Lekzi

Aditya and Madan left before dawn. By the time they reached Varanasi to catch the bus, the sky was only just beginning to pale.

It was already afternoon when they arrived in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, and the sun had baked the ground hot.

The two found the State Bank, and Madan squatted by the roadside to wait.

Aditya pushed the door open and went inside. The banking hall was spacious and empty, with someone sitting behind the counter, looking down through some documents.

Aditya walked up to the counter and stopped. The person behind it raised his head, his gaze landing first on Aditya's face, then moving down to the sacred thread across his chest, where it lingered.

The teller put down his pen, came around the counter, pressed his palms together, and bowed his head slightly. "Sir, what can I do for you?"

"I'd like a loan," Aditya replied.

"Please wait a moment."

The teller turned and went into the office at the end of the corridor. He left the door open, and Aditya heard him say inside, "Manager, a Brahmin gentleman is here."

The manager came out, spotted Aditya from the corridor, and quickened his steps. He walked up to him and pressed his palms together. "Sir, please come inside."

The manager's office was small, with a desk and two chairs.

The manager did not sit down first. He gestured with one hand. "Please, have a seat."

Only after Aditya sat down did he walk over to his own chair. He stood for a moment before sitting. "May I have your name, sir?"

"Aditya Mishra. I'm from Varanasi," Aditya replied.

"I see. What do you need a loan for, Mr. Mishra?"

"I want to build a textile mill in Varanasi. I need funds to build the factory and buy equipment."

"How much would you like to borrow?"

"Two million rupees."

The manager did not respond immediately. He lowered his head in thought for a while, then looked up and said, "Two million is no small sum. Do you have any collateral, Mr. Mishra?"

"Yes. Land that has been in the Mishra family for seven generations, two hundred and eighty mu in total. I brought the deed." Aditya took the deed out of his pocket, set it on the desk, and pushed it over.

The manager accepted it with both hands, opened it, read it from beginning to end, closed it, and set it back on the desk.

"As for interest, ordinary commercial loans carry an annual rate of twelve to fourteen percent." He paused and glanced at Aditya. "For you, Mr. Mishra, we can offer nine."

"What are the terms?"

"The bank holds the deed as collateral. A five-year term, with interest-only payments in the first year."

Aditya did not answer immediately. He glanced at the deed on the corner of the desk, then at the manager. "Once the deed is pledged, the money will be sunk into the factory before it's even built. If anything goes wrong along the way, the land will be gone."

The manager said nothing. He lifted his cup, took a sip of water, and set it down. "What terms would you like, Mr. Mishra?"

"No land as collateral. I'll pay the interest as usual," Aditya said with a smile.

The manager was silent for a while. He picked up the deed again, leafed through it, then set it back on the desk. "Mr. Mishra, the State Bank has its rules. A loan without land as collateral requires special approval from the head office. The approval process would take at least two months."

"I can't wait two months. I've already picked out the machinery, the land has been approved, and the workers are waiting," Aditya said, shaking his head.

The manager fell silent again for a while, then pushed the deed back toward Aditya. "Then let's do this. Take your deed back, and we'll approve the loan anyway. Nine percent annual interest, a five-year term, and interest-only payments in the first year. The money will be in your account within three days."

Aditya looked at the deed that had been pushed back to him and asked in puzzlement, "Why did you agree?"

"The Mishra family name is worth that much." The manager smiled, took a document from his drawer, turned to the last page, and pushed a pen over. "Just sign here."

Aditya took the pen, wrote his name on the signature line, and put it down.

The manager took the document, glanced at it, and put it in the drawer. "You'll need a business account too, won't you? I'll go with you."

He stood up, led Aditya back to the banking hall, and told the teller, "Open a business account for Mr. Mishra. Give all the paperwork priority."

The teller took the identification documents and seal, entered the information, and printed the forms. In less than ten minutes, everything was done, and he handed over the bank card and checkbook with both hands.

Aditya accepted them, put them away, and turned to leave.

The manager saw him to the entrance and pressed his palms together just inside the door. "Mr. Mishra, I wish you a smooth start to construction."

Aditya briefly pressed his palms together, pushed the door open, and walked out.

Madan stood up from the roadside and asked, "All done?"

"All done. The loan's approved, and the account's open," Aditya replied.

Madan asked nothing more. The two took a rickshaw through the streets of Lucknow toward the Industry Bureau.

The Industry Bureau looked bigger than the State Bank, but its walls were dingy gray. The concrete steps at the entrance had cracked, and weeds grew in the gaps.

Aditya went inside. The corridor was long, its whitewashed walls yellowing, with several patches of plaster peeling off in the corners.

People sat on the benches along both sides. Some wore old shirts, some faded saris. Some held document envelopes, while others dozed against the walls.

Aditya walked past them without slowing his steps or looking to either side.

He went up to the service window, placed a photocopy of the land deed and an application to establish a sugar mill on the counter, and stood waiting.

A man sat behind the window, wearing an old pair of glasses with tape wound around one arm. He was looking down through a set of papers. Without raising his head, he reached out and pulled the documents from the counter toward him, turned two pages, then stopped.

He raised his head, his gaze landing first on the documents, then rising to stop on the sacred thread across Aditya's chest. He put the documents down, removed his glasses, and set them on the counter. "From Varanasi?"

"Varanasi."

"The land's already been approved, and you've brought this here for a stamp?"

"Yes."

"Which part of Varanasi is the factory site in?"

"The east, near the main road. It used to be wasteland."

The middle-aged man nodded. He did not stamp the documents immediately. Instead, he pushed them back onto the counter, sliding them forward a little until they stopped at the edge. His fingers remained pressed against a corner of the papers. He looked up at Aditya without speaking.

Aditya glanced at his hand, then at his face.

Aditya cursed viciously in his heart. He took a few banknotes from his pocket, folded them, slipped them beneath the documents, and pushed them back. The papers covered the banknotes, leaving only one corner exposed.

The middle-aged man glanced down without picking them up. He pulled both the documents and the banknotes inside the window and set them down, then took a stamp from the drawer, stamped the documents, and handed them out, saying:

"Done. The land's approved. Just report to the Industry Bureau once within three months after the factory is built. You won't need to go through the approval process again."

He paused. "If you need anything in the future, come straight to me."

Aditya took the documents, turned, and headed out.

Aditya came out of the Industry Bureau into the brightly lit corridor. He folded the documents, put them in his document envelope, and looked up toward the far end of the corridor.

A young woman leaned by the window, wearing a white shirt and a long, dark blue skirt, her hair tied in a low ponytail.

She faced the corridor. She had dark brown eyes, long lashes, a slender, elongated face, balanced features, a straight nose, and thin, rosy lips. She was very pretty, with a soft, delicate beauty.

Aditya knew her. Her name was Dipti Gupta, and she ranked first in the accounting department of the University of Lucknow's business school. She was two years ahead of him.

When he first enrolled, the department had assigned her to guide the new students. Aditya was her junior in the same program.

What Aditya remembered most vividly was Dipti's notebook. Once, as he passed beside her, he had seen the densely packed numbers in it. Her handwriting was neat, every line aligned, without a single correction.

Those were the cleanest accounting records Aditya had ever seen.

Aditya walked over, stopped two paces away from her, pressed his palms together, and called out, "Senior Dipti."