a deserted pier in the Sassoon Dock area, a different pier from Berth 14. The water was black, oily, slapping against the mossy pillars. The air stank of fish guts and diesel. Ganesh stood a respectful distance away, a shadow in the dark.
In the distance, the lights of incoming ships were scattered stars on the horizon. One of them was the MV Surya Kiran, carrying the first physical fruits of his insane gamble—the brains and bones of a fallen empire.
It was no longer a theoretical exercise. By tomorrow, he would have Soviet engineers on Indian soil and a small fortune in special alloy in his warehouse. He would have proven he could reach into the heart of the chaos and pull out value.
But he had also drawn a predator's eye. Elena was out there, in the Mumbai night, hungry and vengeful.
The waiting was over. The move was made. Now came the counter-move. The game was alive. And for the first time, Rajendra felt the true weight of the stakes—not in Void-Coins, but in flesh, blood, steel, and the cold, sharp edge of a betrayed woman's wrath.
He turned his back on the dark water. The plan was in motion. All that was left was to survive the collision.