The drive from the airport to Nhava Sheva was a journey through India's split soul. One moment, gleaming glass offices of foreign banks, the next, sprawling slums clinging to highways. Rajendra watched it all pass, his mind already cataloging—not problems, but potential.
The plot Ganesh had identified was perfect: twenty acres of low-lying land with direct creek access to the new JNPT port. It was also a headache. A makeshift temple—a bright blue tarpaulin strung between bamboo poles—stood at its center. Around it, a hundred-odd fisherfolk and settlers had gathered. And on a raised platform of broken bricks, a man held court.
He wasn't old. Perhaps forty. He wore the ochre robes of an ascetic, but they were clean, new. His beard was neatly trimmed, his eyes closed in apparent meditation, but Rajendra saw the slight tilt of his head, listening to the crowd's murmurs. A performer, aware of his audience.
"Who is he?" Rajendra asked, rolling down the window of the Contessa.
"They call him 'Guruji.' No one knows his real name. He appeared two months ago, just as the land disputes started. Says the land is protected by the river goddess 'Maa Vashishti.' He quotes scriptures, performs pujas. The people believe him. The last surveyor's tripod ended up in the creek."
"A priest with a public relations strategy," Rajendra mused. "Get him to come and talk. Not here. Somewhere quiet. Tell him... a benefactor wishes to discuss a donation for his temple."
An hour later, in a back room of a stale-smelling Udipi restaurant in Panvel, Rajendra faced the man. Up close, the performance was more obvious. The beads around his neck were cheap plastic painted to look like rudraksha. His "calm" was a held-breath tension.
"You wished to discuss a donation, sir?" the man said, his voice a practiced, mellifluous drone.
"I wished to discuss the land," Rajendra said, stirring his syrupy chai. "The one you say is sacred."
"The will of the goddess is not for discussion. It is for observance."
"Of course. I was struck by your citation yesterday. From the Skanda Purana, was it? About the sanctity of estuaries."
The man's eyes flickered. "Yes. The Skanda Purana. A profound text."
"Which khand? Which adhyaya?"
A beat of silence. "The... the Vashishti Samhita. The chapter on... tidal blessings."
Rajendra nodded slowly. "Fascinating. Because the Skanda Purana has no Vashishti Samhita. And its passages on estuaries are in the Kaumara Khand, not a separate text. Your pronunciation of the mantra you chanted—it's the Gayatri mantra, but with the third pada stressed like a Bihari pundit, not a Konkani one."
The man's calm shattered. A fine sweat broke out on his upper lip. "You... you dare to question—"
"I'm not questioning the goddess," Rajendra said, his voice dropping to a conversational tone. "I'm questioning your brochure. Who taught you? You know the texts, but you learned them by rote, from someone else. You're not a Brahmin. You're a student. A very good student with a sharp memory and a talent for theatre."
The man—Guruji—deflated. The holy aura vanished, leaving a tired, frightened man in cheap robes. "What do you want?"
"The truth. Then we talk business."
Pressed, the story spilled out. His name was Suryakant. He was from a lower-caste family in Ratnagiri, but as a bright boy, he'd been taken in as an assistant by a real, elderly, and deeply corrupt Brahmin pundit in Pune. The old man had taught him scriptures not for piety, but as tools for manipulation—to scare rich clients into bigger donations, to settle property disputes with curses, to perform "miracles" for a fee. Suryakant had been the behind-the-scenes scholar, writing the scripts, until he realized he could play the lead role. The Nhava Sheva land grab was his first independent venture.
"I have knowledge," Suryakant insisted, a desperate pride in his eyes. "I know the Vedas, the Puranas, the rituals. I know what people fear and what they hope for. I am not some street magician."
"That's why you're still sitting here," Rajendra said. He finished his chai. Suryakant's knowledge was real. His authority was fake. That was a useful combination. "Your current operation is a dead end. The police will come eventually, or a builder will send men with pipes. You'll end up in jail or in a ditch."
Suryakant swallowed. "What is your offer?"
"Employment. With benefits. And a promotion." Rajendra leaned forward. "You will cease being a generic 'guruji.' You will become a specialist. A priest of Maa Durga and Maa Kali. Fierce, powerful goddesses of strength and destruction. Your rhetoric will shift from 'protect this land' to 'empower your community.' You will use your knowledge to design new, impressive rituals. You will be my... Spiritual Affairs Consultant."
Suryakant looked bewildered. "For what? To bless your factories?"
"Internally, yes. For certain workforce morale issues. Externally, for branding. I will build you a proper ashram—a small, respectable one. You will become 'Swami Suryananda.' You will give discourses, write articles for newspapers. You will cultivate an image of a modern, fierce sage."
"And the land here?"
"You will broker the peace. You will tell your followers that Maa Durga has shown you a new path. That true devotion means accepting fair compensation and moving to better homes, so that a great project that will feed thousands can be born here. You will make it their victory, not their defeat. You will be their leader into the future, not a anchor to the past."
Rajendra saw the understanding dawn in Suryakant's eyes, followed by a glint of ambition. This was a bigger stage than a tarpaulin temple. This was legitimacy, power, and protection.
"There is one more thing," Rajendra said, his voice lowering. "To accelerate your... credibility, you will need to make predictions. Not vague ones. Specific ones. A storm on a certain date. A landslide in a certain hill station. A political scandal. I will provide you with the information. You will 'foresee' it. Your reputation will become unshakeable."
Suryakant's eyes widened. He was a conman, but he understood the scale of the con being proposed. It was breathtaking. "How could you possibly know such things?"
"That is not your concern. Your concern is performance. Do we have an understanding, Swami Suryananda?"
Suryakant—now Swami Suryananda—took a deep, shuddering breath. Then he nodded. The fake holy man had just been hired by a merchant who traded in futures, both economic and otherwise.
"Good," Rajendra said, standing up. "Ganesh will give you your first month's advance and a new set of robes. Start with the land deal. Then we'll discuss your first... prediction."
As he drove back to Mumbai, Rajendra wasn't thinking about the morality of it. He was thinking about infrastructure. Suryananda was a new kind of pipeline—a pipeline for influence, for crowd control, for shaping narratives. In a country that ran on faith and fear, a loyal sage was more valuable than a squad of lawyers.
He had acquired the land. And he had just acquired the priest who would sanctify it. Two assets, one transaction. The merchant's calculus was simple: see the leverage in everything, and pull.