The night bazaar was thinning out, lanterns flickering as shopkeepers packed away their goods. Ravi sat on the edge of his mat, exhausted. His day had been worse than most—customers had avoided him, thanks to Arjun whispering that Ravi sold "junk that dies the next day." The laughter in the market had cut deeper than hunger.
He gathered the broken phones back into his cloth bag, shoulders slumped. Just as he was about to leave, a raspy voice drifted from the shadows.
"Boy… you're holding the phones wrong."
Ravi turned. In the corner of a shuttered mechanic's shop sat a man with a gray beard and clouded eyes, soldering iron in hand. His fingers trembled with age, but they moved with surprising precision over a half-broken radio.
"Who are you?" Ravi asked cautiously.
"Just a ghost," the old man muttered. "People call me Kaka. Long ago, they came to me with radios, televisions, even the first cassette players. Now… no one comes." He tapped his cloudy eye. "Can't see much anymore. But I hear machines. They talk, if you listen."
Ravi hesitated, then knelt down. "I don't have money for lessons, if that's what you mean."
Kaka chuckled, a dry sound like sand scraping metal. "Money? Hah. Do you know what I value more than money?"
"What?"
"Curiosity."
He reached out, pulling one of Ravi's broken phones from the bag. "This one… the wire you soldered is crooked. Electricity doesn't like crooked paths. That's why it failed."
Ravi leaned closer, fascinated. "Show me."
And so, beneath the flickering lantern, Kaka guided his hands—teaching him how to steady the solder, how to clean the board, how to test connections with his ear pressed close.
"Machines," Kaka whispered, "are like people. Treat them with respect, and they'll serve you. Rush them, cheat them, and they'll betray you. Remember this: it's not the repair that makes you rich. It's the trust people place in your hands."
Those words sank deep into Ravi's bones. For the first time, someone wasn't laughing at his ambitions. Someone believed he could learn.
As the night grew darker, Kaka leaned back against the wall. "Come back tomorrow, boy. Bring your failures. We'll make them work again."
Walking home through the quiet streets, Ravi felt something he hadn't felt in months—not just hunger for food, but hunger for knowledge.
For the first time, the world seemed less like a wall, and more like a lock. And Kaka had just handed him the