Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

14th August 1660

After nearly a month of being away from the empire, Vijay finally returned to the Imperial Capital, Bengaluru. Looking at the vague silhouette on the horizon, he felt a little nostalgic. Entering the city, he received a grand welcome from his citizens, with decorative flowers and rose water constantly thrown at him as his carriage moved through the streets of Bengaluru.

Vijay opened his curtains and could see that the streets had already been decorated grandly with rangolis, new paints, colorful arches over the road, colourful decorations, banana leaves for auspiciousness, coconut leaves for coolness, flowers hanging all over the place, and many more.

Naturally, all of this was not arranged for the arrival of Vijay alone, but it's just that the arrival of Vijay coincided with Independence Day or the Warriors' Day of the Bharatiya Empire, which is August 15th. It was the day when the Mughal Empire ended, and Mughal Emperor Mohammed IV was subjugated by His Majesty Rajyapathi Vijay Devaraya on this day.

In fact, the reason why Vijay had to come back so quickly, even though he had some unfinished matters, was in order to attend the Warriors' Day of the Bharatiya Empire.

What's more, right after Warriors' Day, it was Ganesh Chaturthi only a few weeks down the line, making the festive atmosphere in the empire even more intense.

Vijay soon went home to the Shourya Royal Palace and spent six long hours consoling Kavya in the bedroom. Unexpectedly, in this time, he also got to know that Kavya's final volume of 'Baahubali' had actually been written, and she was just waiting for him to proofread it. Vijay was feeling relieved of all the stress, so he agreed to take a look at it in the next few days.

After he came out of the room refreshed, he went over to his office as he wanted to know what had happened in his absence. Naturally, the best way to do it was to read the newspapers that had accumulated during his absence.

It took a whole hour to read all 30-plus newspapers, but by the end of his session, he was left pleasantly surprised.

During his absence, the Aikyotsava event started as planned, and it had generated a record-breaking 20 million varaha in the capital alone and more than 80 million varaha throughout the empire.

What's more, due to the excitement generated by the Aikyotsava event, the enthusiasm had been transferred to the preliminaries that started a week ago for the Bharatiya Premier League, which is about to start next year.

Not everyone in the Bharatiya Empire is a fan of cricket, but the majority of people are devoid of entertainment. So even if they don't particularly love cricket, they are bound to be interested in it due to the commotion it has created. What's more, the audience for cricket in the future is only bound to increase because sports is a mandatory subject at all levels of education, creating a very rich sporting culture in the Bharatiya Empire.

So even if, by conservative estimations, 25% of all audiences watch sports like cricket, the viewership is still in the tens of millions, and this audience is only bound to increase with the gradual economic integration with the Southeast Asian economy.

Vijay was very satisfied with this as he smiled cheerfully.

Apart from sports, great changes have happened in the industrial sector too. During the month of his absence, the Inland industrial zones built in the northern part of the empire were finally able to reach full operational capacity. All the industrial products produced in these industrial zones were being consumed locally in the State of their location.

The amount of GDP generated from the northern part of the empire is bound to increase. The Ministry of Finance and the tax bureau both project over 7% growth in GDP in the northern part of the empire alone, and this was all brought by only 20 inland industrial zones.

Iron production, steel production, construction projects, construction efficiency, manufacturing, and other sectors have all grown considerably.

Surprisingly enough, while he was away, several major innovations had taken place in the empire, taking the nation by storm. A man named David Cohen, a Jewish immigrant from the Holy Roman Empire, invented a groundbreaking machine called a stapler.

David Cohen is a 32-year-old Jewish man who is proficient in reading and writing. Although the speed at which he picked up the Bharati language after he came to the Bharatiya Empire was only average, he was stable in his character, and his qualities were very reliable.

It is for this reason that, although he did not have enough experience, he was appointed as the secretary to the director of the Business Department in the Ministry of Trade, Commerce, and Industry of the Ahom State.

He was very satisfied with the work, but unfortunately, it was sometimes a bit too much. He liked the human relationships aspect of his job, but he hated the menial tasks he had to do, like arranging the documents in order or tying them up with a tag.

So one day, in his frustration, he went on to design and manufacture the first stapler of the Bharatiya Empire. The stapler Cohen built was a far cry from the staplers of the future since it only worked with one pin at a time, but it was still extremely useful. In this era, since such a thing never existed, it immediately caught the attention of the public.

After applying for a patent and selling the patent manufacturing rights to a few industrial companies, he quit his job after paying a lot of termination fees and started his own company called Cohen Staples. Adding the money he had made and getting some investment from small investment firms, he established the company, which specializes in manufacturing tools and equipment required for offices, professional settings, or creative people.
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In an interview which Vijay read, Cohen mentioned that his future goal was to produce all necessary equipment for a student, officer, and government employee. He said that in the future, his products would range from pens, pencils, staplers, punching machines, paintbrushes, paints, files, amateur geometry boxes, professional geometry boxes, writing chalks, writing boards, and other things.

Vijay had never thought of it before, since there wasn't any stationery conglomerate in his last life in India due to copyright and patent regulations not being too strict. But in this life, the intellectual property rights of the Bharatiya Empire were very strict and seriously enforced, so he could expect this Cohen Staples company to become one of the best, if not the best, stationery manufacturers in the world. Vijay was excited to see what the BICs, Newell Brands, and Faber-Castells of India would look like.

Apart from the stapler, there was another surprising innovation that happened in his absence, which caught Vijay offguard.

The research firm owned by Arjun Bakshi, through his Bakshi Textiles company, was actually successful in developing the mechanical loom, which is capable of not only running with the help of a water wheel but also potentially running on the power of steam.

The loom, named the Gupta Ram Loom Machine, was invented by the chief scientists of the Bakshi Research Institute, Yadav Gupta and Taraka Ram. So, for their contribution, the name of the loom is a combination of their last names.

The Gupta Ram Loom is nearly three times quicker than its predecessor, and the efficiency at which threads are woven is also many times better.

The principle of its operation was simple: rotating shafts and lever interfaces manipulated warp and weft threads to weave fabric. The research and manufacturing of this machine involved the use of three different industrial tools, namely the lathe, milling machine, and drill press.

Vijay couldn't quite put his hand on it, but from the specifications and how the loom looked in the depiction of the newspaper, it looked quite similar to the Jacquard Loom, which was invented in 1804. This was the transition point right before the steam-age Industrial Revolution kicked off, where steam engines began to be used directly in factories.

Of course, Vijay knew that Bakshi didn't realize what his company's new invention was truly capable of, but still, he was very happy.

The fifth-generation machine tools that had only been put into the market a few months ago had already brought about three large innovations, starting with industrial fans, staplers, and now mechanical looms.

What is even more surprising is that Bakshi Research Institute has already publicized that they are conducting research on a mechanical sewing machine, where people could sew their clothes themselves using a machine as small as a 10-year-old child.

Vijay found it hard to believe how quickly the Bharatiya Empire was being modernized. Some of the things that were being invented were from the 19th century, while some were from the 18th century. The technology of the Bharatiya Empire progressed one step at a time for major and core technologies, but for smaller technologies, if one noticed carefully, they could see a big jump from one to another.

Thinking of this, Vijay did not feel anything wrong with it because he knew innovation was sometimes tricky, and this was the same in his last life too. For example, luggage suitcases with wheels attached to them were only invented after the United States sent a man to the moon, and there used to be submarine cables before normal communication cables. Similarly, the ballpoint pen was invented decades after the fountain pen, despite being a much simpler concept. Forks became common in Europe centuries after spoons and knives were widely used. Even the discovery of anesthesia, which revolutionized surgery, came long after complex surgical procedures had already been performed for centuries.