“No, no.”
“Haha, President Rohit , you should try tasting it too. You might even throw up last night’s dinner.”
The two of them teased me as though it were nothing unusual.
“Raj, I think it’s ready. Dissolve it in the water and start the heat.”
“Yes, Father. Please keep an eye on the flame.”
Raj dissolved the dye into the warmed water and immersed the fabric.
Then he lit the gas burner beneath the drum.
“Turn the heat up a little. Good… good… that’s enough. Heat it for another five minutes, then transfer it to the next drum.”
“Understood.”
Old Man casually plunged his hand into the hot solution to check the temperature.
“Is that really safe?”
“He does that even when there’s a thermometer. He says feeling it with his body is the most reliable method. It looks crude, but if you check with a thermometer, each drum is exactly twenty degrees hotter than the previous one. The final drum is boiling, so naturally it’s at one hundred degrees. Light colors like mango yellow finish dyeing after about thirty minutes at one hundred degrees.”
It looked primitive and dangerous, but he was so calm that I began wondering whether my concern was unnecessary.
“So the fabric is pretreated in a thirty-degree solution, then the temperature is increased by two degrees per minute until it reaches one hundred degrees, where it’s held for thirty minutes?”
“President Rohit , you’re sharp.”
In essence, he had created a complete dyeing process using nothing but a few metal drums.
Honestly, with proper equipment, this could easily become a large-scale industrial operation.
“Is that all?”
“No. The post-treatment process is what truly completes the dyeing.”
“Post-treatment?”
“Once the dyeing is done, the fabric stays in the steam bath for about twenty minutes. That reduces color bleeding and stabilizes the dimensions. Afterward, we remove the pilling and the process is finished.”
The steam bath was essentially a giant steam press used to finish the fabric.
A thermometer attached to it read 110 degrees Celsius.
That meant heat treatment under saturated steam conditions.
Using steam treatment on heat-sensitive Rayon was an incredible piece of know-how.
A genuine breakthrough.
Did he really memorize all of this?
It felt as though Old Man had crossed the oceans carrying decades of painful memories engraved into every part of his body.
***
“What are you standing around for? Come take a look.”
“Ah, yes, sir.”
Helping the father and son with the pretreatment and dyeing process consumed the entire day.
By the time I noticed, Old Man was calling me over to inspect the finished fabric.
“Well?”
“…This is remarkable.”
Honestly, I hadn’t expected it to be this good.
The fabric retained Rayon ‘s smoothness while somehow gaining the softness of cotton.
And the breathibility it’s awesome.
Dyeing wasn’t merely coloring fabric.
It was a technology that defined texture itself.
And above all, the yellow color was beautiful.
It looked like a perfectly ripened mango glowing under tropical sunlight.
“Looks like you like it.”
“But…”
I couldn’t help trailing off.
The yellow fabric was flawless.
The green fabric wasn’t.
It still looked slightly dull and uneven.
“Yes. The yellow is acceptable, but the forest green doesn’t satisfy you. Unfortunately, this is the best I can do.”
“I see.”
The green fabric lacked uniformity.
Under sunlight, it looked blotchy.
“Father, darker colors usually improve if we dye them twice.”
“Forget it. You think layering another coat will satisfy President Rohit ? He’s the man who burned fabric because a little dye rubbed off onto his hands.”
“That’s true. It’s a shame. If only we knew the identity of that bitter-tasting substance, this would be easy to solve.”
“That bitter-tasting substance?”
“Yes. Apparently British synthetic fiber companies use a secret additive when producing deep, rich colors. We’ve never figured out what it is.”
“Enough. Someday I’ll discover it.”
Interesting.
Light colors worked perfectly.
Dark colors apparently required an additional ingredient.
Dyeing really was a world of hidden expertise.
“Old Man, can you describe that substance?”
“Well… it smelled awful enough to make you vomit. When you tasted it, your tongue tingled and your nose felt like it was exploding.”
“Your nose felt like it was exploding?”
The description oddly reminded me of bad eggs smell, could it be H2S, not that should not be.
Then could it be some kind of ammonium compound?
“Yes. The workers always pinched their noses whenever they mixed it.”
“They pinched their noses?”
Which meant they handled it without special protective equipment.
That strengthened my suspicion.
What ammonium compound would make sense in a dye bath?
Ammonium chloride?
Ammonium nitrate?
No…
nobody would casually taste those.
ammonium acetate?
The moment I thought of ammonium acetate, my eyes widened.
Hadn’t they been using glacial acetic acid and alcohol earlier?
Using ammonium acetate in dyeing chemistry wouldn’t be strange at all.
“Let me take a look at your chemicals.”
“The chemicals?”
“I think I know what that mysterious ingredient is.”
“What?”
Old Man immediately threw open a cabinet filled with chemicals.
There it is!
The ingredients are here!
In one corner sat sodium acetate and ammonium chloride.
I quickly mixed the two in a ceramic bowl.
The purity wasn’t perfect, but the reaction produced a yellowish ammonium acetate.
For someone from the process engineering industry, synthesizing something like this was trivial.
“Huh? That smell is surprisingly familiar.”
“It’s ammonium acetate. I think adding it to the dye bath might work.”
“Let’s try it. Right now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Old Man seemed to have the same intuition.
He grabbed the bowl and rushed to the dye bath.
Pouring it into the green dye solution, he stirred it like soy sauce into soup.
Then he tasted it.
“…This is it. This is exactly it!”
“Father! Did we do it?”
“Calm down, son. Let’s test it first.”
Even Raj couldn’t contain his excitement.
Yet Old Man’s own face was glowing just as brightly.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up a Rohit den paddle and personally began the dyeing process.
As the fabric moved through each drum, the color transformed.
Unlike before, the forest green became vivid, vibrant, and perfectly uniform.
“Unbelievable… the dye uptake is so much faster.”
“Father, this is a major breakthrough. Look at that color.”
“Into the steam bath. Hurry!”
“Yes, Father.”
The three of us stared intently as the fabric entered the steam bath.
The moment the heat treatment finished, we couldn’t even wait for it to cool.
“Ow! Hot!”
“Father, the dye isn’t coming off at all.”
“The color is perfectly uniform. It even shines.”
“The saturation is excellent. Top quality.”
“I agree. This is top quality.”
“YEAHHHHH!”
“HOORAY! HOORAY!”
Raj and I jumped around celebrating.
The quality was perfect.
Not merely Rayon .
It looked like silk.
The fabric seemed comparable to something produced by cutting-edge automated equipment decades in the future.
I know it’s comparable not exactly is that’s type but almost 40-50%.
“Sniff… sniff…”
While Raj and I celebrated, Old Man suddenly buried his face in the fabric and began crying.
“Father, why are you crying? We succeeded!”
“Sir…”
“Thank you, President Rohit . Thank you.”
He repeated the same words endlessly.
Clearly he had spent years chasing this secret ingredient.
At last, he’d fulfilled a lifelong wish.
“Why cry? Now you’re going to make a fortune.”
“…I don’t need money. This is enough. This alone is enough.”
Embarrassed, Old Man turned away and repeated the same words.
“President , I’d like you to handle our dyeing work. What should I pay per yard?”
“What money? Charging you for yarn is enough. The dyeing is my gift to you.”
“No. You deserve payment for the chemicals. I’ll pay 2 per yard.”
“What?! 2 cents per yard?”
2 per yard was less than international market.
I was selling fabric for 45 cents per yard.
For this level of quality, 2 cents was completely justified.
“Father, President Rohit is offering 2 yard for dyeing. We can finally build proper dyeing facilities.”
“Are you that happy? Looks like you’ll become rich soon.”
Wasn’t the Old Man becoming rich too?
He spoke as if it were someone else’s success.
“Aren’t you happier? You were crying a moment ago.”
“When did I cry? My eyes were just watering. That’s what happens when you get old.”
“Of course, Father.”
“Tsk. You brat.” This chapter is updated first at novelping.com.
The two of them worked together perfectly.
Despite being father and son, they felt more like close senior and junior colleagues.
“President , I’ll start sending dyeing orders immediately.”
“Absolutely! Send as much as you want.”
“Son, looks like we’ll need to hire more workers.”
“Yes, Father.”
I had found a reliable partner.
When Abir returned, he was going to complain endlessly.
He’d spent the entire day searching elsewhere while the true expert had been right next door.
***
Mid July
India will Celebrate its first year of independence .
Time flew by so quickly that I barely noticed seasons had also changed.
flowers were everywhere.Weather is also fine
“Arun, Varun ,Tarun . Here are your salaries for this month. Good work.”
“Thank you, President.”
I handed pay envelopes to the female workers and the foremen.
Since the factory acquisition had been completed in mid-June, July was effectively the full full payroll period.
“Check your statements carefully.”
“What?! This much?”
“It isn’t extra. It’s accurate. Remember, this isn’t overtime pay. It’s incentive pay for exceeding production targets.”
“Yes, President. Incentives.”
The foremen were the happiest.
Instead of encouraging overtime, I rewarded increased productivity.
Since Abir estimated each machine should produce roughly four thousand yards, setting performance targets had been easy.
Once incentives were introduced, employees became obsessed with improving efficiency and preventing machine downtime.
The result was simple.
Compared to other factories, our overtime was much lower.
Our output was much higher.
And naturally, wages were higher too.
Workers no longer wasted time standing beside machines.
Whenever equipment malfunctioned, they responded immediately.
“Please take turns resting on Sundays. Human beings aren’t made of iron.”
“Rest? President, we’re young. We should earn as much as possible now.”
“You still need eight hours of sleep. And don’t skip meals. The company cafeteria is free.”
Many of them attended night universities after work.
Their determination was extraordinary.
“Enough talking. Everyone get outside. It’s time for the shipment ceremony.”
“Yes, Manager.”
Abir came upstairs and ushered the foremen out.
The foremen carefully tucked their pay envelopes into their inner pockets, buttoned their jackets securely, and left the loft office.
“Everything ready for the ceremony?”
“Yep.”
“Did the subcontractor shipments arrive?”
“All of them. Mitra, Aparna, plus Surjyo Weaving and Bengal Synthetic Fibers . Two hundred thousand yards in total. Whew, what a job.”
“That’s all? Making money takes effort.”
I puffed out my chest.
Truthfully, I was exhausted too.
“That’s all? You’ve got nerve. How many times did you burn fabric in the yard and summon company presidents because of quality issues?”
I had burned fabric in front of factory owners too.
Without that level of shock therapy, nobody’s mindset would change.
“Quality inspections are all complete, right?”
“Look at you changing the subject.”
“Did you check the test reports?”
“Yes. Every test you wanted. Stretching, tearing, washing, twisting, rubbing—you name it. Honestly, I kept wondering what kind of madness it was.”
Primitive.
But effective.
Because of all that madness, I finally had the quality reports I wanted.
I only worked with subcontractors willing to provide testing documentation.
From their perspective, doing business with me wasn’t a bad deal.
I supplied Rayon yarn at a price per pound— that’s 6% cheaper than competitors.
And I paid five percent above market rates for finished fabric.
All of it was possible because I had a reliable partner:
Pioneer Rayon .
Of course, they benefited from me too.
I’d solved technical challenges and used my dollars to import necessary Rayon machine and chemical.
“Did the Old Man and the President arrive?”
“They’ve been waiting. Get outside and read the blessing prayer. Then stothe ceremony.”
“Alright.”
Abir pushed me toward the yard.
The place already felt like a festival.
“President Rohit is here!”
“WAAAAAH!”
“President Rohit , over here!”
An enormous platform where priests are getting ready for to doing the hawan.
And standing beside it, wearing a dhoti panjabi overseeing the hawan was Old Man of Pioneer Rayon .