If I settle your overdue wages and take over the factory, will you be able to produce fabric?
“Gasp! Are you the owner of a different factory?”
As I mentioned earlier, I am a fabric exporter.
Anyway, the important thing is whether or not we can keep this factory running.
If the previous owner even siphoned off the equipment parts, it’s all for nothing.
“Don’t worry. We are incredibly diligent. With just a few lubricants and some maintenance on the equipment, we can get the factory running at full capacity right away.”
The young men were full of confidence.
Fortunately, it seems the previous owner didn’t have time to smuggle out the equipment.
Did he flee in the middle of the night?
“Hey! You think you’re going to take over a factory? It’s a factory up for auction! What are you talking about?”
The auctioneer stopped listening to the conversation and shouted.
And understandably so, as he even brought in bankers and police to win the bid for the factory at a rock-bottom price.
Ah!
Even in this era these types of tactics are prominent.
With the intention of drastically lowering machine and land prices once they kick out the troublesome employees.
“Look, even if you are a businessman, this guy and that guy, the high-ranking officials won’t let it slide. Isn’t that right, Officer?”
I waved my passport around and pointed north-west.
At that time, having traveled abroad with a passport meant having a verified identity and financial means.
As for me, I went all-in on it…
no, actually, the previous owner of this body meant grandfather secured a passport for studying abroad.
Anyway, if you waved your passport while pointing toward Delhi, every single Indian in the 1950s would be intimidated.
The term “Buisnessman” was no different from saying “I have some connections.”
“…Gasp. Th… that’s right. The higher-ups wouldn’t just sit idly by.”
The police officer was surprised to see entry and exit stamps on my passport.
He was a quick-witted gentleman.
“So… you’re saying you have connections? If we’re talking about connections, I have them too.”
“Then bring them here. Look, you’re a bank employee, right? How much is the factory’s debt?”
I ignored the auctioneer and asked the bank employee.
The total debt amounts to about 1 Lakh INR.
1 lakh INR?
What do you mean by that…
It’s not even 1crore, but you’re fighting this violently over a mere 1 lakh?
No, wait, by 21st-century standards, you just roughly multiply by 100…
1 crore?
Gasp!
That’s a lot of money.
It seemed like it would take quite a while to get used to the prices of the 50s.
Multiplying by 100 in real time was more cumbersome than I thought.
At one point, the bank teller put down the lassi and assumed a polite posture.
It was because I momentarily made a face that seemed to say, ‘Are you fighting like this over just 1 lakh?’
Soon after, he realized the value of money and wore a hardened expression, but his delusion did not disappear.
“For around 1 Lakh, wouldn’t it be better to find a new owner rather than sell it at auction? If it fails to sell a few times, even the bank won’t be able to recoup its principal, let alone earn interest.”
That’s true.
“Look here. That’s not right. The bank will put up the foreclosure notice today and put the factory up for auction… Ugh…”
“Wait a minute! The important person is speaking.”
The police officer covered the auctioneer’s mouth and dragged him away somewhere.
The police officer must have worried that if he stayed in his post for no reason, he might get caught in the crossfire from the high-ranking officials.
He seemed convinced that I had connections after seeing even the bank teller act politely.
In the 1950s and even in the 21st century, it was never a wise thing to do to offend someone who might have connections.
“Which bank is it? I’ll send someone to negotiate the acquisition of this factory.”
I just need to send Abir.
He’s a smart guy who’s good at calculating money, so he’ll be better at negotiating than me.
“I am Manager Ramesh Kumar Maitra from SBI. It is a pleasure to work with you.”
“I am Rohit Karmakar, President of Nayara Corporation. I was out briefly for business, so I forgot to bring my business card. I will stop by soon to see the Bank President. Let’s meet then.”
“Yes, Mr. Karmakar. It is an honor to have you visit me.”
I seem to have seriously misunderstood something, but I obtained important information from the bank teller that this factory’s debt is 1 Lakh INR.
There was no need to think of the factory acquisition as difficult.
Father and uncles always kept saying that in the 50s, acquiring a factory was similar to getting a lottery.
But the downside is that you have to give honey to people from time to time.
If this factory’s debt is 1 lakh, couldn’t I just deposit roughly 50k as a security deposit and pay about 3000 rupee in interest to the bank every month?
That is because the standard loan interest rate of 25% was applied in this era, and if you register as an exporter and receive preferential interest rates, you will be able to pay less interest.
And ah!
I have to check the interest rates of banks.
Let’s pay for the fare on the way.
We don’t need the seizure documents anymore, so let’s tear them up.
“omg!”
I tore up the foreclosure papers the bank teller was holding.
Even if the auctioneers try to turn things around, it will take some time to prepare the foreclosure papers again.
All I had to do was take over this factory before that.
I handed the bank teller some notes and pushed him out of the alley.
The banker had no choice but to leave, though he was half-doubting.
Since I said I would send someone to take over the factory, he would wait for now.
It is like finding a buyer for an auction that was bound to fail, so if the deal goes through, it will be a huge help to his performance review.
***
Clang.
Clang.
I brought a cutter and cut the iron chains the young men were wrapped in.
It was a red-rusted iron chain, so a poisonous iron rash had developed on the skin, and pus was oozing out.
“Ugh, how long did you endure this?”
“Good grief, that was a close call.”
You should consider it lucky that you met me.
It seemed that if just one more day had passed like this, it wouldn’t have ended with just a scratch.
“thank you.”
“I’ll decide whether or not to receive the audit report from the factory first. Let’s go inside for now.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Three young men, without a word, suddenly stepped forward in front of me and opened the factory door.
I thought the inside of the factory would be covered in thick dust, but it was cleaner than I expected.
It’s cleaner than I expected.
Yes, I cleaned every day.
My parents told me that the place where I eat and sleep must be clean.
“Huh? Did you eat and sleep here?”
“Yes, we are all graduates of technical schools, and as soon as we came here, we got jobs at this factory. We were tricked by the promise of room and board.”
It seems the three of them were classmates from that school .
It was hard to recognize because it was covered in oil, but looking closely, it was a youthful face.
I thought it looked like it had just turned 20.
You held out well without going back to your hometown.
“…”
“I’ll make sure you don’t regret that choice. Then, shall we start running the equipment?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
True to their roles as machinery technicians, their hands moved without hesitation.
They mounted empty thread spools, applied lubricant here and there, and repeatedly opened and closed the loom headers with nothing more than exchanged glances.
The moment one of them pulled a lever, the machines roared to life with a sharp whirring sound.
If there had been yarn wound onto the spools, bolts of fabric would have come pouring out smoothly.
Wiiiiiiing…
“Why did it stop?”
“If the yarn isn’t feeding properly, it shuts down automatically.”
“Ah, I see.”
So even weaving machines in the late 1940s had automatic functions.
Well, of course they would.
If the thread snapped or ran out, the machine had to stop.
Otherwise it would just keep producing defective fabric endlessly.
“So there are nine more sets of equipment like this?”
“Yes… would you like to see them too?”
“No. Running them idle will only wear the machines out. What do we need to get them operating normally?”
“First, we need to reconnect the water and electricity.”
“The power’s been cut off? Then how did you run the machine just now?”
“We used the emergency generator. Blackouts happen often in this neighborhood, so backup generators are essential.”
So they even had an emergency generator.
The place was fairly well-equipped.
“Water and electricity are easy enough. Is that all?”
There was no way that was all.
If the factory could have operated normally, why would the owner have fled in the middle of the night?
The 1950s were an era when anything you produced would sell.
Not because purchasing power was high, but because every kind of product was desperately undersupplied — and above all, inflation exceeded 16% annually.
But this the also the time when growth is 3% or negligible in india..
In other words, it was a bizarre time when simply piling up manufactured goods meant their prices would rise on their own.
“To be honest, very few of the machines are in good condition. Most of the motors will probably need replacing. The bastard owner kept bringing in junk secondhand equipment just to show off to investors…”
Show off to investors?
That explained why there were so many machines compared to the size of the factory.
The former owner hadn’t been trying to run a factory at all — he’d been using secondhand machinery to secure massive bank loans for one big gamble.
Most likely loan sharking or stock speculation.
The 1950s were a time when private loan interest rates reached fifty percent annually, and the stock market was little more than a game of passing around ticking bombs.
Come to think of it, wasn’t this around the time of the securities crash where stock prices fell not by half, but by 90 percent?
After that stock market collapse, the Indian stock market was technically shut down and retail investors didn’t enter for nearly three decades , with virtually no IPOs taking place, ah at this time period only notable company that break this curse is RIL and RIL is the only company that makes its growth by using retail investors.
It was something almost unheard of anywhere else in the world.
Specially the Bear cartels operation on RIL in Calcutta Stock Exchange and Bombay stock exchange and RIL’s counterattack by using white knight.
In short, the financial system itself had been a complete mess.
Is not that why the scam happen those industrial houses suffer in their hands, and force govt to close the Calcutta Stock exchange in 2000s.what a sin.
Oh!
Stop it’s time to dwell in this things.
“So motors are the only thing missing?”
“…We’ll also need to replace all the guide rollers and hand wheels. The current ones are almost completely worn out. If we run the machines as they are, the fabric will tear nine times out of ten.”
They were honest men.
Trustworthy.Good, from now on they are my brothers in Arms.
“And there aren’t any other parts needed?”
“…We’re also missing consumables like bearings, header pins, and tools. That bastard loaded up all the fabric and spare parts before he ran away… damn it…”
Of course.
A man fleeing overnight wouldn’t leave behind anything valuable.
The only reason the machinery itself hadn’t been stripped was probably because these men had been living and sleeping in the factory.
The world was full of scammers in those days.
The owner would sell off the stolen goods, wait for the factory auction and debt settlements to blow over, then quietly crawl back into society.
He’d spend maybe a year in prison pretending to repent for his past sins, emerge with a fat pile of hidden cash, and start another company for his next big scam.
Or flee to the UK and get political asylum and India has to wait for the UK’s mood to extradite those bastards.
Men like that probably felt no guilt at all.
Well even the political landscape is also a mess.
They likely considered themselves businessmen, not con artists.
And those bastards always appear before the UK’s court that they have no penny, use London’s asylum laws special loophole to get’s loan and fight the case by appointing the highest paying defence counsel from their side.
A big reason 21st-century India suffer was because the slap-on-the-wrist laws from the British era had never truly been fixed.
The call centre scam, then come senior citizen financial fraud, That’s why those high profile scams happen, like chit funds and others.
Ikyk. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Anyway, now that they’d even brought up consumable parts, it seemed all the major problems were finally on the table.
“So if we add up the motors, rollers, wheels, and consumable parts, how much would it cost roughly?”
“…At least 10K.”
10 Thousand INR.
By my standards, that was equivalent to around a few million INR.
Not a small amount.
But for restoring an entire factory to operation, it wasn’t impossibly large either.
“Well, that’s manageable. Alright then… how about making some money with me?”
I immediately held out my hand for a handshake.
I liked these men.
Maybe their first priority had been recovering their unpaid wages, but they had still protected the factory, and judging by how they’d continued cleaning and maintaining the place, they genuinely cared about it.
Responsible employees were treasures anywhere in the world.
Besides, no matter how specialized I was in construction and heavy industrial plants, how much could I really know about textile technology?
Even as 1950s engineers, they probably had more hands-on experience than I did.
And of course, they also needed a proper boss like me.
“H-Huh? Are you hiring us?”
“Thank you. Thank you, boss!”
“Please give us any task. We’ll work hard.”
Such innocent men.
Workers in the 21st century would have demanded settlement of unpaid wages and checked the employment contract before ever shaking hands.
Truly a fantastic era.
I love this fucking era.
“Let me introduce myself properly again. I’m Rohit Karmakar of Nayara Corporation.”
“I’m Tarun Jana.”
“I’m Arun Deb.”
“And I’m Varun Bar.”
Each introduced himself as a foreman.
Their surnames were all different, but their given names sounded oddly similar.
Arun, Varun, Tarun…
It sounded like the names of boys straight out of the 1950s.
Ah, right.
This was the 1950s.
Those really were common names.
Well even in the 21st century this names are pretty common.
“Good.guys, it’ll take a few days to acquire the factory, so until then, clean the place up. Get estimates for the required parts in advance too. You can handle that, right?”
“Yes, sir!”
“I’ll settle your unpaid wages once the acquisition is complete. How much is it?”
To take over the factory, the unpaid wages had to be cleared first.
Completing the acquisition meant taking responsibility for existing debts.
“Yes sir. It’s 1350 each.”
“Really? You must have worked a lot of overtime.”
Hadn’t Abir said the average salary was around 300 rupees?
Skilled technicians earned more than I expected back then.
Well, overtime paid one and a half times more…
“Yes. We worked overtime every single day for three months straight. Out of six holidays, we gave up three.”
“…Three months straight? Even giving up holidays?”
I was stunned.
1350 won was for three months of wages?
That meant even with overtime, they earned less than 400 a month.
And they’d only had three days off in three entire months?
That former owner really was complete trash.
He must have exploited these boys mercilessly because they didn’t know how the world worked.
“…Yes sir. Three months’ worth.”
If it is difficult for you to give it all at once, you can split it up..
I will gratefully accept it whenever you give it to me.
The three of them kept bowing repeatedly, perhaps out of embarrassment.
It’s not that I mean it’s a large sum of money that’s hard to give, but that I find it absurd that they lived like that.
“Settling the overdue salary is a given, but let’s readjust the amount I’m paying you. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get at least 400, and I’ll pay you your overtime properly as well.”
“omg!”
Even though it is the 50s, if you can’t pay this kind of salary, you shouldn’t be running a business.
What is the price of vegetables in this era, well … that’s not important, so shouldn’t a monthly salary be at least 400 rupee just to be able to eat three meals a day and wear some clothes?
“Boss, what should I do first?”
We need to clean up and identify the necessary parts first.
You learned how to write technical specifications in the job posting, right?
Please organize the required parts, unit prices, quantities, and so on clearly.
Can you do it?
“Yes, boss!”
Please believe in me!
I can do it.
My eyes were already sparkling.
It seems he was more than grateful for the monthly salary of 400 INR ; he was deeply moved.
“And if you have any friends around who are good at their jobs, bring them along. It will be hard for just three of you to run this entire factory.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Just one more thing. Do you have any ledgers or documents left by the previous owner?”
“…. It is outside my authority, so I am not entirely sure, but the office the former president used is over here.”
They led me to a place like an office on the second floor, and a room filled with all kinds of documents and furniture appeared.
Did you clean this area too?
“Yes, the former president took everything of value. Only scattered documents were piled up on the desk.”
Although the ceiling was low, there was absolutely no problem sitting down to do paperwork.
It felt good.
I acquired a factory and a decent office too