The first sign that Sandalbar was changing class was not a new building or a new wireless mast.
It was the sound in the back compound at dawn.
Instead of just the usual cough of men and the splash of water at the hand-pumps, there was now a layered chorus: the agitated cluck of hens, the thin crowing of roosters, the soft, questioning noises of goats; and, from a dozen low coops, the restless rustle of quails.
Behind the Canal Bungalow, the Farabi housing had settled into its own quiet geometry: fifty small houses in a staggered line, each with a strip of yard. In those strips, Ahmed's pet project was alive.
Thirty hens to each unit. Two roosters. A clumsy, fluttering scatter of quails in a raised cage. Three goats tethered in the shade. A shared breeding buck in the common yard, chewing with the slow confidence of an animal that had become a line item in Bilal's mental ledger.
Every morning, the pattern repeated.
Women and older children moved through the yard with baskets and jars. Hens were shooed gently off their nests. Eggs were lifted, one by one, wiped with clean cloths, and set carefully on palm-leaf trays. Goats were milked into wide-mouthed brass pots. Quails were checked and fed. Hens, once they settled, went back to their one real job: turning grain into shells.
Ahmed walked the lines like a drill sergeant, but his orders were domestic.
"Not in the dust, Bibi. On the mat. Wipe the egg, don't wash it—if you wash too much, it spoils faster. Yes, like that. Point down in the straw."
He stopped at one coop where a boy was proudly holding up an egg with a smear of dry droppings still clinging to it.
"Would you eat that?" Ahmed asked.
The boy wrinkled his nose. "No."
"Then why should a sahib in Lahore?" Ahmed tapped him lightly on the head with his notebook. "Clean egg, clean money. Dirty egg, no money. Remember this."
The boy nodded and wiped the shell with exaggerated care.
At the far end, under a makeshift awning, the morning's collection converged. Baskets were lined with straw; eggs were nestled point-down, not touching, each layer cushioned. A boy with an ink-stained thumb marked each basket handle with a neat "S" for Sandalbar.
"These baskets," Ahmed explained to the gathered women, "do not disappear. We send them full, they come back empty. Every time the train brings them back, we send them out full again. Like a breath. In-out, in-out. As long as the basket comes home, the rupees come back with it."
"And the milk?" one woman asked.
Ahmed pointed to the large pot resting over a low, gentle flame.
"The extra milk becomes ghee," he said. "I've shown you twice, you'll show each other ten times more. Slow fire, stir, skim. This…"—he held up a small steel tin, thick with yellow-gold fat—"is your treasure. Milk spoils. Ghee waits. We sell some, we store some. One tin of ghee is worth more than three tins of milk, and it doesn't sour on the way to Lahore."
The women watched, eyes bright. This was work, but it was also arithmetic they could feel in their palms.
The Nutrition Pharmacy
Inside the clinic, Evelyn had claimed a small side room and transformed it into something Sandalbar had never seen before.
Shelves lined the walls, but instead of glass stoppered bottles with Latin names, they held:
Covered pots of boiled eggs, still in their shells. Earthenware jugs of goat's milk, sealed with muslin. Tins of ghee, each with a strip of paper pasted on the lid. Small jars of honey, their amber sides catching the light.
Over the doorway, Mary had pinned a hand-painted board in English and Urdu:
NUTRITION PHARMACY
"It is not a pharmacy," Jinnah had objected mildly the first time he saw it. "It is a pantry."
Evelyn ignored him.
"Drugs treat disease," she said. "Food prevents it. I'm tired of sending people away with a bottle of tonic they can't afford to refill while their child is living on two chapatis(flat bread) and air."
On the wall inside, she had hung a large chart in neat, blocky handwriting:
Child (2–10 years): – 1 boiled egg, 1 cup of milk, 1 spoon of honey — daily during recovery. Pregnant woman: – 1 egg, 1 cup of milk, 1 spoon of ghee with food, 1 spoon of honey — as often as possible.
Nursing mother: – 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, 1 spoon of ghee, 1 spoon of honey — for strength.
Elderly / Weak: – 1 egg, 1 cup of milk with ghee, honey if coughing.
She had even written, in a smaller hand at the bottom:
"Do not give honey to babies under one year. They may look at you with big eyes. Resist."
Mary enforced it like a law code.
"Show me your slip," she would bark at a bewildered father, holding out a hand. "Doctor says one egg and half-cup of milk for this boy for five days. That is what you get. No, you cannot have two eggs 'because he likes them'. This is not a sweet shop, this is medicine."
She ran the room like a quartermaster. Eggs were counted, milk measured, ghee spooned carefully into small metal bowls. Honey was dripped with almost religious precision.
And every patient who shuffled out of that room carried not just a scrap of paper with illegible Latin squiggles, but something warm, tangible, and filling.
The Cost and the Bet
One evening, after the clinic had closed and the last of the day's eggs had been boiled, Jinnah stood in the Nutrition Pharmacy with his hands behind his back, looking at the shelves.
"This," he said inwardly, "is expensive."
On the table lay his notebook from Lahore: figures, revenue, expenditure. On the shelves sat boiled eggs and ghee tins that represented chickens and goats he had paid for, feed he would have to keep buying.
"You are feeding half the district," he went on. "I am pleased. I am not blind to the bill."
Bilal's answer was quiet but firm.
You are not running a charity soup kitchen, he said. You are tuning an engine. Think in quarters, not weeks. Right now, every egg, every spoon of ghee you give away looks like a cost. In three months, these same households will be the hands you need when the silkworm trays arrive, when the lake cottages need maintenance, when you scale the poultry. Hungry people make bad workers. Sick children make parents unreliable.
"So we call it an investment," Jinnah said dryly. "That sounds more respectable than 'bleeding money into boiled eggs'."
Exactly, Bilal said. Investment in human infrastructure. You are building what my world calls "human capital" without using that obnoxious phrase.
"And if the promised contracts do not appear?" Jinnah asked. "If Lahore decides it prefers its usual rotten eggs and watered ghee?"
Bilal's response was instant.
They're already complaining, remember? Everyone in the city grumbles that the eggs are filthy and the ghee is chalk and coconut oil. You have something different: clean, traceable, and wrapped in your reputation. All you need is one proper inspection and one quartermaster tied to a desk with a conscience.
The Inspector
The inspection came in the form of a small man with fastidious hands and a surprisingly blunt manner.
His name was Mukherjee, from the provincial Agriculture and Food Quality Department. He arrived with a file, a bicycle, and an expression that suggested he fully expected to be disappointed.
He was not disappointed—he was startled.
He watched women wipe eggs before packing them, instead of shoving them into baskets. He saw baskets lined with clean straw, eggs arranged in neat layers, point-down, not clattering together. He sniffed at a pan of ghee, then took a tiny smear on his finger and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger.
"No coconut oil," he muttered. "No rancid smell. This is… actual ghee."
He made notes.
"And this clinic room?" he asked, when Evelyn showed him the Nutrition Pharmacy.
"Food as prescription," she said briskly. "You want fewer cases of anemia and tuberculosis on your reports? Help us keep this stocked."
Mukherjee stared at the chart on the wall, at the clearly labelled tins and jars.
"My department likes schemes," he said. "But they like files more. May I… borrow your chart? I will have it copied. They should see this."
"Take a copy," Evelyn said. "If you copy it accurately."
Two weeks later, a file on some clerk's desk in Lahore was heavier by several pages:
"SANDALBAR ESTATE — OBSERVATIONS ON POULTRY HYGIENE, DAIRY PRODUCTS, AND A 'NUTRITION PHARMACY' ATTACHED TO ESTATE CLINIC."
From that file, very quietly, things began to move.
The First Contracts
The first letter came on stiff, official paper stamped LAHORE CANTONMENT – SUPPLY OFFICE.
It was addressed to M.A. Jinnah, Esq., Sandalbar Estate and written in that particular English used by men who had spent their lives counting tins.
"Sir,
With reference to the recent inspection report (Ref. No. AC/FP/17), this office invites you to supply fresh eggs and clarified butter (ghee) to the Cantonment twice weekly for an initial trial period of three months…"
The quantities were modest but real. So were the rupees.
The second agreement came from a different world: the Railway Colonies at Montgomery and a small mess near Lahore station.
The Station Master, who had heard Krishan speak glowingly of "Sahib's eggs that do not smell like the inside of a shoe," wanted a regular supply for the engine drivers' and fitters' mess. Not thousands, but hundreds of eggs a month—enough to matter.
The third trickle came, unexpectedly, from the civil lines. A restaurant owner in Lahore, who had tasted honey at the Harringtons' table and heard the inevitable:
"Oh, Sandalbar, yes, that little estate of Mr. Jinnah's—bees, clinics, very hygienic, you know…"
…had written to inquire if the same estate could supply eggs "of guaranteed cleanliness" for his breakfast trade.
Within a month, Ahmed had a schedule pinned to his office wall:
Monday & Thursday: Egg and ghee baskets to Lahore Cantonment — dispatched on the morning goods train, one Farabi riding guard in the wagon.
Wednesday: Smaller basket consignment to railway colony canteens.
Every day: Clinic and Farabi families' own rations first, counted and ringed in red ink. Only the surplus travelled.
Baskets went out full, handles stamped with an "S". Baskets came back empty and were recorded, repaired if needed, and set ready for the next fill.
Net rupees per week were still not large by Bombay mill standards. But unlike the sporadic rents and unpredictable harvests, this money had rhythm.
In. Out. In. Out.
The Ledger and the Smile
One night, long after the last egg basket had been loaded for the next day's train, Jinnah sat at his desk in the Canal Bungalow with three notebooks open before him.
In one, the estate accounts: land revenue, wages, timber, repairs.
In the second, the poultry and dairy ledger: hens, egg counts, milk, ghee tins, internal use, external sales.
In the third, Evelyn's clinical notes: number of patients tagged as "malnourished", "severely anemic", "improved".
He ran his finger down a column in the second book, then across to a figure in the first.
"This month," he said inwardly, "the eggs and ghee have paid for the Farabis' grain rations. And half the clinic's overhead. I did not have to write a cheque from Lahore for the first time."
He sounded almost disbelieving.
"Next month," Bilal said, "it will cover more. This is your first stable income stream that isn't rent or legal fees. And it's one the Zaildar can't skim, because he doesn't own a single hen in this system."
"And the cost?" Jinnah asked, out of habit. "The Nutrition Pharmacy, the chickens that do not lay some days, the goats that fall ill?"
Bilal nudged him toward Evelyn's notebook.
Look at her last page.
Jinnah flipped to it. In Evelyn's precise hand, a short note sat under the day's tallies:
"Cases of obvious protein-calorie malnutrition in clinic this month: fewer.
Children recovering from fever with better weight.
Pregnant women less faint, argue more.
Nursing mothers' milk supply improving.
Observations: The eggs and ghee are working. Please do not cut rations because the ledger looks untidy."
Below it, in Mary's handwriting, someone had added:
"Also, fewer old men collapsing in queues. And children now come willingly because they know there is 'sweet-water and egg' afterwards. This is good for everyone's blood pressure. Including mine."
Jinnah sat back.
For a moment, the barrister who counted rupees and the man who had watched two children buried for lack of a functioning clinic were at war in his chest.
Then he closed all three notebooks and stacked them in order: estate, poultry, clinic.
"We keep it," he said.
Obviously, Bilal replied.
"This is still a fragile engine," Jinnah added. "One bad season, one outbreak of disease in the flock…"
Then we build redundancy, Bilal said. More hens scattered, not all in one place. Better vet advice. But this is the template. Primary income from something that also feeds your people. It's the opposite of the usual landlord model where the money comes from squeezing them dry.
Outside, in the back compound, a rooster crowed once in confusion, fooled by a late lantern into thinking dawn had come.
Jinnah almost smiled.
Inside the clinic, on a shelf in the Nutrition Pharmacy, a fresh batch of boiled eggs cooled beside jars of honey and tins of ghee, waiting for morning.
And beyond the estate, in the Lahore cantonment and the railway colonies, cooks were already learning that there was a new name to curse or bless when eggs arrived unbroken and ghee behaved the way ghee was supposed to.
They would say it as they cracked shells on pan edges and stirred curries in iron pots:
"Sandalbar."
The name of a place where rifles, bees, goats, hens, quails, and one small, stubborn Nutrition Pharmacy had finally begun to pay their own way.