chapter 1

  On the morning of January 11, 1986, Fraser International School in Mumbai, India

  "Mr. Gupta, are you ready for the tuition fees for the next semester? Are you ready to move to Dharavi in ​​a few days? That's really bad. Dharavi is the largest slum in Mumbai. Our Mr. Gupta Can you adapt to it?" A short, almost fat boy looked like he was in need of a beating.

  Several teenagers beside him started laughing.

  Standing in front of them was a thin young man, his face was a little pale and his mental state was not good.

  "You don't need to worry." After Jogo Gupta said that, he ignored the fat man and his group, turned around and walked towards the school gate.

  "If you don't have rupees, you can borrow them from me. I'm very generous. Then I'll see you after the holidays. I hope to see you again, haha~~" Amid the mocking laughter from behind, jogo walked out of the school gate

  .

  "Oh, I have traveled through time, but the situation is not good." jogo sighed secretly in his heart.

  He was originally a young man born in 1995 in China. He grew up in an orphanage. Later, he went to college with the support of kind people and became a white-collar worker after leaving the society. He was a white-collar worker with a salary, and he basically had no balance every month.

  One day in April 2023, jogo looked at a slightly outdated piece of breaking news on the Internet: Gautam Adani, the second richest man in the world, the richest man in Asia, and the richest man in India, was accused of short selling from Wall Street in January this year. The report caused his wealth to evaporate by US$100 billion in seven days.

  Adani, who belongs to the lowest level of untouchable status in India, has a cheating life.

  In early February 2022, Adani surpassed Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India for the 11th consecutive time.

  Who is Mukesh Ambani?

  He is a maniac who dotes on his wife and is the boss of India's Reliance Industries Group.

  For his wife, he picked a geomantic treasure in the center of Mumbai and spent 1 billion US dollars to build a magnificent palace. The total floor area of ​​the whole building reached 110,000 square meters, surpassing the famous French Palace of Versailles.

  For this purpose, 600 servants have been hired, who will be responsible for taking care of the food and daily life of the Ambani family of six.

  Speaking of Adani, he became the fourth in the world in July, the third in the world in August, surpassed Bezos, the president of Amazon, in September, and became the second in the world with a worth of 146.8 billion US dollars.

  In April 2020, Adani's total assets were only US$8.9 billion. At the beginning of 2022, they had reached US$85.6 billion, an increase of almost ten times in less than two years.

  From the beginning of 2022 to September of that year, the price surged by 61.2 billion in less than nine months, equivalent to a daily increase of US$235 million.

  ...

  "Even if it falls to 100 billion US dollars, there are still thousands of small goals of wealth." jogo sighed, "Is it so easy to make money in India? China is too big, how good it is if I live in India~~" Then Qiao

  jogo lost consciousness.

  When he woke up last night, he found that he had traveled back in time to the 16-year-old Indian boy Jogo Gupta.

  Jogo Gupta is a child of a relatively affluent middle-class family, and he can be said to have no worries about food and clothing.

  From the fact that he was studying in an international school, it can be seen that the annual tuition fee plus other miscellaneous expenses is at least 30,000 rupees.

  Public schools charge almost no fees. A few dozen rupees per semester is enough.

  The price gap is so big that you can imagine the gap in teaching quality and environment.

  jogo is now in the eleventh grade, which according to Chinese terms, should be the first year of high school.

  Let me talk about the schooling system in India. Generally, primary school starts at the age of 6 and lasts 8 years of primary school. Ages 1-5 are the lower primary school stage, 6-8 are the upper primary school stage, followed by two years of junior high school, two years of high school, and then University for three years.

  Fraser International School is not the top private school in Mumbai, it is considered mid-range, and even top-tier jogos parents cannot afford it.

  The top private international school, equestrian and golf are standard equipment for boys, piano and ballet are standard equipment for girls, not to mention the others, completely in line with Western noble schools.

  Jogo's father is a small private entrepreneur. To be precise, he is the owner of several small workshops. He mainly deals in cotton textiles, such as cotton cloth. In recent years, his annual income is about 100,000 rupees.

  In 1986, the average monthly salary of employees in China seemed to be about 106 yuan, a little more than 3 yuan a day.

  At this time, the USD/RMB ratio is about 1:3.45, that is, 1 USD can be exchanged for 3.45 RMB.

  Of course, this is the official exchange rate. In fact, the exchange rate in China at this time is a dual-track system. If some people go to the black market to exchange privately, 1 US dollar can be exchanged for more than a dozen yuan.

  In India, 1 US dollar can be exchanged for 12.6 rupees.

  According to the official exchange rate, 1 RMB is equivalent to 3.65 rupees. (Before India's reform in 1991, the exchange rate was almost like this. For easy calculation, you can think of it as 1 RMB for 4 rupees. In 2023, 1 RMB can be exchanged for 12 rupees, and the rupee has been depreciating...) So instead

  of In terms of RMB, the annual income of jogos family is 25,000 RMB, which is almost 20 times China's annual per capita income. Not to mention the 1980s, even in the early 1990s in China, households with RMB 10,000 were in the minority.

  At this time, India's per capita GDP is higher than that of China. Unfortunately, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor in India. The rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. Most Indians are still poorer than the Chinese. After all, the poor make up the majority.

  For example, the poor people in the slums starve to death every day and are struggling on the edge of life and death.

  But the income of the jogos family can only be regarded as middle class in Mumbai, India, a metropolis where rich people gather. Compared with the real rich people in India, it is not worth mentioning.

  Jogo's father Dingwar Gupta is from Gujarat.

  Later known as the Indian version of Guangdong, Gujarat's economy ranks among the best among Indian states.

  "My countryman." Jogo sighed in his heart.

  He lamented that he and Gautam Adani were fellow countrymen (a state in India is equivalent to a province in China), and even fellow countrymen with the later Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

  Thinking of this, Jogo couldn't help remembering to look at the history of Adani's fortune.

  The big explosion behind this guy has a lot to do with Modi.

  Modi met Adani when he was still in office in Gujarat.

  One of the key points of Adani's fortune is the contracting of the Mundra Port in Gujarat. When Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat (the state's top leader), he acquired the port at a very low price and privatized and later became India's largest private port.

  If you want to contract a country's ports, it's impossible to have no wrists and political and business connections behind it.

  There are various signs that this has something to do with Modi.

  When Modi became prime minister, Adani also contributed, including money, publicity and so on.

  It can be said that Adani's political investment is very accurate. It is betting on the great god Modi, and it will not make it prosperous even if it does not want it.

  It is precisely because of this that the collusion between government and businessmen is a very important one in the report on short selling by Wall Street in the United States against the Adani Group.

  This one is really hard to argue with.

  In 2018, the Indian government approved the privatization of six airports, including Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and relaxed the rules to expand the scope of competition, allowing companies without any experience in operating airports to participate in the bidding, so Ada, who has no operating experience, The Adani Group was able to join the bidding, and later all six airports were won by the Adani Group. Isn't it ugly?

  The rules were changed specifically for the Adani Group. Who made Adani have a close relationship with then-Indian Prime Minister Modi?

  Eating nakedly alone and conveying benefits is not giving any soup to others.

  Adani's way of making a fortune is not universal, and it is difficult for others to imitate.

  Jogo knows that Modi will be the prime minister in the future, so he can't just run to Modi now, dragging the old man to call him big brother, let's become sworn brothers...

  Moreover, the old man Modi at this time is not a high-ranking official, and his power is not that great.

  However, the development of Adani's other industries has given Jogo a lot of inspiration. If he has the opportunity to follow his path, it is best to be one step ahead of him, and maybe he can get a lot of returns.

  China's reform and opening up failed to catch up in the previous life, and the Indian version of reform and opening up is about to begin. Gupta is going to fight with the courage of breaking the boat.

  Why do you think so?

  Because his father went bankrupt and still owed a lot of debts outside.

  His father has been in Mumbai for more than 20 years. He started to pick up rubbish in the slums of Dharavi. He worked hard and gradually became a small boss in the cotton textile industry. He bought a house in the center of Mumbai and sent his son to an international school. Successful people.

  In order to earn more money, Old Gupta opened a foreign trade company half a year ago to export the cotton textiles produced by several workshops under his name.

  At the beginning, the business was very smooth, with a lot of orders. Although the payment was not very large, the payment could be collected in time. For a while, old Gupta was a little high-spirited.

  In the past, he sold the cotton textiles he produced to foreign trade companies. Now that he does it himself, he realizes how profitable foreign trade is, which is several times higher than before.

  Three months ago, a big order came, worth several million rupees.

  You must know that the biggest list of old Gupta before was 200,000 rupees.

  For this reason, old Gupta was very motivated, and he did not hesitate to borrow a lot of money from the bank to purchase cotton textiles from other manufacturers. The goods from his workshops alone were not enough.

  Because it is an old customer, the payment was very timely before, and the old Gupta trusted him very much.

  But this time, he was deceived.

  The other party said that there was a temporary shortage of funds, and he paid a small deposit. After delivery, he hoped to take delivery of the goods first and then pay the balance. Old Gupta agreed with a soft heart.

  When the goods are taken away, the final payment is gone.

  This kind of foreign trade scam is very common, and I believe that many people who were engaged in foreign trade in China in their previous lives were also deceived.

  Old Gupta lost his savings of more than 20 years, and owed nearly one million rupees to the bank, which is really unaffordable.

  In desperation, the old Gupta jumped off the building the day before yesterday, but he jumped from the third floor. He survived with multiple fractures all over his body and is now lying in the hospital.

  jogo's mother was stimulated and couldn't bear it, so she was also admitted to the hospital.

  Since Jogo lived on campus, he only found out about this last night.

  Hearing the bad news suddenly, the original Jogo fell down and hit his head in a trance, and then became the current jogo.

  Primary and secondary school students in India are divided into three semesters every year, the first semester is from April to May, the second semester is from July to September, and the third semester is from October to March of the second year. The first semester is interspersed with summer vacation, the second semester is interspersed with the Indian traditional 'Diwali' (equivalent to Chinese New Year) holiday, and the third semester is interspersed with winter vacation.

  The winter vacation starts tomorrow, and there are ten days of vacation.

  To make money to pay off the debt, this is the first thing Jogo has to do now.

  Jogo didn't want to lose his place to live when he crossed over by himself.

  If everything is gone, he and his parents will probably have to go to the slums to settle down.

  Thinking about the description of the slums in India in his previous life, Jogo shuddered a little. Is that a place for people to stay?

  This is not the life he wants.

  Now that you are in India, let's live a good life.

  Temporarily encountered difficulties, but opportunities are also great.

  After all, the Indian version of reform and opening up is coming soon. In 1991, India liberalized its energy, power, mining, ports and other industries to allow private operations.

  This created countless large monopoly companies in India later.

  This does not exist in China. After all, these are related to the foundation of the country, and are generally operated by state-owned enterprises, and it is difficult for private individuals to intervene.

  In India, these industries are filled with large private monopolies.

  Once you control energy, electricity and other resources, you can almost count money while lying down.

  Because you don't have to consume, but you can't avoid using food, clothing, housing, and transportation, such as electricity and water, right?

  In order to benefit from the wave of reform, Qiaogo felt that he had to accumulate some capital.

  If his father hadn't been deceived and his family had a small amount of assets, it would have been much smoother.

  Unfortunately, it didn't start so well.

  jogos home is in a wealthy residential area one kilometer away from the school. He did not go home directly this time, but walked towards the branch of the State Bank of India (India's largest bank) in the North Central District of Mumbai.

  Old Gupta got the loan from here, and he decided to try it out to see if he could ask the other party for a few days.

  After merging the memory of the original body owner last night, Jogo thought about it all night, no matter what, he had to buy some time.

  All kinds of tuk-tuks, rickshaws, horse-drawn carriages, and occasionally cars produced by Tata Company come and go on the road, as well as divine cows walking slowly on the road.

  Because the bull was blocking the way, the cars could only honk their horns desperately or yell loudly, coupled with the pedestrians shuttling on the road, there was a chaotic and noisy sound.

  Not far away, a group of people held signs, pulled banners, and marched while shouting slogans.

  From the memory of the original owner, Jogo knew what was going on. It was the third day that the workers at the port were on strike.

  It is said that the goods are piled up at the port and the shipment volume is very small, which has affected the work of many people.

  These workers usually load and unload goods at the wharf. Now that the port wharf has less shipments, fewer workers are hired. For this reason, they marched to ask the government to solve the food problem.

  Jogo didn't pay much attention to it. Indian strikes are a common occurrence, so there is nothing strange about it. He bypassed the group of people and continued walking towards the branch.

  Kuna Singher or Singh as he is liked to be called, the branch credit manager, was good friends with old Gupta.

  Jogo came here to look for him.

  "Jogo, I have something to go to the president's side. You can wait in my office first." Singer just came out of the office, and walked towards the president's office after speaking.

  jogo walked into the office led by an employee and sat down on a chair.

  Could it be that my destiny after traveling through time was to go to the slums?

  Or is God trying to rise from the slums?

  Allow yourself to walk the old Gupta path again?

  In Singer's office, jogo inevitably had a lot of thoughts.

  Thinking about how to seize opportunities in the wave of reform and opening up in India.

  There was no one else in the office, and a white landline phone sat on a desk.

  In today's era, just like China, only a few rich people and government departments in India can afford landline phones, which are very expensive.

  If there is an emergency, ordinary people can only go to the post office and other paid public telephones.

  In addition to the phone, there was a radio turned on on the table, which was playing local news from Mumbai.

  "At 10 o'clock this morning, the administrator, His Excellency Tedley Faga, received the Chinese business delegation at the city government residence. Regrettably, China has not been able to find a trading partner..."

  The supreme leader in power in Mumbai is called an administrator, and the mayor, like the president and state governor, is regarded as a mascot without actual power.

  Just as the highest leader in power in India is the Prime Minister, the highest leader in power in each state is the Chief Minister.

  Hearing this, jogos eyes lit up, and then he fell into deep thought.

  About ten minutes later, Singher came back, holding a small black bag in his hand.

  Singh is about the same age as old Gupta, in his early forties. His head is wrapped in layers of blue cloth, forming a head bag like a 'big millstone'.

  In India, this is a very visible sign that the person is a Sikh.

  Sikhs pursue equality and do not speak of caste.

  However, the Sikhs in India are basically classified as second-class Kshatriyas and belong to the upper caste.

  Indian castes are divided into four classes, from high to low, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Sudras. In fact, there is a fifth class of Dalits who are not worthy of status, that is, untouchables.

  jogo belongs to the third-class Vaishya caste, which is actually considered a lower caste.

  He doesn't know much about India. Like most people in China, he doesn't usually pay attention to India. Most of what he knows is Indian assam, curry, Bollywood movies, and beautiful female stars.

  The Indian movies introduced in recent years have excellent reputation and are indeed very exciting, so jogo likes to watch Indian movies.

  If you really want to know about India, you basically get it passively from movies and some news online.

  The Sikhs are martial and united, and they are the most combative nation in the Indian army. Moreover, the Sikhs have a very high proportion of officers and soldiers in the Indian army, and they have great influence in the army.

  Sikh men have the word 'Singh', which means 'lion'; women have the word 'Kaur', which means 'princess'.

  Generally speaking, castes have their own social circles, and it is relatively rare to have a deep friendship between castes. The fact that Old Gupta and Singh can become friends actually proves that Old Gupta has a good character. Singer's approval.

  Of course, as far as ordinary people are concerned, the original Jogo family was fairly wealthy.

  Without money, you are nothing.

  "One month's grace? You can pay off the loan in one month?" After listening to Jogo's words, Singer put the bag on the table and turned down the volume of the radio. "Jogo, do you know that according to the agreement, After 3 days, the bank will be able to seize your house."

  "Uncle Singh, the house is worth about 500,000 rupees now, and even if you give it to the bank, it's still less than 500,000 rupees." Qiao Ge said, "You can't start from People who want to move into the slums scrape out 500,000 rupees? As long as you give me a grace period of one month, you dare not say that you will repay all the loans, so you can pay back 500,000 rupees first." The house is old Gupta in

  1975 I bought it in 2009. At that time, the total price was 100,000 rupees, and the area of ​​the apartment was 120 square meters. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living rooms and one kitchen. The house at this price is not expensive in the rich area, and it is in the middle.

  Ten years have passed, and house prices have risen a lot.

  It is amazing to be able to buy a house in Mumbai after working hard from the slums, although it is impossible to buy luxury houses and big villas like those rich people.

  Singer didn't answer jogos words immediately, but sighed: "I reminded your father when he took out the loan, but he was so hot-headed at that time that he wanted to make a lot of money, so he didn't listen. More than ten My friend from years ago, I don't want to see him come to this point, is he okay?" "

  It's okay, his life is saved."

  "Speaking of the loan, I can repay 500,000 rupees a month. How confident are you? What are you going to do?" Singer was still a little curious about Jogo's words just now.

  "I would like to ask Uncle Singer one more favor."

  "Oh, tell me." Singer motioned for Qiao Ge to continue.

  jogo thought about the next rhetoric again in his mind. Uncle Singh had a good relationship with his father. He hoped to make a breakthrough from him, and he could only find hope from him.

  If the other party is willing to talk to you, this is an opportunity and you must seize it.

  "I want to borrow 200,000 rupees." Jogo took a deep breath and said.

  "Did I hear you right?"

  "No, it's 200,000 rupees."

  "Jogo, do you know what you're talking about? Your father is in debt and not only doesn't pay back, you want to borrow another 200,000 rupees?" Singh I was amused by Jogos words, and I didn't know what this kid was thinking.

  (End of chapter)