The Dvāra standard was a design challenge of fiendish complexity. It wasn't just a software toggle; it was a fundamental re-architecture. In "Market Mode," a device needed seamless cloud integration, snappy AI responses, and a slick, personalized interface. In "Garden Mode," it needed robust local networking, strong encryption, anonymization protocols, and a utilitarian interface geared toward community alerts and data sharing. It was like asking a race car to also function as a reliable tractor.
The engineering teams, forced into an uneasy collaboration, fought daily. The consumer hardware designers scoffed at the "clunky" security requirements of Garden Mode. The Pratyaksha cryptographers dismissed the "frivolous" data-hungry features of Market Mode as gaping security holes.
Harsh became a permanent fixture in the integrated Dvāra war room, not as a CEO, but as a systems architect, the only person who held the entire, contradictory blueprint in his head. He spent hours whiteboarding data flow diagrams, mediating disputes about processor allocation, and insisting on a single, satisfying thunk for the physical switch—a sound that would make the choice feel deliberate and real.
Amid this controlled chaos, a slim report arrived from the legal department. It was an analysis of the Dvāra standard's compliance with India's newly drafted Personal Data Protection Bill. The bill aimed to give citizens control over their data. Dvāra, with its explicit, binary choice, was ahead of the curve. But the report's conclusion was chilling.
"While the Dvāra 'Garden Mode' aligns with the bill's spirit of data minimization and localisation, the 'Market Mode' presents significant compliance risks. The collection and processing of personal data for AI personalisation in Market Mode would require explicit, granular, and continually renewed user consent under the proposed law. Our current consumer product terms of service would be non-compliant."
In short, the law would force them to make Market Mode so legally cumbersome—with pop-ups, disclosures, and confirmations—that Garden Mode, with its simple, private operation, would become the path of least resistance. The regulation would essentially rig the switch in favor of the Garden.
Rajeev from Consumer was apocalyptic. "They're going to regulate us into bankruptcy! No one will click through twenty consent screens to get a weather update!"
Bhavna from Pratyaksha, however, saw a historic opportunity. "The law is trying to do what Dvāra is trying to do—give people a real choice. If Market Mode is too annoying because it has to be honest about its costs, then maybe that's the market speaking!"
Harsh saw the trap and the opportunity. The state, through regulation, was about to become an unwitting ally in his ethical project. But it was a dangerous alliance. If Harsh Group was seen as having lobbied for or designed around these rules, they would be accused of manipulating the market, of using regulation to crush competitors who couldn't afford the dual-system architecture.
He had to get ahead of it. He called Meera, his former communications head who had resigned over the Pioneer deal. To his surprise, she agreed to meet. They sat in a quiet café, the ghosts of past conflicts between them.
"I need your counsel," he said, laying out the Dvāra paradox and the looming regulation.
Meera listened, her reporter's mind sharp as ever. "So, the state is about to make your moral choice the easy choice. And you're worried you'll look like a puppet master."
"Yes."
"Then you have to be the first to cry foul," she said, stirring her tea.
"What?"
"Publicly. Loudly. You go to the industry consortium. You say the new data bill, while well-intentioned, creates an unfair burden on companies that offer consumer choice. You argue for a transition period, for simplified compliance frameworks. You fight… for Market Mode."
Harsh stared at her, understanding dawning. It was reverse psychology on a geopolitical scale. By fighting for the very thing he hoped would lose, he would prove his independence from the state. He would establish Dvāra not as a regulatory Trojan horse, but as a genuine, corporate-led innovation in user sovereignty. And when the regulation passed anyway (as it likely would), Dvāra would be seen not as a beneficiary, but as a resilient, ethical pioneer that had already adapted.
"It's a performance," he said quietly.
"It's statesmanship," Meera corrected. "You're not lying. You are advocating for a smooth transition for the entire industry. You're just… accepting that the transition will end in a world that favors your deeper goal. You're letting the law be the villain, while you position Dvāra as the thoughtful solution."
It was brutally cynical and utterly necessary. He would have to stand before his peers and defend the very data-harvesting practices his soul rejected, all to protect the integrity of the switch that could end them.
The weight of the physical switch, that satisfying thunk, suddenly felt immense. It wasn't just a user's choice. It was a fulcrum on which he had to balance his integrity, his empire's survival, and the future of privacy in a digital India. To make the Garden flourish, he first had to pretend to care for the weeds.
He left the café, the taste of the bitter tea and the bitter plan lingering. The path to the light, it seemed, sometimes required walking a stretch in deliberate shadow. The keeper was becoming an actor, and the most important performance of his life would be a role he despised.
(Chapter End)