13th October 1704
A group of engineers stood beneath a cloudy autumn morning sky, posing for a photograph. Unfortunately, since the Subramanyam Pillai camera was a manual mercury-etching device, it took an awfully long time to capture a single image.
Yet there was no trace of impatience on their faces. Their expressions remained steady, enthusiastic, and composed throughout the process, not because of discipline alone, but because of who they were. This was no ordinary gathering of engineers, but a gathering of the top dogs in the engineering world, the best of the best. Each of them had once served as a chief engineer or chief technical officer in a major vehicle manufacturing company, and every single one ranked within the Fortune 100 of the Empire in 'Business Weekly' and 'Commerce Insider'.
