At exactly six o'clock, inside the Canal Bungalow, D'Souza flipped the switch.
The machine answered like an animal waking up.
Static. A long hiss. Then a sharp pop—so sudden that a few men in the villages instinctively reached for their sticks, as if a firecracker had gone off inside the wooden box.
For one heartbeat, fifty villages held their breath together.
Then a voice cut through the evening air—clear, steady, and intimate, close enough to feel like it was standing in the square.
"Assalam-o-Alaikum. Sat Sri Akal. Namaste, people of Sandalbar." It was Abdullah Shafi's voice—calm, measured, respectful. A schoolteacher's control, a scholar's dignity. "This is the Voice of Sandalbar," he continued. "We speak to you from the home of Jinnah Sahib, but we speak for you."
In the village squares, people froze.
The shock was not the greeting.
The shock was the certainty—because the box did not pretend to speak. It spoke like a man. It spoke in the language of the land.
And then Balvinder arrived like a drumbeat.
"Oye! Are you listening, or are you sleeping? If you are sleeping, wake up. Even the mosquitoes are awake to hear me!"
Laughter broke out—first from the younger men who laughed without permission, then from the older ones who tried to keep their dignity but failed. That laughter mattered. It told the villages this was not a police order. Not a court summons. Not the dry bark of a darogha. It was something unfamiliar: a voice that sounded like their own world, carrying confidence instead of threats. "Today," Balvinder continued, "Maulvi Sahib here wants to talk about washing your hands. I told him, 'Maulvi, my hands are clean enough to slap a donkey.' But he says, 'Balvinder, invisible enemies are harder to slap.' So listen—before he slaps me with his pen." Even Abdullah's quiet sigh slipped through the speaker—faint, human, unmistakable—and the crowd laughed again because the machine had not swallowed personality. It had carried it whole.
Abdullah took over smoothly. He did not preach. He narrated.
He turned hygiene into a story about soldiers who survived bullets but lost comrades to sickness—men who won battles and still died because they treated cleanliness like a woman's concern. He made it simple. He made it practical. He made it respectable to learn.
Then came the music.
Sohni's father struck the chimta.
Clang-chick-clang.
Her uncle answered with the dholak's slow heartbeat.
Dhum… dhum… dhum…
And Sohni sang.
A kafi of Bulleh Shah, lifted out of her throat like a prayer that had learned melody. Her voice—amplified by valves and wire—sailed over mud walls and cotton fields, high and pure, aching with longing.
In the village squares, hookahs went quiet.
Men stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Women wiped their eyes with the edge of their shawls without admitting they were wiping tears.
It was not court music. It was not elite raga. It was the folk sound of the soil—made louder, made undeniable, made impossible to dismiss. Inside the studio, behind the glass, Jinnah watched.
Balvinder tapped his foot, restrained but pleased.
Abdullah nodded in rhythm, relieved the machine had not swallowed his dignity.
Sohni's eyes were closed in concentration. Her father and uncle sat behind her like two pillars—visible guardians, steady hands on simple instruments—ensuring the miracle remained anchored to family and discipline.
It works, Bilal whispered inside Jinnah's mind. You just connected the grid. You are now in their heads. "We are in their hearts," Jinnah replied quietly, not moving his mouth. "That is the safer place to be." The broadcast ended at six-thirty.
In fifty villages, silence held for one stunned moment.
Then applause broke out—not applause for a man on a stage, but applause for a wooden box that had just proved the world was changing.
A villager clapped as if clapping could make the voice return. A child slapped the ground, laughing, delighted that reality had become a trick.
And before the crowd could drift away into speculation, Abdullah's voice returned—clean and formal.
"Today," he said, "Jinnah Sahib will speak directly to the villages newly placed under Sandalbar's administration."
A small wave moved through the crowds.
New villages.
The thirty-seven—the ones that still carried flood panic like a scar, the ones that still feared bandits, officials, and the old Punjabi truth that the poorest man always pays even when he is innocent.
Then the voice changed.
Quieter. Sharper. Controlled.
Not the warm tone of a storyteller.
The tone of a barrister addressing a room that must be won without losing dignity.
"My people," Jinnah began.
The squares went still.
He did not say "subjects." He did not say "tenants." He did not say "peasants." He chose a word that carried authority without humiliation.
"You have been placed under Sandalbar's administration," he said. "You did not ask for this. Many of you did not want it. That is understood."
He paused—long enough for skepticism to breathe, long enough for anger to sit without exploding.
"But you are not stepping into an unknown," he continued. "You are stepping into a model that already exists."
He spoke of the thirteen villages that had already lived under Sandalbar's system.
"Ask them," he said. "Ask the villages that have been under us since the beginning. Ask them what it means when bandits come at night and a rifle answers. Ask them what it means when floodwater rises and food still arrives. Ask them what it means when a man is kidnapped and the estate does not forget him."
He let the words settle, then he tightened them.
"You have seen many types of power in Punjab," Jinnah said. "The power of the zaildar. The power of the robber. The power of the corrupt clerk. The power of the darogha who treats your complaint as a business opportunity."
His voice hardened slightly on the last word.
"In Sandalbar," he said, "you will not face a darogha who exploits you. You will not pay bribes to be treated like a human being. You will not be left to die in a flood. You will not be left to bleed under bandit attack. You will not be left alone in any situation where the state has the ability to act."
A murmur rolled through the crowds—half disbelief, half hunger.
Then Jinnah cut through it with the same discipline that made assemblies fall silent.
"But," he said, "do not misunderstand me."
The air tightened.
"This protection has a cost."
He did not let them imagine money first. He did not let them turn it into bargaining.
"The cost is discipline."
The words landed heavier than any threat.
"Discipline in your lanes. Discipline in your homes. Discipline in your mouths," he continued. "No false rumors. No mob justice. No sheltering criminals because they are your cousin. No hiding weapons because you want to feel powerful. No refusal to cooperate when the Farabi post gives instructions."
"This is not charity," he said. "This is administration. If you want protection, you must accept rules. If you want order, you must behave like people who deserve order."
He paused again, then delivered the challenge in plain Punjabi logic:
"If you doubt me," he said, "ask the thirteen villages. Ask them what they gained. Ask them what they lost. Ask them whether the price was worth it."
His final line came without drama, but it carried weight.
"In Sandalbar, you will not be abandoned," Jinnah said. "But you will also not be allowed to remain the same."
The broadcast ended.
For a moment, the villages stayed silent—not stunned this time, but thinking.
And in that silence, the system began to take root—not because the villagers suddenly loved Jinnah, but because they understood the trade:
Safety, in exchange for discipline.
Then the town crier, unable to resist turning history into advertisement, shouted into the gathering:
"Tomorrow! Same time! Bring your friends!"
And just like that, the old rumor-engine—the messenger boy, the tea shop whisper, the exaggerated panic—lost its monopoly.
A new engine had started.
The truth now had a schedule.