The morning after the dinner, the Canal Bungalow was quiet. Only the sound of a myna bird arguing with its reflection in the verandah window.
In the Commissioner's office, decisions moved at the speed of electricity along copper wires. In Sandalbar, decisions moved at the speed of a man walking, or a bullock cart creaking, or a bicycle tire crunching on gravel.
Jinnah preferred the silence. A telephone was a leash. If you didn't have one, no one could summon you.
"If Harrington wants me," Jinnah said, pouring his tea, "he can send a runner like everyone else."
He gave you the toys, Bilal noted, his voice sounding like he was hovering over a game map. Now we have to figure out where to plug them in.
1. The Logistics Problem
Jinnah unrolled the large district map on his desk. It showed the ten villages of his temporary charge, scattered like beads along the blue thread of the distributary canal.
"Harrington has given us four ginning units and two industrial spinning frames," Jinnah said. "These are heavy beasts. They need water. They need fuel. And they need to be accessible."
If you put them in one village, Bilal analyzed, the other nine will get jealous. If you split them up, you lose efficiency—you'll be hauling fuel to four different places.
Jinnah traced a finger along the railway line that cut through the edge of the estate.
"We need a heart," Jinnah murmured. "A central organ that pumps the blood to the rest."
He tapped a spot on the map—a triangle of waste land where the estate road met the railway halt. It was currently scrub and snake holes, equidistant from Chak 17, Chak Bawan, and the main Sandalbar HQ.
"Here," Jinnah said. "We build the Central Processing Unit here."
The CPU, Bilal chuckled. I like it. The farmers bring raw cotton here. We gin it, we spin it, and we send the clean yarn back out to the villages for weaving. Hub and Spoke.
2. The Ground Reality
Later that morning, Jinnah rode out to the site with Ahmed.
It was a desolate patch of ground. The soil was saline, white-crusted, useless for crops but perfect for foundations. The railway tracks glinted nearby, a steel lifeline to the markets of Lahore and Karachi.
"It will be noisy, Sir," Ahmed warned. "Ginning machines scream. The boilers will smoke."
"Good," Jinnah said, dismounting. "Let them scream. Noise is the sound of money not leaving the district."
He pointed with his riding crop.
"We will build the main shed there, parallel to the tracks. A loading dock here. And a water tank fed from the canal lift."
"And the labor?" Ahmed asked. "Who runs the boilers?"
"We hire the men the bandits didn't take," Jinnah said grimly. "And we hire the refugees (Madhu's men who came out from life of shadows) are settling in the buffer zone. Mixed crews. I want a man from Chak 17 feeding the fire alongside a man from Chak Bawan. Sweat dissolves prejudice faster than speeches."
3. The Messenger
As they were measuring the perimeter, a cloud of dust appeared on the main road. It was a government motorcycle dispatch rider—the Crown's way of talking to people who didn't have phones.
The rider pulled up, goggles coated in dust, and saluted. He handed Jinnah a heavy leather pouch.
"From the Commissioner, Sir. Urgent."
Jinnah opened it. Inside were the official transfer deeds for the machinery, stamped with the seal of the Punjab Government. And a note from Harrington, handwritten:
My dear Jinnah, The Governor has personally approved the 'Sandalbar Industrial Pilot'. The machinery arrives by goods train on Thursday. He hopes you will not find the noise too distracting from your... other interests. — H.
Jinnah read the subtext clearly: Here are your toys. Now stay in your sandbox and play, and don't think about Delhi.
He thinks he's burying you, Bilal said.
"He is," Jinnah said, signing the receipt for the rider. "He is burying a seed."
4. The Blueprint
Back at the bungalow, Bilal began to overlay his "future knowledge" onto Jinnah's plans.
Sir, if we are building a central hub, don't just build a factory, Bilal suggested. Think like a city planner.
Meaning?
Build a school next to it, Bilal said. The workers will bring children. If the school is right there, they will attend. Build a tea stall that sells clean food. Build a public bath with the waste heat from the boiler water.
He sketched a vision in Jinnah's mind: Not just a grim industrial shed, but a Town Square. A place where the economic life of the ten villages converged.
In my time, Bilal said, we called these Special Economic Zones. You create a gravity well. People come for the wages, but they stay for the civilization.
Jinnah added a square to his drawing of the site. He labeled it Primary School. Then he added another: Dispensary Annex.
"We are not just processing cotton," Jinnah murmured to the empty room. "We are processing a society."
5. The Quiet Line
That night, as the estate slept, the wireless set in the corner of Jinnah's study crackled to life. It was the nightly check-in from the Farabi outposts—the tactical network that kept them safe.
"Chak 17, clear. Over." "Chak Bawan, all quiet. Over." "Buffer Post 1, movement in the trees, but staying south. Over."
Jinnah listened to the voices of his men. This was his telephone. It didn't connect him to Viceroys or Governors. It connected him to the soil, the danger, and the people.
Harrington had the trunk lines to London. Jinnah had the frequency to the ground.
"Let them keep their telephones," Jinnah whispered, turning down the volume of the static. "I hear what matters."
He picked up his pen. The machinery was coming on Thursday. He had three days to build a world to put it in.