I'm a Master in India

"Is this curry chicken?" Urmila looked at the food on the plate with some hesitation.

"Only when you're full do you have the energy to film." As a Brahmin, Ron took the lead and bit into the fragrant roasted chicken.

Making him a vegetarian was harder than not sleeping with people around him.

Ron only put on a show in front of outsiders; privately, he'd eaten who knows how many steaks.

Seeing him eat heartily, Urmila's heart stirred.

She was surprised that Ron had abandoned the vegetarian precepts, while secretly salivating over the delicious food in front of her.

Urmila had fair skin, large sparkling eyes that seemed to speak, and slightly full lips, which were quite beautiful.

"Here, try some." Ron forked a piece of chicken and brought it to her mouth.

"Ron..." Urmila instinctively glanced left and right. This was a high-end restaurant, very private.

Mary and the others had been sent away by Ron. He had also told Director Shiv not to keep Urmila late for filming tonight.

Now it was just the two of them, and they wouldn't run into anyone they knew in Varanasi.

Facing Ron's gentle gaze, Urmila's lips parted slightly, and she gently bit the chicken.

"How is it?"

"It's delicious."

Urmila felt a sweet warmth in her heart; it was the first time someone had treated her like this.

India was, after all, a patriarchal society. Even women of high caste had little status at home.

Ron was a Brahmin. He had his own career at a young age and was quite famous in Mumbai.

Such a man would attract countless actresses competing for his attention in Bollywood, especially since he also had a handsome face.

Urmila was only nineteen and found it hard to resist this kind of offensive.

She knew it was reckless to sneak out at night to meet Ron, and she also knew that the crew members would definitely whisper behind her back.

But the feeling of excitement made her ignore all concerns. When you're infatuated, it's hard for others to dissuade you.

"Oh, right, Ron..." Urmila hesitated, wanting to say something but stopping.

"What is it?" Ron asked her softly.

"I heard the director say the movie will have restricted scenes..."

Ron couldn't help but laugh, "Bollywood's restricted scenes, it's not like you don't understand."

Adult film? You're thinking too much.

Even films rated as restricted by the film censorship board wouldn't have scenes of women nudity.

If anyone dared to defy public opinion, being boycotted would be the least of it; the director and actors might even be beaten to death by angry citizens.

This was a major religious taboo. Both Hinduism and Islam were extremely opposed to women's nudity.

They really would riot over a movie scene; this was no joke.

Therefore, the so-called restricted scenes were nothing more than actresses wearing saris and getting their bodies wet.

That was all. Compared to adult films from the island country, they were practically pure and innocent.

What was puzzling was that even such scenes often made male audience members in the cinema breathe heavily.

Indian men are just like that; everything seems to get them going.

"Besides, your role doesn't have such scenes. It's other incarnations of Durga."

After hearing Ron's explanation, Urmila finally felt relieved.

She had originally taken on this role because of Mary and the others.

Thankfully, nothing happened that made her uncomfortable.

"Speaking of the movie, I'll tell you about acting later," Ron said seriously.

"You know about acting too?" Urmila was a little surprised.

"I've communicated with other Bollywood actors. This kind of thing can only be passed down through personal instruction."

Hmm, he and Manisha had 'exchanged ideas' in depth many times.

After practicing the technique, it was time to apply it to Urmila.

Ron went to the set very late the next day. He and Urmila had been 'studying the script' all night and were exhausted.

When he arrived, he saw Lanka holding a broom and mop, busy cleaning the guesthouse kitchen inside and out.

He looked like he was grinding his teeth, as if he had a deep-seated hatred for the kitchen floor.

"What happened?" Ron asked the producer, Agarwal.

"Lunch for the crew was cheese curry and vegetarian dumplings."

"And then?"

"After he bit into a vegetarian dumpling, he found half a cockroach nestled inside."

"Wow!" Ron winced slightly.

"And then he found a worm in the cheese curry."

"Hiss~" Ron grimaced.

Lanka came from a good family and was more particular about details in life than most people on the crew.

But he had a bad habit: he liked to repeatedly poke at his food before putting it in his mouth while eating.

Because of this, he had been teased many times by the producer, Agarwal, on set.

Lanka, having learned from his mistakes, had just changed his bad habit in the past two days, and then this happened.

So when he stormed into the kitchen aggressively to launch a hygiene campaign, the producer uncharacteristically didn't mock him.

Only after scrubbing the kitchen floor until it gleamed did Lanka stop, panting.

Ron guessed that from today onwards, in addition to his duties as a production assistant, he would have another responsibility on set: cleaning.

Urmila, who was watching the commotion from the side, shivered in disgust.

Luckily, she had lunch with Ron at the hotel today; otherwise, she didn't know what might have happened.

Facing Urmila's soft and pleading eyes, Ron immediately went to find the guesthouse owner.

The rural scenes for "In Praise of Durga" were being filmed here. Considering that the owner had waived the location fee, Ron had simply entrusted the crew's meals to this guesthouse.

It was somewhat helping their business, but finding cockroaches in the food was really unacceptable.

The locals' 'clean and hygienic' ancestral skill... it wasn't something you wanted to experience personally, ha.

Lanka also followed Ron like a tiger, putting on a strong front. He looked ready to throw a punch if the guesthouse owner didn't agree.

He was fed up with potatoes, and he was also fed up with the insect corpses mixed into the food.

Finally, the guesthouse owner promised to check the ingredients carefully in the future and also waived their meal fee for that day.

To be honest, Ron was skeptical of his promise; he agreed too easily.

Moreover, the general public in India was quite tolerant of hygiene standards. Look at the whole crew; only Lanka was most bothered by this matter.

Oh, Urmila was bothered too, but she was a girl, which was understandable.

"Did you manage to win Urmila over last night?" Mary somehow appeared beside him.

"Don't talk nonsense, I just took her to practice her craft," Ron defended himself seriously.

Mary gave him a contemptuous look, "Everyone on the crew knows what happened. We're not blind."

"Is it that obvious?" Ron shrugged indifferently.

So what if they knew? As an investor, sleeping with actresses wasn't exactly unusual, was it?

Besides, he and Urmila were mutually attracted; there was no insider trading involved.

"It's my and Leena's turn tonight, you're not allowed to slack off," Mary warned him.

"Alright, alright," Ron waved his hand, "Get the Jenga ready."

He couldn't stay idle wherever he went. The women around him... they all said it was good after experiencing it.

He was joking with Mary and the others, which made Urmila, who was secretly watching from not far away, feel a bit jealous.

Ron was so popular with women.

According to her own observation, the second and third female leads on the crew were secretly in love with him.

Fortunately, Ron didn't like dark-skinned Indian girls, which greatly reduced Urmila's pressure.

Speaking of which, Mary and Leena never minded Ron seeing other women.

What's more, when he was pursuing Urmila, they even helped him strategize and provide cover.

As women from the civilized Western world, this was simply unbelievable.

Ron couldn't be bothered to think about it. In a place like India, nothing too outrageous was surprising anymore; his threshold had already been raised.

He didn't bother with the trivial matters of the crew anymore. After Mary comforted him for a few minutes, Ron quickly left again.

He hadn't properly talked to a few of his uncles from the Sur family yet.

He had been back for several days. If he hadn't been busy with the crew, he should have sat down with them earlier to discuss how to buy the land.

Ron first went to his third uncle's house, who lived in the next village. He was both a landlord there and a village official.

In rural India, high castes typically held multiple positions. They were masters, landlords, decision-makers in the village, and also grassroots officials at the official level.

Brahmins held almost all civil servant positions in the public sector, which was particularly evident in backward rural areas.

But the situation was changing. In the early 90s, Singh of the Congress Party government decided to reserve 27% of government jobs for lower caste groups.

That is, taking away one-third of the civil servant quota from the hands of the high castes and specifically allocating it to the Shudras and Dalits.

This decision met with fierce and stubborn resistance, and riots broke out in various states.

There were daily disturbances on the streets of New Delhi, and high-caste students protested one after another. These scenes of riots were shown to the national audience through television screens.

Because of this action by the Congress Party, the original high-caste groups within the party defected to the BJP.

The trend of division was inevitable, and Singh's coalition government began to disintegrate.

N ewspaper editorials even subtly blamed last year's Hindu-Muslim conflict on Singh's policy.

In large cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, more and more lower castes had begun to enter the public sector, but in rural areas, it was difficult for them to penetrate.

Because the caste system was still deeply entrenched here, any breakthrough would only happen if the state government enforced it.

Apparently, Uttar Pradesh wouldn't be so crazy; Ron's third uncle, Nirav, was still the head of the two villages under his rule.

When he arrived at the other party's office, Nirav was loudly scolding two of his subordinates.

Ron listened for a while before he understood what was happening. The two men had lost the village's food ration book and the public property registration book.

This was a welfare measure by the Indian government, specifically allocating a batch of free grain for the poor.

The poor in the village could get such a registration book with proof of identity and then collect free rations at the village committee.

There were also public properties allocated by the municipality, such as tractors, buffaloes, fertilizers, seeds, and so on.

They were all registered, but now these things were missing, leaving no evidence.

"You can't even keep track of two pieces of paper, you idiots! What exactly happened?" Nirav cursed loudly.

"They were eaten by the village sheep," the two stammered sheepishly.

Ron almost burst out laughing. A reason similar to "The dog ate my homework" could be used here?

Nirav obviously didn't believe them either; he knew the character of his subordinates too well.

Those public properties must have been secretly sold by them on the black market.

Because they were worried about being investigated by the police, the two had to come up with such a lame excuse.

Nirav didn't punish them; he just scolded them a few times and let them leave.

"There were only one or two hundred kilograms of public grain in the granary; they couldn't sell much for that."

"What?" Ron was stunned for a moment.

"The other ten tons flowed out from my hands. I always have to give my subordinates some benefits," Nirav explained.

Ten tons? Flowed out?

So the one who was really reselling public property was you, Third Uncle!

"It's just a bit difficult to explain to the villagers. I collected 400 rupees from each of them, but now I can't produce the grain," Nirav said, somewhat troubled.

Ron was speechless. He had figured it out.

His Sur family, every single one of them was a scoundrel.