Fateh walked home that evening, head bowed. He found his father smoking a hookah under the old banyan tree.

"Exactly," said Jagtar. " Adh jalda takka hunna nahi bhadkda, na hi bujhda. (The half-burnt log neither ignites fully nor extinguishes completely.) You are that log. You are too proud to be a laborer, but too broken to be a businessman. You are stuck."

For six months, Fateh worked the fields in silence. He didn't talk of business. He learned to read the soil. He learned to fix the tractor. He watched his father bargain with merchants.