Chapter 319: The Burden of the Crown
January 25, 1978
New Delhi, India
(this is funny and comedic chapter ,i just read about this man thats why i wrote this ,kind of slice of life ,poor written slightly as it took me 20 min but very good for bonus chapter for me so pls enjoy)
The thick, freezing winter fog of New Delhi had descended over Lutyens' Bungalow Zone, blanketing the wide, tree-lined avenues in a dense, blinding white haze. Tomorrow morning, the capital would host the grand spectacle of the Republic Day parade down the Rajpath, showcasing the military and industrial might of a newly awakened superpower.
But tonight, inside the sprawling, heavily fortified private villa of Karan Shergill on Amrita Shergill Marg, the atmosphere in the private study was relaxed, warm, and filled with the rare sound of genuine political camaraderie.
A heavy teakwood fire crackled in the hearth, casting a warm, flickering orange glow across the room. Sitting on the plush leather sofas were the two most powerful elected men in the Republic of India: Prime Minister Yashwantrao Chavan and Minister of External Affairs Swaran Singh.
Sitting across from them, nursing a glass of sparkling water, was the twenty-seven-year-old architect of their unassailable foreign policy.
"I received a backchannel cable from our embassy in London this afternoon," Swaran Singh said, a wide, deeply satisfied smile visible beneath his neatly tied turban. "Prime Minister Callaghan is reportedly having a nervous breakdown over the diesel quotas. They have actually started rationing electricity to government buildings to ensure the hospitals don't freeze. The British press is screaming, but Downing Street hasn't issued a single formal diplomatic protest against us."
Prime Minister Chavan let out a deep, booming laugh, slapping his knee. "How can they protest? If they protest, they freeze! You trapped them perfectly, Karan. You slapped the empire, and they had to thank you for the privilege."
Karan smiled, resting his glass on the coaster. "The British respect only one language, Yashwantrao-ji. Leverage. The moment they realized we were willing to let them freeze in the dark, they suddenly remembered how to behave like civilized guests on the global stage."
The three men shared a comfortable laugh, basking in the afterglow of a geopolitical triumph that had permanently elevated the nation.
But Karan Shergill did not build an empire by being unobservant.
As the laughter subsided, Karan's sharp, predatory eyes caught a subtle, fleeting exchange of glances between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. It was a slight shift in posture, a nervous clearing of the throat by Swaran Singh, and a sudden, avoiding gaze from Chavan.
Karan leaned back in his leather chair, crossing his legs, his smile fading into a look of dry, calculating amusement.
"Alright," Karan said, his voice cutting through the warmth of the room. "You two didn't come to my house at eight o'clock at night, the evening before Republic Day, just to drink my tea and flatter my ego. What happened?"
Chavan shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, adjusting the collar of his kurta. "Nothing has happened, Karan. Just... a minor diplomatic complication."
"A complication," Karan repeated flatly. He looked at the Foreign Minister. "Swaran-ji. Why do you look like you've just been handed a live grenade?"
Swaran Singh sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looked exhausted, carrying the weary burden of dealing with the eccentricities of the global stage.
"Because I have, Karan," Swaran Singh admitted, his voice laced with profound bureaucratic dread. "Jean-Bédel Bokassa is landing at Palam Airport tonight."
Karan stared at him for a long, flat second. "Who?"
"His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire," Swaran Singh clarified, reciting the ridiculous, self-appointed title with a grimace.
Karan let out a short, cynical breath. "You mean the tin-pot dictator who just bankrupted his own starving country last month to buy a golden throne and crown himself an emperor?"
"The very same," Chavan grumbled, reaching for his tea.
Karan shook his head, utterly unimpressed. Bokassa's coronation in December 1977 had been a global laughingstock—a grotesque, narcissistic display of wealth in one of the poorest nations on earth, largely bankrolled by the French government to maintain their neocolonial grip on African uranium.
"Okay. That is a good thing for diplomatic optics, I suppose," Karan said smoothly, though his eyes remained suspicious. "An African head of state visiting India on the eve of Republic Day. It plays well into the Asian-African Development Bank narrative. Let him watch the tanks roll down the Rajpath, give him a state dinner, and send him home. Why does this involve me?"
Chavan and Swaran Singh exchanged another painful look.
"Because he does not want a standard state dinner, Karan," Swaran Singh explained, bracing himself for the inevitable explosion. "He sent his diplomatic advance team this morning. He has absolutely insisted that he be personally received by you at the airport. He wants to sit next to you—not the Prime Minister, but you—during the Republic Day parade tomorrow."
Karan's eyebrows slowly raised.
"And," Chavan added, wincing slightly, "he has demanded that after the parade, you personally escort him and his wife, Empress Catherine, on a multi-day, guided royal tour of Uttar Pradesh."
The study went deathly silent. The only sound was the crackle of the burning firewood.
Karan Shergill, the man who had just brought the Western hemisphere to its knees, stared at the two most senior politicians in India.
"Let me understand this clearly," Karan said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy whisper. "A French puppet, who wears a cape and a diamond crown bought with stolen money, wants the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh to act as his personal tour guide?"
Karan let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, glaring at the Prime Minister.
"Do I look like a baby-pampering boy to you, Yashwantrao-ji?" Karan asked, his tone dripping with absolute, unapologetic arrogance. "Do I look like a babysitter for delusional, narcissistic royals looking for a photo opportunity?"
"Karan, we tried to tell him!" Chavan protested defensively, holding up his hands. "Swaran's office sent three separate cables to his delegation! We told them that you are an incredibly busy man. We told them you have a state to run, an industrial empire to manage, and that you do not perform diplomatic escort duties."
"And?" Karan demanded.
"And that self-declared emperor simply refused to listen!" Swaran Singh sighed in exasperation. "He threw a tantrum. He threatened to turn his plane around. He said he did not come to India to meet politicians; he came to meet the Emperor of the East."
Chavan pointed an accusing finger at Karan, a playful but pointed blame in his eyes.
"Frankly, Karan, you did this to yourself," Chavan said, leaning back.
"Excuse me?" Karan shot back.
"You went on live, global television in front of six hundred million people," Chavan reminded him. "And you proudly boasted that African heads of state were flocking to Lucknow to learn how to be true statesmen and build infrastructure. Bokassa heard that broadcast, and now he wants his masterclass!"
Karan rolled his eyes, a look of profound, irritated disgust washing over his face.
"Yes, they come to Lucknow," Karan agreed sharply. "But serious men come. State-builders come. Men who actually want to build ports and electrify their railways come to me. Not narcissistic, insecure clowns who spend twenty million dollars on a diamond-encrusted eagle throne while their citizens don't have clean drinking water."
Karan picked up his glass of water, his disgust for Western-backed puppet regimes boiling over into crude, unfiltered truth.
"Bokassa is not a statesman; he is a Parisian lapdog," Karan stated bluntly. He looked at Swaran Singh and delivered a brutally crude, absolutely accurate geopolitical assessment. "If that man had been born a woman, he would have gladly opened his legs for the French President just to get his ridiculous coronation funded."
Swaran Singh, who had just taken a sip of his hot tea, violently choked.
The seasoned diplomat coughed wildly into his napkin, his eyes watering, desperately trying to maintain his composure. Beside him, Prime Minister Chavan let out a sudden, booming shout of laughter, his shoulders shaking helplessly at the sheer, vulgar accuracy of the statement.
"God above, Karan!" Chavan wheezed, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye as Swaran Singh continued to cough. "You cannot say things like that!"
"It is the truth, Yashwantrao-ji, and you know it," Karan said, completely unrepentant, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "He is an embarrassment to the Global South. And I absolutely refuse to parade around Lucknow with him and 'Empress Catherine' like some glorified tourist guide."
Swaran Singh finally recovered his breath, his face red. "Karan, please. We cannot cause a diplomatic incident on the eve of Republic Day. The Western press is watching us like hawks, waiting for a misstep. If we insult an African head of state right now, Washington will use it to claim our AADB initiative is a sham and that we disrespect the Third World."
Karan fell silent. He hated the pageantry of diplomacy, but he was a master of the geopolitical chessboard. Swaran Singh was right. The optics of publicly rejecting an African leader, however foolish that leader might be, would be instantly weaponized by the American and British press.
Karan tapped his fingers against the armrest of his leather chair, his mind rapidly calculating a solution that preserved Indian dignity without wasting his time.
"Fine," Karan said finally, his tone snapping back to absolute, uncompromising authority.
Chavan and Swaran Singh both let out a collective sigh of relief.
"But we do this on my terms," Karan dictated, pointing a finger at the Foreign Minister. "Swaran-ji, you will handle him in Delhi. You receive him at the airport tonight. You sit next to him at the parade tomorrow. Smile, wave, and feed his ego."
"And Uttar Pradesh?" Swaran Singh asked nervously.
"I will receive him in Lucknow the day after tomorrow," Karan conceded, his eyes narrowing. "But it will be a strictly one-day visit. Not a multi-day royal tour."
"He will complain that one day is not enough," Chavan warned.
Karan smiled—a cold, shark-like smile that promised absolute bureaucratic tyranny.
"Let him complain," Karan said smoothly. "I will cite Vanguard Internal Security protocols. I will tell his diplomatic team that due to the heightened international threat matrix following the Western embargo, the Chief Minister's security apparatus can only clear a twenty-four-hour window for foreign dignitaries."
Karan leaned forward, sealing the fate of the Central African Emperor's grand Indian vacation.
"I will give him exactly one day," Karan promised. "I will shake his hand on the tarmac, I will put him in a bulletproof car, and I will take him on a deafening, exhausting, mandatory tour of a Shergill Heavy Industries tractor assembly plant in Kanpur. I will bore him to death with metallurgic statistics and supply-chain logistics for eight straight hours until he is begging to get back on his airplane."
Chavan chuckled, shaking his head in admiration. "You are a cruel host, Karan."
"I am an efficient host," Karan corrected him, taking a final sip of his water. "I will give him his photo opportunity. And then, for the sake of my own sanity, I will shoo him away."
Later that evening, beneath the freezing, fog-choked skies of New Delhi, the diplomatic ordeal of Minister Swaran Singh officially began.
The custom-chartered, French-built DC-8 aircraft carrying the Central African imperial delegation touched down on the tarmac of Palam Airport shortly before midnight. Standing at the end of the red carpet, flanked by a shivering brass band and a line of ceremonial guards, Swaran Singh pulled his heavy wool overcoat tighter around his shoulders. He exhaled a long, visible plume of white breath, mentally preparing himself for the absurdity to come.
The aircraft doors opened. The brass band immediately struck up a regal march.
Stepping out into the biting Delhi winter was Jean-Bédel Bokassa, accompanied by Empress Catherine. Even for a seasoned diplomat who had shaken hands with Soviet hardliners and American presidents, the sight was profoundly jarring.
Bokassa was dressed in a sweeping, ankle-length velvet cape lined with white ermine fur. His chest was weighed down by dozens of glittering, oversized medals, and in his hand, he gripped a gold-plated ceremonial baton encrusted with diamonds. It was a cartoonish, billion-dollar imitation of Napoleon Bonaparte, funded entirely by the sweat of a starving African republic and French uranium kickbacks.
Swaran Singh plastered a flawless, highly practiced diplomatic smile onto his face as the Emperor descended the stairs.
"Your Imperial Majesty," Swaran Singh greeted, offering a respectful nod as Bokassa stepped off the red carpet. "On behalf of the Prime Minister and the Republic of India, welcome to New Delhi."
Bokassa looked around the tarmac, his brow furrowing in immediate, visible disappointment. He peered past Swaran Singh's shoulder, looking toward the terminal.
"Where is he?" Bokassa demanded, his thick French accent cutting through the cold air. "Where is the Emperor of the East? I was told Mr. Shergill would be here to receive his brother sovereign."
Swaran Singh's smile did not waver, though his jaw tightened imperceptibly.
"Chief Minister Shergill sends his warmest, most profound apologies, Your Majesty," Swaran Singh lied smoothly, channeling decades of diplomatic tact. "He is currently in Uttar Pradesh finalizing the security arrangements for your state visit tomorrow. He eagerly awaits your arrival in Lucknow. If Your Majesty would please follow me to the motorcade..."
Bokassa huffed, gripping his diamond baton tighter, clearly insulted. "Very well, Minister. But ensure my suite is adequately heated. This fog is entirely unacceptable for the Empress."
Swaran Singh closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. I am the Minister of External Affairs of a nuclear-armed superpower, he reminded himself silently. I can survive this.
But survival proved to be an agonizing, psychological endurance test.
The next morning, the grand spectacle of the Republic Day parade unfolded down the majestic expanse of the Rajpath. The sun broke through the fog, illuminating a dazzling display of India's awakened might. Column after column of disciplined infantry marched past the VIP enclosure, followed by the earth-shaking rumble of indigenous Arjun Main Battle Tanks and the deafening, supersonic roar of S-27 Pinaka interceptors tearing across the sky in a flawless diamond formation.
Seated in the absolute center of the VVIP bulletproof glass enclosure, right next to Prime Minister Chavan, was Bokassa. And seated directly next to Bokassa, tasked with keeping the Emperor entertained, was a deeply suffering Swaran Singh.
For three agonizing hours, Bokassa did not stop talking.
As the massive, composite-armored Arjun tanks rolled past, shaking the concrete beneath their seats, Bokassa leaned over and tapped Swaran Singh on the arm with his gold baton.
"They are very loud, Minister," Bokassa shouted over the roar of the diesel engines, sounding entirely unimpressed. "But tell me, can the interiors be upholstered in red velvet? I am looking to purchase a personal guard unit, but I absolutely will not ride in a vehicle with standard military canvas."
Swaran Singh stared at the Emperor, his mind going completely blank for a moment. "Your Majesty, the Arjun is a front-line combat platform designed to withstand anti-tank munitions. It... it does not come in velvet."
"A shame," Bokassa tutted, waving his hand dismissively. "The French make a lovely armored Peugeot for me. Much more elegant."
Later, when the Pinaka jets broke the sound barrier overhead, sending a concussive shockwave through the crowd that left foreign dignitaries gaping in awe, Bokassa merely adjusted his heavy crown, annoyed that the noise had disrupted his conversation about the poor quality of the caviar served at his hotel the night before.
"I must tell Mr. Shergill to design a quieter jet," Bokassa complained loudly into Swaran Singh's ear. "If he wants me to buy them for my Imperial Air Force, they cannot frighten my horses. Tell me, Minister, can he gold-plate the wings?"
Swaran Singh looked desperately past Bokassa, making agonizing, pleading eye contact with Prime Minister Chavan. Chavan merely took a sip of his tea, offered his Foreign Minister a deeply sympathetic grimace, and looked back at the parade.
By the time the parade ended, Swaran Singh had a blinding migraine. He had endured complaints about the weather, questions about whether Indian elephants could be imported to pull a golden chariot in Bangui, and endless, narcissistic monologues about Bokassa's own military genius.
When it was finally time to put the Emperor on a plane to Uttar Pradesh, Swaran Singh shook Bokassa's hand on the tarmac with a grip fueled by pure, desperate relief.
"Chief Minister Shergill is waiting for you in Lucknow, Your Majesty," Swaran Singh said, practically shoving the man toward the stairs of the aircraft. "He is looking forward to spending the entire day with you."
Karan Shergill had built a sprawling industrial empire from the ground up. He commanded a multi-billion-dollar global conglomerate, had successfully outmaneuvered the CIA's most lethal intelligence networks, brought the entire Western hemisphere to its knees with a single, brutally effective energy embargo, and forced the President of the United States to tremble in the Oval Office.
He was a man whose mind operated like a supercomputer. He calculated geopolitical probabilities down to the sub-micron level, mapping out global trade routes, military procurement, and nuclear deterrence with flawless, cold precision.
Yet, as the heavy, composite-armored Mercedes-Benz motorcade tore down the recently paved, four-lane expressway toward the industrial smog of Kanpur, Karan stared out the reinforced window and realized he had made a fatal, catastrophic error in his strategic calculations.
He had completely, utterly, and profoundly underestimated just how mind-numbingly irritating Jean-Bédel Bokassa could be.
It began the exact moment the bulletproof limousine's heavy doors sealed shut.
Karan sat facing backward on the jump seats, directly across from the Emperor and Empress Catherine. Flanking the doors were two of Karan's top personal security directors—broad-shouldered, stone-faced veterans of Vanguard who looked capable of snapping a mature pine tree in half without breaking a sweat.
Bokassa shifted uncomfortably, his sweeping, ankle-length velvet cape pooling heavily over the B7-rated dark leather seats. He leaned forward, tapping the thick bulletproof glass partition with his diamond-encrusted gold baton.
"Mr. Shergill," Bokassa complained, adjusting his heavy, jewel-laden crown, which kept lurching awkwardly over his left ear every time the heavy limousine hit a minor expansion joint in the highway. "Why is there no champagne in this vehicle? This is most unusual. When I ride down the Champs-Élysées with Giscard d'Estaing, there is always a silver bucket of chilled Dom Pérignon. And why are these seats this... this dreary black leather? Empress Catherine's silk gown is picking up lint! Look at it!"
Karan stared at him. He didn't blink. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched visibly in his cheek. He took a slow, deep, highly regulated breath, mentally checking his internal clock.
Twenty-three hours and fourteen minutes left of this self-imposed diplomatic sentence.
"This is a B7-level armored security transport, Your Majesty," Karan said, his voice flat, perfectly modulated, and utterly devoid of human warmth. "It is engineered with steel-titanium plating to survive a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade and small-arms armor-piercing rounds. It is not designed to serve alcoholic beverages."
Bokassa tutted loudly, waving his gold baton in a dismissive, theatrical arc. In doing so, he accidentally poked the Vanguard security director sitting to his right squarely in the chest.
The security director didn't flinch. He didn't breathe. He slowly lowered his dark, lifeless eyes, staring at the diamond baton resting against his tailored suit jacket. Then, he looked up at Bokassa with an expression of such cold, unadulterated, lethal promise that Bokassa's hand froze mid-air. The African Emperor swallowed thickly, quietly pulled the baton back, and coughed nervously into his white-gloved hand.
"Well," Bokassa mumbled, looking out the window at the passing fields of Uttar Pradesh. "A little champagne wouldn't hurt the titanium."
A few minutes passed in blissful silence, broken only by the hum of the massive V12 engine. Then, Bokassa spotted a lone stray cow grazing near the side of the highway.
"Mr. Shergill," Bokassa asked, leaning forward again, his eyes wide with genuine imperial curiosity. "I am told you have many cows in India. Why do you not simply eat them? Or, if they are sacred, why do you not put little crowns on them? A golden crown on a cow would look very regal, no?"
Karan closed his eyes. Twenty-three hours and nine minutes.
"Our agricultural policies are complex, Your Majesty," Karan replied in a monotone that suggested he would rather be undergoing a root canal.
An hour later, the motorcade breached the massive, electrified gates of the sprawling, cavernous complex of Shergill Heavy Industries in Kanpur.
Karan had specifically picked Plant 4 for this tour. It was the heaviest, loudest, most violently industrial forging facility in the entire subcontinent. Here, massive 10,000-ton hydraulic presses slammed down on white-hot ingots of steel, creating a deafening, earth-shaking THOOM every four seconds that vibrated straight through the soles of a man's shoes and rattled his teeth. The temperature inside the main hangar was a suffocating forty degrees Celsius, filled with the primal roar of blast furnaces and the acrid, metallic smell of burning machine oil and ozone.
Karan had brought Bokassa here with a singular, slightly sadistic objective: to shock the dictator into absolute silence, bore him to tears with the agonizing minutiae of metallurgy, and make him beg to get back on his airplane.
They stepped out of the limousine at the entrance of the facility. The heat washed over them instantly. Karan handed Bokassa a heavy, standard-issue yellow industrial hardhat.
"Put this on, Your Majesty," Karan instructed. "OSHA compliance is strictly enforced on the factory floor."
Bokassa looked at the yellow plastic hat as if Karan had just handed him a dead rat.
"Put plastic on my head?" Bokassa gasped in profound disgust, clutching his chest. "Over my imperial crown? Over the crown of the Central African Empire? Absolutely not. It is an insult to my divine right."
"Then you will step onto a floor where eighty tons of molten steel are currently being poured into molds without cranial protection," Karan said smoothly, handing the hardhat to a terrified African aide. "A single rogue spark will ignite your velvet cape and your hair in approximately three seconds. Your choice."
Bokassa grumbled loudly in French, glaring at Karan. Reluctantly, with the air of a martyr, he took off his magnificent crown—revealing a rather sad, excessively sweating, balding head—handed it to Empress Catherine, and squeezed the bright yellow plastic hat onto his head. It sat entirely too high, making him look like an oversized, angry toddler.
They stepped through the heavy blast doors and onto the high steel catwalk overlooking the main forging floor.
The noise hit them like a physical, solid wall.
THOOM! THOOM!
The floor beneath their feet shook violently. Sparks rained down in giant, blinding golden cascades as a forty-ton steel slab was crushed into shape by an automated, computer-controlled press.
Karan leaned over the railing, preparing to launch into an insufferably long, eighty-minute technical lecture on high-carbon alloy stress tolerances that would drain any normal human being of the will to live.
"As you can see, Your Majesty!" Karan shouted over the deafening roar, pointing down at the glowing metal. "The carbon-to-manganese ratio in these heavy chassis forgings allows us to achieve a tensile strength of over nine hundred megapascals! We utilize a rapid-quenching protocol that—"
Bokassa didn't listen to a single word.
He reached into the deep pockets of his ermine-lined cape, pulled out two bright pink, fluffy cotton earplugs, and shoved them aggressively into his ears. He stepped right up to the railing, gripping the steel with his white gloves, and stared down at the giant hydraulic press with bright, wide, completely unhinged childish eyes.
He turned to Karan, shouting at the absolute top of his lungs over the mechanical roar.
"MR. SHERGILL!" Bokassa yelled, his face flushed with excitement, gesturing frantically down at the 10,000-ton press. "THIS MACHINE IS MAGNIFICENT! TELL ME, CAN IT CRUSH A MAN?!"
Karan blinked. His left eye twitched. "I... what?"
"A MAN!" Bokassa screamed, entirely unbothered by industrial safety or basic human morality. "IF I PUT A TRAITOR TO THE CROWN UNDER THAT BIG HAMMER, WILL HE TURN INTO POWDER?! OR DOES HE SQUISH LIKE A TOMATO?!"
Karan stared at the Emperor of Central Africa, realizing with rising horror that his torturous industrial tour had completely backfired. Bokassa wasn't bored; he was utterly, psychopathically mesmerized.
"It is designed to forge industrial machinery, Your Majesty!" Karan shouted back, aggressively rubbing his temples, feeling a blinding, throbbing headache taking root behind his eyes. "Not for executions!"
"A PITY!" Bokassa shouted back, grinning wildly, completely ignoring Karan's disgust. "IT WOULD MAKE A WONDERFUL PUBLIC EXECUTIONS PRESS IN BANGUI! WE COULD CHARGE ADMISSION! AND TELL ME, MR. SHERGILL, CAN YOU PAINT THESE BIG TRACTORS PINK?!"
"Pink?" Karan asked, feeling his formidable mental fortitude crumbling brick by brick into the molten steel below.
"YES! PINK WITH GOLD WHEELS!" Bokassa yelled, clapping his hands together like a seal. "I WANT TO ORDER FIVE HUNDRED PINK TRACTORS FOR MY IMPERIAL CORONATION ANNIVERSARY PARADE! EMPRESS CATHERINE WANTS TO RIDE ONE INSTEAD OF A HORSE!"
Empress Catherine, who was standing behind them wearing incredibly expensive, completely inappropriate Parisian high heels that kept getting stuck in the metal grating of the catwalk, nodded vigorously, looking thoroughly pleased with the idea of a pink tractor.
Desperate to change the subject, Karan led them away from the forging floor and into the slightly quieter, hyper-sterile environment of the ISMC testing labs.
"Here, Your Majesty, we test the precision of our heavy-duty hydraulic valves using advanced industrial laser-alignment tools," Karan explained, pointing to a technician who was firing a thin, concentrated red laser beam across a steel cylinder to measure microscopic deviations.
Bokassa gasped, pulling out his pink earplugs. He pushed past Karan and rushed up to the thick safety glass, pressing his face against it.
"A laser!" Bokassa whispered in awe. He turned to Karan, his eyes manic. "Mr. Shergill! Is this a death ray? Can it cut a rebel in half from space?"
"It is a measuring tool, Your Majesty," Karan gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw aching. "It operates on a wattage so low it wouldn't even warm your hand."
Bokassa looked deeply disappointed. "You Indians lack imagination. If I had a red light, I would use it to burn my enemies. Can I buy it anyway? I want to point it at the French Ambassador when he asks for debt repayment."
By three in the afternoon, the entourage moved to the plant's private executive dining room for a late lunch. Karan assumed that offering a lavish meal would finally quiet the man down.
He was wrong.
Bokassa had brought his own personal food taster—a terrified, incredibly skinny Central African man named Marcel, who looked as though he expected to be shot at any moment. Bokassa also produced his own personal, solid-gold fork and knife from a velvet pouch, refusing to use the polished silverware provided by the catering staff.
The waiters brought out a magnificent spread of Awadhi cuisine: rich mutton rogan josh, butter paneer, saffron biryani, and freshly baked tandoori naan.
Bokassa poked at the naan with his gold fork, looking highly offended.
"Mr. Shergill, why is your bread so flat?" Bokassa complained loudly, chewing with his mouth open. "When I dine in Paris, the baguettes are thick! This looks like someone sat on it. Marcel! Taste the red meat!"
The terrified Marcel scooped up a spoonful of the spicy mutton rogan josh. He put it in his mouth. Within three seconds, Marcel's eyes watered, his face turned bright red, and he began to sweat profusely, coughing from the heat of the Kashmiri chilies.
Bokassa leaped out of his chair, knocking over a crystal water glass, pointing his gold knife at Karan.
"POISON!" Bokassa screamed. "YOU ARE TRYING TO POISON THE EMPEROR!"
Karan did not move. He did not blink. He slowly picked up his own spoon, reached across the table, scooped a massive portion of the exact same mutton rogan josh, put it in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
"It is chili, Your Majesty," Karan said, his voice dropping into a register so dark, so dripping with suppressed violence, that the temperature in the room seemed to plummet. "It is a spice. Perhaps your palate is too accustomed to bland French pastries."
Bokassa sat back down slowly, looking at Marcel with deep annoyance. "You are an embarrassment, Marcel. Go wait in the car."
With Marcel dismissed, Bokassa turned his attention back to Karan, launching into a relentless barrage of mind-numbing questions.
"Mr. Shergill, why do you wear plain gray business suits?" Bokassa asked, leaning over his biryani. "You are the Emperor of the East! You brought America to its knees! A man of your unimaginable wealth should wear a cape. You should wear epaulettes! I can introduce you to my tailor in Paris! He uses real gold thread! He can make you a hat with ostrich feathers!"
Karan sat rigidly in his chair, his food entirely untouched, staring at his glass of sparkling water as if contemplating using it to drown himself.
"I prefer my suits, Your Majesty," Karan said, staring dead ahead. "They are practical."
"Practicality is for peasants!" Bokassa scoffed, wiping his mouth on a linen napkin. "And your children! I heard on the radio you have triplets! Three babies! This is a sign from the gods! You must crown them princes immediately! Give them little gold scepters! My eldest son, the Crown Prince, has a little gold sword. He loves it. He uses it to hit the servants."
Karan closed his eyes. Ten hours left, he told himself, gripping the armrests of his chair. Just ten more hours. Do not execute a foreign head of state in a Kanpur lunchroom. Do not snap his neck. It will ruin the European trade markets. The AADB needs the PR.
Desperate to get out of the dining room before he committed an international incident, Karan suggested they visit the heavy vehicle testing track behind the plant.
This, too, proved to be a catastrophic error.
The testing track was a massive, mile-long expanse of deep mud, steep inclines, and crushed rock used to test the suspension of Shergill heavy-duty industrial hauling trucks.
Bokassa took one look at a massive, twelve-wheel off-road hauler and demanded to drive it.
"Your Majesty, that is a specialized industrial vehicle with an unsynchronized manual transmission," Karan warned, standing on the edge of the mud pit. "It requires specific training."
"I am an Emperor! I command armies!" Bokassa declared, shoving past the Indian test driver and climbing into the massive cab. "I can drive a truck!"
Empress Catherine, not wanting to be left out, hiked up her silk gown and climbed into the passenger seat.
What followed was twenty minutes of pure, agonizing automotive torture. Bokassa could not find the clutch. The sound of grinding, screaming gears echoed across the entire facility as Bokassa forcefully jammed the stick shift into random positions. The massive truck lurched forward, violently bucking like a dying animal.
"THE GEARBOX IS INSOLENT!" Bokassa screamed out the window, flooring the accelerator.
The twelve-wheel truck rocketed forward at an agonizingly slow five miles per hour, sliding directly into the deepest, thickest mud puddle on the testing track. The massive tires spun wildly, violently kicking up a tidal wave of thick, brown sludge. The mud rained down over the open windows of the cab, completely coating Empress Catherine's priceless Parisian silk gown in thick, foul-smelling industrial dirt.
Catherine shrieked, a high-pitched wail that cut through the roar of the engine.
Bokassa killed the engine. The truck sat dead in the center of the mud pit.
Karan stood on the sidelines, his hands in his pockets, watching the Central African Emperor sitting in a stalled truck, covered in mud.
Something inside Karan Shergill—a specific, highly disciplined dam that held back his infinite arrogance and terrifying temper—finally, permanently cracked.
Protocol be damned.
When the sun finally began to set, casting long, orange shadows across the industrial city, Karan unilaterally canceled the rest of the evening itinerary. There would be no state dinner in Lucknow. There would be no cultural exchange.
He didn't care about diplomatic protocols anymore. He didn't care about the optics for the Asian-African Development Bank. He had sacrificed twelve hours of his mental peace on the altar of national statecraft, and he was absolutely, unconditionally done.
He dispatched a recovery vehicle to pull the Emperor out of the mud. He practically forced a complaining Bokassa and a weeping Empress Catherine back into the armored convoy. He ordered his driver to break every speed limit in the state, driving them at a breakneck, terrifying speed back to Amausi Airport in Lucknow.
He marched them directly onto the tarmac toward their waiting French DC-8.
The cold, crisp night air of Lucknow felt like sweet, glorious salvation against Karan's skin.
Bokassa stood at the bottom of the plane's stairs, still holding his diamond baton, his ermine cape now heavily stained with Kanpur mud. Amazingly, the man looked genuinely sad to leave.
"Ah, Mr. Shergill," Bokassa sighed deeply, placing his heavy crown back on his head. "It was a wonderful visit! Truly! So educational! I have decided we will definitely buy fifty of those pink tractors, provided you gold-plate the exhaust pipes! And I will expect you in Bangui next month! We can go hunting for elephants!"
Karan stood flanked by his personal security detail and the imposing wall of NSG commandos. He offered a razor-thin, terrifyingly stiff smile that did not reach his eyes.
"I will have my trade ministry look into the pink paint, Your Majesty," Karan lied with flawless, sociopathic smoothness, extending a hand. "Have a safe flight back to Bangui."
Bokassa shook his hand enthusiastically, bowed dramatically, gathered his ruined velvet cape, and finally, mercifully, climbed the stairs into the aircraft.
The heavy cabin doors sealed shut. The jet engines roared to life, whining loudly as the DC-8 taxied down the runway, turned into the wind, and lifted off into the dark night sky, its red tail lights fading into the distance.
The tarmac went completely, beautifully, blissfully quiet.
Karan Shergill stood on the cold concrete for a long moment, looking up at the sky. He let out a long, slow, massive breath that he felt like he had been holding in his lungs for twenty-four straight hours. He unbuttoned his charcoal suit jacket, running a hand through his dark hair, feeling the blinding headache finally begin to recede.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his personal, heavily encrypted secure radio, and clicked the channel directly to the Prime Minister's residence in New Delhi.
"Yashwantrao-ji," Karan spoke into the receiver. His voice was flat, exhausted, and laced with absolute, terrifying promises of bureaucratic revenge.
On the other end, Prime Minister Chavan answered instantly, sounding intensely amused and slightly out of breath. *"Karan? Is... is the Emperor gone?"*
"He is in the air," Karan said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "And I am informing you right now, Yashwantrao-ji... if you or Swaran Singh ever, ever invite a self-declared foreign emperor, king, or dictator to Uttar Pradesh again..."
*"What will you do, Karan?"* Chavan chuckled over the static, clearly enjoying the industrialist's misery.
"I will personally reroute the entire sewage system of New Delhi so that it empties directly into the Ministry of External Affairs," Karan promised deadpan, his voice devoid of any humor. "And then I will send Swaran Singh five hundred hot-pink tractors with solid-gold exhaust pipes and bill the Prime Minister's Office for the paint."
Chavan burst into a roaring, uncontrollable fit of laughter over the radio link, the sound crackling through the quiet night air.
Karan clicked the radio off, slipped it back into his pocket, and turned around to face his security director, who was still silently staring at the spot where the plane had been.
"Get my car," Karan ordered his security chief, a small, genuine smile finally touching his lips as he looked up at the quiet stars shining above Lucknow. "Take me home. I have three infants to play with, and unlike the Emperor of Central Africa, my children actually make logical sense when they scream."
The private family wing of the Chief Minister's residence in Lucknow was a strictly guarded sanctuary, a world entirely insulated from the heavy, suffocating gravity of global statecraft.
Here, there were no bulletproof glass partitions, no frantic diplomats, and no ringing red telephones connecting to nuclear-armed superpowers.
Instead, the center of the sprawling, warm living room was dominated by a massive, plush Persian rug that had currently been commandeered by an occupying army of brightly colored soft blocks, plush elephants, and three incredibly energetic, six-month-old babies.
Karan Shergill, the undisputed titan of Indian industry and the architect of the Third Superpower, was currently sitting cross-legged on the floor. He had discarded his tailored charcoal suit hours ago, wearing only a pair of comfortable gray sweatpants and a soft cotton t-shirt.
He was entirely focused on the high-stakes, geopolitically critical mission of stacking four soft, fabric alphabet blocks into a tower for his daughter, Aditi.
To his left, Ranveer was engaged in a fierce, babbling debate with a stuffed tiger, while Vikram was rolling across the carpet with single-minded determination, attempting to reach the shiny metal leg of the coffee table so he could chew on it.
Sitting on the edge of the large velvet sofa, her legs tucked under her, was Sakshi. She was sipping a cup of chamomile tea, her dark eyes glowing with a quiet, profound contentment as she watched the most terrifying man in international politics gently nudge a falling block back into place for his daughter.
The heavy, mahogany-encased television set in the corner of the room was playing the evening international news broadcast on a low volume.
"Da!" Aditi babbled enthusiastically, swatting her tiny hand forward and instantly demolishing Karan's carefully constructed tower.
Karan sighed, a soft, genuine smile touching his lips. "Excellent tactical strike, Aditi. You completely neutralized my infrastructure."
Sakshi let out a soft laugh, taking a sip of her tea. "She gets her destructive tendencies from you, Karan. Give her a few years, and she'll be placing embargoes on her brothers when they steal her toys."
Before Karan could reply, the clipped, upper-class British accent of the BBC World News anchor on the television shifted in tone.
*"In other international news today, the global diplomatic community was left somewhat... perplexed, following a highly unusual press conference held in Bangui by Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the newly crowned Emperor of the Central African Empire, following his return from a brief state visit to the Republic of India."*
Karan's hands froze over the scattered alphabet blocks.
A cold, familiar spike of dread shot down his spine. He had spent the last forty-eight hours trying to scrub the memory of the Kanpur industrial tour from his brain with a wire brush.
Sakshi paused, her teacup halfway to her lips, her interest instantly piqued. She reached over and turned the volume dial up on the television console.
"Sakshi, no," Karan warned, his voice dropping into a desperate, pleading register. "Turn it off. We don't need to watch the news. Let's watch a movie. Let's watch literally anything else."
"Shush," Sakshi smiled, her eyes glittering with mischievous delight. "I want to hear about your masterful diplomatic triumphs, Mr. Shergill. You've been complaining about this man for two days."
On the screen, the BBC feed cut to a chaotic, brightly lit press conference in Bangui.
Standing at a golden podium, draped in a fresh velvet cape and wearing a crown that looked far too heavy for his neck, was Emperor Bokassa. He was waving his diamond-encrusted baton at a sea of bewildered French and African journalists.
*"The Western press calls him a dictator!"* Bokassa boomed on the television, his thick French accent echoing through the living room. *"But I tell you, Karan Shergill is a visionary! He is my brother sovereign! The Emperor of the East!"*
Karan put his head in his hands, massaging his temples. "I am going to have the BBC banned from broadcasting in this state."
*"He showed me his industrial fortresses!"* Bokassa continued, absolutely beaming at the cameras. *"He took me to a factory where they have a massive, beautiful ten-thousand-ton hydraulic hammer! I asked him if we could crush traitors under it, and he was so moved by my justice that he wept!"*
Sakshi slowly lowered her teacup. She stared at the television, her mouth slightly open, before slowly turning her head to look at her husband.
"You wept?" Sakshi asked, her voice trembling on the absolute edge of laughter.
"I was rubbing my temples because I had a migraine that could have killed a horse," Karan muttered into his hands, refusing to look up. "He thought I was overcome with emotion."
But Bokassa was not finished. The Emperor leaned into the microphone, his eyes wide and dramatic.
*"And the assassination attempt!"* Bokassa shouted, causing the journalists on the screen to gasp.
Sakshi's eyes widened. "Assassination attempt?!"
*"At lunch, Western spies tried to poison my royal food taster with fiery red poison hidden in the meat!"* Bokassa declared, waving his arms. *"My taster was weeping! He was dying! But my brother, Emperor Karan, looked death in the eye! He ate the poison himself to prove his immunity! He swallowed the fire to save my life!"*
Sakshi blinked. She looked at Karan, who was currently staring at the Persian rug with the thousand-yard stare of a defeated man.
"Karan," Sakshi whispered, her shoulders beginning to shake. "Did you... did you eat his lunch?"
"It was mutton rogan josh, Sakshi," Karan said, his voice completely hollow, devoid of all hope. "His food taster had zero tolerance for Kashmiri chili. The man started coughing. Bokassa thought the CIA had spiked the buffet. I ate a spoonful of it to prove it was just food so he wouldn't declare war on the catering staff."
Sakshi pressed her hand over her mouth, but it was too late.
A sharp, undignified snort of laughter escaped her lips. She collapsed back against the velvet sofa, entirely losing her composure. The brilliant, sophisticated wife of the Chief Minister threw her head back and let out a bright, ringing, uncontrollable peal of laughter that echoed off the high ceilings of the living room.
"You—" Sakshi gasped, pointing a shaking finger at him, tears of pure mirth forming in her eyes. "You brought the President of the United States to his knees... and you had to eat spicy mutton to stop an African emperor from executing a waiter?!"
"It was a calculated de-escalation," Karan tried to defend himself, his face burning with a rare, profound embarrassment. "You weren't there, Sakshi. The man wanted to buy industrial laser calibrators to use as death rays. I was operating under extreme duress."
On the television, Bokassa delivered his grand finale.
*"To seal our eternal alliance, Mr. Shergill is manufacturing five hundred custom tractors for my coronation parade!"* Bokassa announced proudly. *"And because he respects my imperial vision, he is painting them all bright pink, with solid-gold exhaust pipes! Long live the Central African Empire! Long live Karan Shergill!"*
The BBC anchor returned to the screen, looking visibly stunned, holding a finger to his earpiece. *"Well... we reached out to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs regarding the... pink tractors. They declined to comment."*
Sakshi couldn't breathe. She was laughing so hard she was silently clutching her stomach, completely paralyzed by the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of the situation.
"Pink tractors," Sakshi wheezed, wiping her eyes. "Oh my god. The Emperor of the East... the architect of the Blood Doctrine... is a glorified used-car salesman for pink tractors."
"It was a lie," Karan protested, his legendary intimidation tactics completely useless against his wife. "I told him we would look into it just to get him on the airplane! I am not painting heavy agricultural machinery pink!"
Sakshi's bright, ringing laughter was highly contagious.
Sitting on the carpet, little Vikram stopped trying to chew on the coffee table. He looked up at his mother, saw her laughing hysterically, and immediately let out a loud, bubbly giggle.
Aditi dropped her soft block, threw her tiny arms in the air, and squealed with delight, matching her mother's energy. Even Ranveer rolled over, kicking his chubby legs, letting out a series of high-pitched, toothless laughs.
Karan Shergill, the man who commanded the absolute loyalty of a billion-dollar industrial empire and the most lethal paramilitary security force on the subcontinent, sat on the floor, entirely surrounded and thoroughly defeated by his own family.
He looked at his wife, who was wiping tears of laughter from her cheeks, and then down at his three six-month-old children, who were giggling uncontrollably at his misery.
The embarrassment slowly washed away, replaced by a deep, overwhelming warmth that spread through his chest. He reached out, gently picking Aditi up and settling her into his lap.
"Go ahead and laugh," Karan grumbled playfully, a soft smile finally breaking through his defensive scowl. "Mock the head of the household. See if I authorize any ice cream rations for this family."
"You don't control the ice cream, Mr. Shergill," Sakshi smiled warmly, finally catching her breath, looking at him with deep, bottomless affection. "And don't worry. I won't tell the Americans that their great geopolitical rival was held hostage by a man in a velvet cape."
"Thank you," Karan sighed, leaning over to gently ruffle Ranveer's hair. "I just hope Swaran Singh is having a worse evening than I am."
"Da-da!" Aditi babbled, slapping her tiny hand against Karan's cheek, entirely unimpressed by his global status.
Karan chuckled, kissing his daughter's forehead. In the grand, ruthless calculus of global statecraft, he was a king. But sitting on this carpet, surrounded by giggling babies and a wife who saw right through his armor, Karan Shergill knew exactly where his true empire lay.