The night the sky tore open above Mithapur, Jaynish was solving a problem about rotational magnetic fields.
He was 18. Skinny. Sleep-deprived. Running on chai and stubborn ambition.
On his desk: scribbled notes on Maxwell's equations, a half-open Cengage magnetism book, and a YouTube lecture paused at 1.75x speed. In his mind: reusable rockets, indigenous defense systems, superfast rail corridors, nuclear reactors designed by Indian engineers.
He wanted to build things.
He wanted to build a nation.
A thunderclap split the air.
The power went out.
His laptop screen flashed white—brighter than welding arcs—then fractured into cascading lines of equations he had never seen before. Tensors. Field geometries. Something like a spacetime stress function.
He barely had time to whisper, "What the—"
The world collapsed inward.
When he opened his eyes, the smell hit him first.
Coal smoke. Horse dung. Wet earth.
And the distant metallic rhythm of steam pistons.
He lay on cobblestone. Not asphalt. Cobblestone.
His hands trembled as he pushed himself up.
In front of him rose Gothic spires and colonial facades. Carriages rattled past. Men in red uniforms with rifles slung over their shoulders. Indian workers in dhotis hauling crates stamped with the insignia of the East India Company.
A banner fluttered from a stone building:
Calcutta Port Authority – 1873
His breath froze.
"No way…"
A steam locomotive shrieked somewhere nearby.
He stumbled toward a newspaper stand. The headline read:
"Her Majesty's Administration Announces New Trade Levies Across Bengal Presidency."
Her Majesty.
Queen Victoria.
This wasn't a reenactment.
This was the Victorian Era.
In India.
He sat in the shadows of an alley, heart pounding.
Okay.
Okay.
Panic later. Analysis now.
He mentally catalogued everything.
Year: approximately 1873.
Location: Calcutta (British India).
Technological level: Steam engines, telegraphs, black powder rifles, early steel production, no internal combustion engines in mainstream use yet. No electricity grids. No aircraft. No modern medicine.
British control: Strong. Military superiority. Industrial edge.
India: Fragmented. Exploited. Railways built for extraction, not integration. Industries suppressed. Famine looming.
His brain, trained on physics problems and late-night geopolitical debates, began spinning like a turbine.
If this was real—
Then history wasn't fixed.
And knowledge was power.
He knew:
-The principles of rifling optimization and smokeless powder.
-Internal combustion engines decades before their commercialization.
-Electrical generators, AC vs DC systems.
-Reinforced concrete.
-Mass production techniques.
-Chemical processes for nitrates and fertilizers.
-Organizational structure of modern bureaucracies.
-The importance of literacy and STEM institutions.
-How wars are won through logistics, not glory.
He knew the future.
He knew where the British were strong.
And where they were blind.
A slow smile crept across his face.
"You wanted to build India," he muttered.
"Fine. Let's start from scratch."
Step One: Survival
He couldn't just walk into a rebellion shouting about tanks.
He needed:
-Identity.
-Capital.
-Influence.
-Allies.
-And secrecy.
If the British even suspected he possessed revolutionary ideas, he'd hang before sunset.
He observed for hours.
British officers carried Pattern 1853 Enfield rifles.
Black powder. Muzzle-loaded.
I can outclass that in five years, he thought.
Maybe less.
He needed a workshop.
Metal. Tools. Access to craftsmen.
Victorian India wasn't primitive—it was suppressed. There were brilliant Indian artisans, mathematicians, metalworkers.
They just lacked coordinated industrial systems.
He stood and walked toward the docks.
Ships loomed in the harbor—ironclads and wooden hulls. Steam-assisted but still dependent on sails.
He stared at their boilers.
I can redesign pressure efficiency. Improve turbine principles decades early. Introduce compound engines optimized beyond their time.
But that's phase three.
First—money.
He approached a group of Indian mechanics repairing a steam pump.
The foreman, a bearded man with grease-stained hands, barked, "Move along, boy."
Jaynish crouched beside the dismantled pump.
"The valve timing is misaligned," he said calmly. "And your piston seal is leaking compression. If you reverse the intake orientation and add a secondary gasket lining—"
The foreman froze.
"How do you know that?"
Jaynish picked up a piece of chalk and sketched a cross-sectional diagram of a pressure chamber. Precise. Elegant. Years of physics intuition guiding his hand.
The workers stared.
One whispered, "He draws like an engineer sahib…"
The foreman tested the adjustment.
The pump roared back to life—stronger than before.
Silence.
The foreman turned slowly.
"What is your name?"
Jaynish hesitated.
Names mattered.
Names could be hunted.
"…Arjun," he said finally.
Arjun. The warrior who fought impossible wars.
The foreman extended his hand.
"I am Harish Chandra. You understand machines?"
Arjun smiled faintly.
"You have no idea."
Elsewhere
Inside Government House, a British intelligence officer reviewed a routine report.
"Unusual technical discussion overheard near docks," the report read. "Young native male displaying advanced mechanical comprehension."
The officer scoffed.
"Probably mimicry."
He tossed it aside.
History does not shift because of one boy.
Outside, steam engines hissed.
In the alleyways of Calcutta, a modern mind began mapping an empire's weaknesses.
That night, under oil-lamp light in a cramped workshop, Arjun stared at crude Victorian tools.
His thoughts weren't of rebellion.
They were of systems.
First, electricity.
Then, small arms manufacturing.
Then, rail optimization for internal connectivity—not extraction.
Then fertilizer production to prevent famine.
Then steel.
Then shipyards.
Then—
He exhaled slowly.
One step at a time.
He looked at the dark sky.
"I don't know why I'm here," he whispered.
"But if I've been sent…"
His eyes hardened.
"Then the Empire is finished."
End of Chapter 1