24th January 1657
Dakshin Bharatiya Empire, State of Cholapuri, Coimbatore
Peter I, the Prince of the Russian Empire, is roaming the streets of Coimbatore along with his fellow diplomats who have come to attend the events for the establishment of a new nation that unified the Indian subcontinent.
Initially, Peter and his group of delegates were supposed to be picked up by important members of the government and personally taken to the event site. However, Peter, who wanted to explore the nation himself, put forward a request to follow his own schedule and to travel independently.
Since Vijay did not deny this request, the government quickly agreed, while at the same time giving Peter a custom-made map of the Bharatiya Empire, with text written in Russian.
Although Peter knew French, Latin, and German, he felt pleased that the words were in Russian. This added yet another thing to his list of what he liked about this nation.
For one, in his short time travelling from Thiruvananthapuram to Coimbatore, he was very shocked by the speed at which he travelled and the smoothness of his ride. By rough calculations that he made, the distance he travelled was at least 200 kilometres. This distance, which was supposed to take 10 to 24 hours by Russian standards, surprisingly only took 8 hours in the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire.
When he reached Coimbatore after 8 hours of travel, he couldn’t help but be shocked and utter, "The average speed was 23.44 versts per hour. Incredible!" (25 kmph)
Peter naturally figured out the reason for this; it was because of the amazing roads that had been built, which allowed for faster travel, he also concluded that trade between various cities was highly connected due to these high-quality roads. During his eight-hour journey, he saw multiple merchant carriages attached to one another, being pulled by 10 or more oxen, confirming his speculation.
He was also shocked that even in such a remote place, far from the influence of any large city, he could not see any garbage on the roads. "Don’t the oxen defecate?" he wondered. But after he noticed a bag tied to the back of each ox, he understood why the roads were so clean. He was impressed.
Peter also noticed perfect drainage channels beside the road, which prevented the urban region from flooding. These drainage channels were surprisingly more advanced than what he had seen in some Western countries.
One peculiar thing he observed was that, no matter how many carriages passed by or how crowded it seemed, the policeman responsible for directing the traffic always knew how to handle the situation. It was almost like a game of chess. Peter felt that the way the policeman directed the traffic was unusually strategic, which greatly intrigued him.
Unfortunately, as he was unable to figure out the traffic flow algorithm of the Bharatiya Empire, he gave up.
Walking on the road, Peter saw various novel things for the first time. For example, the clothes of the locals were very unique, especially in terms of style.
"Tsk, these people wear so little clothes; how shameless!" Brezhnev said as he did not like the clothes the Bharatiya people were wearing. He thought that these clothes were too thin and that there were not enough clothes on their bodies.
Peter, on the other hand, had a completely different impression of the clothes of these locals. He, for one, thought them clever, brilliant, and worth learning from. He was someone who was not fond of the noble etiquette bullshit that all the Western European nobles were proud of.
What he preferred were things that were more in line with the common people of his nation: simple and functional objects that didn’t seem too ugly.
The clothes of the Bharatiyas exactly fit that description. Although the designs on these clothes were still a little bit too much for him, it was not a big problem as they could be changed. What he liked most about these clothes was their functionality, which did not require two or more people to assist in wearing them.
Peter decided to buy a few sets of clothes, all of different designs, to take back to the empire and see if he could bring about a change in the clothing style of his people.
Aside from the clothing, Peter was greatly impressed by the social security of the city, where police could be seen on every street corner and the people were very well-behaved. He also witnessed some of the executive units of the government, such as circuit courts, post offices, and panchayats. He also visited some of the industrial factories present in Coimbatore.
Peter felt greatly inspired by everything he had seen. "Everything is so orderly and efficient; how marvellous," he thought. His mind constantly absorbed the knowledge he had gained during his trip, and he decided to try it out back in his nation. He was getting very excited.
Coming to a local factory that did woodwork using a hand-operated lathe, Peter asked a question that had been on his mind: "How are talents being cultivated in this nation? From what little I have seen, there are nearly 15 industrial enterprises in this small city alone, and I cannot even imagine how many such industries are present throughout the nation.
All of this requires talented people to manage. I have seen your schools and colleges, and they are not capable of producing talent on this scale. So how is the Bharatiya Empire doing this?"
Peter asked, while at the same time, he was curious about the machine tools that he had seen during his visits to various factories. However, after learning that the production of these machine tools was controlled by the military, he decided to simply give up further inquiry about it and wanted to discuss with His Majesty himself to see if he could buy a few to take back to the empire.
The factory director was taken aback by the question and looked at the man who was translating it as if he was looking at a fool. Isn’t the answer obvious? But seeing as how these people were important guests of the nation, he put away his doubts and answered patiently, "Sirs, this is naturally due to the universities that have been established in every state.
The universities take in thousands of students at a time, and from these thousands of students, a few thousand graduate after their course ends."
"These are the people who are employed by the government to run state-owned enterprises or by private businessmen to run their factories."
"Let me give you another example. I am a graduate of Bharatiya Institute of Technology, Tanjavur, and the course in Business Studies that I took, it only took me six months to graduate. After I graduated, I was assigned to Coimbatore for work, and my family and I have been here since then."
Hearing the translated information, Peter kept nodding his head, greatly surprised by the answer he had received. It was not that there were no universities; there were universities in the West, like the University of Bologna in Italy, the University of Oxford in England, and the University of Paris in France.
It was just that he did not know universities had such functions to train management talent for the empire; he thought they were only responsible for teaching the nobility.
Moreover, as he thought about it, he realized he had not seen many nobles in this nation, not even one. "How weird," he thought, setting aside the matter as he wanted to learn more about this university first.
"Sir Brezhnev, could you check the map to see where the University of BIT Tanjavur is?"
Brezhnev was also curious, so he immediately took out the map and checked it. "I don’t know about the university, Your Highness, but there is a city called Tanjavur mentioned on the map. This city is also the cultural and educational capital of a state called Cholapuri. I think the university the gentleman is talking about is located here."
"Well then, we know our next destination."
Peter said as he immediately set off to Tanjavur. Of course, he had to inform the local panchayat of their arrival at the university so that they could be ready for their visit.
While this happened, Peter discovered the peculiar towers in the area where the Panchayat was located. When asked, he was shocked to find out that these were part of the internal telegram network of the Bharatiya Empire, called the Arkadrishti Communication System.
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Peter stared at the towers for half an hour straight, amazed at how such a simple yet ingenious communication system was invented in this nation, which all the Western European nations thought was backward and barbaric.
Russia was different though, since neither Peter nor his delegation thought so. The main reason was that the Western Europeans called their nation by the same names; the origin of the word "slave" comes from the ancestors of their own region. So one could expect what sort of treatment the Slavic people received from the Western Europeans.
After seeing everything he had seen, Peter ironically wondered who was actually backward and barbaric.
"Your Excellency Brezhnev, write up a detailed report about this Arkadrishti Communication Network. This nation and we have the same situation of large amounts of land and difficult communication. Please note that the communication network the Bharatiyas use would be very convenient for us as well."
"As for its workings, it seems to be simple enough, just using the light reflected from the sun to send signals to another tower that we can see in the distance. We can employ some scientists from Italy or France to implement this design."
"The only problem is the mirrors. I don’t know if the Western countries could produce Mirrors of such quality.
I will try to see if I can negotiate a deal with the Bharatiya Emperor," Peter said, as he was greatly looking forward to Implementing this technology in Russia and enabling communication between major cities of the Russian empire like from the capital city of Moscow to Either or all of these cities of Novgorod, Tver, Kazan, Smolensk, etc.
What comes after negotiating a deal? convincing his father was not a big problem; the only issue was convincing the nobles of the empire, which was a pain.
Thinking that, Peter and his delegation set off to Tanjavur, passing through a nearby town called Erode, and boarded an internal shipping route that went through the River Kaveri. After a few hours of travel along the Kaveri River, they eventually reached Tanjavur before nightfall.
P.S. I have ML Lab Externals Tomorrow, Im about to fking Puke, I know 1/10 programs, wish I get the one I know.