I am a master in India

Chapter 140 Big Fish
Seeing the baby being thrown to the ground, Ron and Kellner rushed over at the same time.

One grabbed the baby and the other hugged the woman.

She was right in front of them, just one step away.

Everyone in the audience was stunned by this sudden change until the baby cried out "Wow". Then everyone woke up and hurriedly pulled the woman away from the child.

Ron held the baby in his arms, still terrified, and carefully examined the child. Fortunately, there was only a purple mark on the ankle, and nothing else was seriously wrong.

The woman knelt on the ground and cried loudly, unable to say a word to blame her.

If she hadn't been extremely desperate, how could she have been so cruel as to kill her own child?

The dilapidated hut behind her is the foundation of her survival. If it is demolished today, her child will die in a month.

Because the rainy season is coming, there is no shelter from the wind and rain, and such a small baby will not be able to survive.

She would die of typhoid, die of dysentery, die of hunger.

The onlookers felt sympathetic, and Ron was not much better.

A helpless woman has to use the death of her child to protest against the demolition of illegal buildings. What the hell is this?

Kellner sighed grimly, knowing that he would return empty-handed again today.

He is selfless and hates evil, but he will not joke with human life.

Besides, if something really happens, he will be in trouble.

The Shiv Sena party is struggling to find an excuse, and the Dawood gang will incite the people to storm his office.

The demolition work has stopped and the workers are standing there blankly, not knowing what to do.

Kellner waved his hand and told them to retreat.

We can’t tear it down anymore. Who knows what will happen if we continue to tear it down.

Ron glanced at the messy slum. About sixty households, or at least two hundred people's homes, were reduced to ruins. The entire demolition operation took less than twenty minutes.

“Mumbai’s slums will never be completely demolished,” lamented Kellner.

"Slums will not disappear unless the housing problem is solved." Ron knew the crux of the matter.

"But to build new housing, the slums must first be demolished," Kellner said with a wry smile.

Perhaps because of what had just happened, or perhaps because they needed someone to complain to, Kellner and Ron explained how difficult it was to demolish slums in Mumbai.

There are 23 administrative districts in Mumbai, and each district has a special demolition team.

But in fact, the illegal buildings in Mumbai were built with the connivance of the government and the police.

The standard procedure for demolition is to issue a notice seven days in advance, requiring the resident to produce relevant documents. If valid property ownership certificates are still not provided after seven days, demolition will be mandatory.

"But our staff are hesitant to act because they are afraid of violent resistance, and there is also some sympathy involved.

But the most serious problem is the problem of betrayal. Once the statement is issued, someone will use money to smooth the relationship."

Ron understood what Kellner meant, that the employees of the demolition office "get money from people and help them get rid of disasters."

The bribes he received from an illegal hotel may be more than what he would earn in his entire life working in the department.

"These demolished areas," Kellner pointed to the ruins, "will be rebuilt in a few hours. They will keep building and building."

"Why don't they go somewhere else?" Ron couldn't understand why these people were so stubborn here.

"Because other places are full," Kellner chuckled sarcastically. "There are also vacancies in the slums. Those who can't squeeze in have to live on the sidewalks."

Ron understood that the people in the slums also had rights. Their rights were placed in their small huts, and once they lost their rights, they would be replaced by newcomers.

“I once vowed to demolish an illegal structure in Mahim, but every time I demolished it and left, people would rebuild it a few hours later.

Sometimes we would go there two or three times a day, and they would rebuild it two or three times. When we were demolishing it, they would hide behind the tracks, and when we left, they would come back.

It’s endless, you can’t keep fighting them.”

Each illegal structure demolished costs the municipality one thousand rupees, and with nearly two thousand illegal structures in Mahim district alone, Kerner can only sigh in despair.

This is a dead end. The Mumbai government cannot allow slums to expand indefinitely, as that would destroy the city.

But they couldn't come up with a reliable solution, so they could only demolish and rebuild.

"Why can't we expand the city, like developing the suburbs of Mumbai?" asked Ron.

"Because some people are unwilling to do so, it harms their interests." Kellner pointed to the ground, meaning that the vested interests in South Mumbai were blocking it.

There have been suggestions to move Navi Mumbai eastwards, where there are large tracts of land owned by the government.

The city planners' blueprint is to build New Mumbai into an east-west pattern, rather than just being limited to the current Mumbai Island.

But collusion between building developers and government officials scuttled the plan.

Mumbai’s construction can only be planned within an island, and no matter how much effort is put into it, it will only become more and more crowded.

The demolition work there was suspended, and the police and municipal council workers climbed onto trucks to leave.

"When will your factory expansion be completed?" Kellner glanced at the factory area in the south, where he could hear the clanging sounds of laying the foundation.

"When there's nothing left to build on those one hundred acres of land." Ron shrugged.

"Then the slums here won't be demolished for years."

Faced with Kellner's complaints, Ron could only play dumb. Mumbai already had over 2,000 slums, so one more wouldn't be enough.

"At least Sur Electric employs a large number of workers, and Mumbai needs stability most now." This is where his confidence comes from.

"I'll come back next week." Kellner waved and left.

At the edge of the slum, in the ruins that had just been demolished, groups of people had returned, starting to pack up their belongings and prepare to rebuild.

The truck carrying the demolition workers started up and hadn't gone far, but everyone turned a blind eye. They couldn't change anything, nor could Kellner, nor Ron.

This city will continue to be in such a dilapidated state unless a tsunami or earthquake comes and destroys everything.

...

Ron didn't pay much attention to the affairs of the slums. They had their own rules and there was no need for outsiders to interfere.

His job is to make sure the legal ghetto is safe and secure, and as long as it exists, the illegal ghetto will be rebuilt quickly no matter how many times it is destroyed.

There is a top-down order relationship here. Ron controls the workers, and the legal slums where the workers live restrict the illegal slums.

This is one of the underlying logics of Mumbai, and Ron only needs to grasp the most important part.

After appeasing the workers at the Sur Electrical Appliance Factory, Luca soon came again.

"Ron, have you got the American passport I told you about last time?"

"That thing is more troublesome than making counterfeit money. After all, we have to deceive the eyes of the US Customs."

"But we can't wait any longer. My fellow villager has already arrived at the dock."

"Which dock?"

"Bombay Docks."

"What?" Ron's eyes widened.

"Things have changed. He is wanted in Brazil and can't stay there anymore." Luca spread his hands.

"How did he get here?" Ron's brain froze.

"My brother took him to the Arabian Sea following our ship. Anand sent someone to pick him up at the dock and hid him in a pile of salted fish."

You guys are really a bunch of geniuses, Ron was speechless.

"Is your brother here to buy more goods again?"

"Dude, I told you a long time ago that South America is a huge market. You should invest in this business..."

"Okay, arrange for me to meet your fellow villager." Ron interrupted him.

Ron is still considering whether to change from a broker to a participant.

Let’s get the passport issue settled first. It can be seen that Luca is very enthusiastic about this matter.

Ron guessed that the corrupt official also gave him some benefits, otherwise he wouldn't have run around so much just based on his acquaintances.

In the evening, the two rushed to the pier fishing village where Anand was waiting.

"Ron," he sent Luca away and came over stealthily.

"When did you become so bold as to engage in smuggling?"

"He is different, a big fish!" Anand said excitedly.

"What do you mean?" Ron became interested.

"This Brazilian guy embezzled over a million dollars, and this time he brought at least half of it with him, filling a whole suitcase!"

Ron blinked, forgetting to breathe for a moment.

Damn, even business doesn’t make money as quickly as greed.

More than one million US dollars, even if all his assets are counted, it is not that much.

Anand got the news while he was on the boat that this corrupt Brazilian official had embezzled a large sum of charity funds.

That is the money allocated by the International Monetary Fund to build basic public facilities, including the funds for building a children's hospital.

As a result, he failed to build the hospital and instead transported the sick, injured, and dying children to a remote camp, leaving them to fend for themselves.

After the incident, even the Brazilian mafia couldn't stand it anymore and prepared to offer a reward to capture him.

If Luca's brother didn't have some influence in the local area, this corrupt official would never have been able to escape.

"This bad guy is clamoring to go to America. He doesn't even want to stay in Bombay. My God, there are people in this world who don't like Bombay. Ron, is he stupid?"

"Where is he?"

"It's in this warehouse." Anand pointed to the wooden house in front of him.

This is where fishermen usually store their fishing tools. Due to the erosion of sea breeze, the wooden boards are covered with mold.

Even from a distance, Ron could smell a fishy odor. He pushed open the wooden door and stepped onto the salt-stained ground.

The corrupt Brazilian official was sitting on a pile of drying fishing nets. He was in his forties, overweight, with very few hairs left on his bald head.

Seeing Ron come in, he hid the suitcase behind him in panic.

Luca and another Brazilian spoke to comfort him, which prevented him from screaming out in fright.

"Ask him how urgent it is for him to get an American passport?" Ron didn't understand Portuguese, so he asked Luca to translate.

"The sooner the better, but before going to the United States, I have to go to Canada first." Unexpectedly, this corrupt Brazilian official can speak English.

But after hearing the answer, Ron smiled.

There's an unspoken rule in the passport business: they don't care about the client's skin color, creed, race or stance.

No matter how innocent or evil the other person is, they only have one problem.

How bad are you? The answer determines the price!
PS: I am currently preparing for the plot of Uttar Pradesh. I have checked a lot of information, some of which I really don’t dare to write.

The author is considering whether to tell the story there slowly, starting from the basics and gradually progressing to the complex, as he is worried that it would be risky to reveal some shocking information right at the beginning.

(End of this chapter)