The courtyard of Chandrika Mahal smelled of rain-washed stone and sandalwood ash. The monsoon had passed, leaving behind trails of dampness and dripping mango leaves. But inside the palace, something rare was happening.
The young prince—only four summers old—wasn't chasing deer, nor playing with carved chariots. Instead, he sat cross-legged beside a potter, frowning at a clay prototype shaped like a faucet head.
"Make the tip smaller," he said. "Otherwise, water pressure will be lost."
The potter looked around. "My Prince, the head has to be wide—how else will water pour easily?"
Adityaveer shook his head and, with chalk, sketched a narrow nozzle.
"We want less water to come out, but faster," he said. "Not like a pot. Like… rain through a spout."
The potter, wide-eyed, obeyed.
From behind a lattice window, Maharani Devika watched him with a strange mixture of concern and awe.
She had expected her son to be bright—perhaps even artistic like her father. But what she saw was something deeper, stranger. The boy spoke like a sage. Measured. Precise. Curious.
He spent hours with the servants. He sat with carpenters, listened to potters, observed the grain of stone and how ropes were twisted from jute.
And now—he had made water run from the palace wall.
But Adityaveer wasn't satisfied. He kept pacing beneath the half-done tap, lips pursed in thought.
"The water comes," he murmured. "But who carries it up?"
⚙️ The Problem of Lifting
The palace had a deep well in the back courtyard. Servants drew water with pulley buckets, then carried it—pot after pot—up narrow stairwells to the rooftop clay tank.
Mira, the oldest maid, slipped one morning and bruised her hip. Naina's arms had turned dark from rope burns. Even the stable boys had been drafted into lifting.
Adityaveer watched all this silently, then went to the palace library.
No scrolls on water mechanics. Only poetry. Vedas. Astrology. War strategy.
He returned that night to his room and sat cross-legged in the dark.
[SYSTEM INITIATED]
Query: Manual Hydraulic Systems
Top Match: Lever-based Hand Pump
Material Feasibility: Neem Wood, Rope Seal, Clay Casing – 78% Success
Simulate Pressure Flow?
"Yes," he whispered aloud.
Blueprints unraveled in his mind. The system helped him run simulations: how pressure would build, where wood would crack, which angles to use, how to prevent backflow. It wasn't easy—he had to mentally rotate the structure over and over again until it clicked.
By dawn, he had it.
🔧 The First Hand Pump
With Naina's help, he built a lever-operated hand pump, connecting it to the palace well using a combination of boiled neem wood and compressed cloth seals. The effort required was low enough that a young girl could operate it.
When the tank was filled for the first time without lifting a single pot, the servants cried.
"This is not invention," Mira said. "This is grace."
That week, the system was tested ten times. Then twenty. Then daily.
But not everyone was happy.
At a royal gathering in the central palace, Maharani Devika was met with raised brows and veiled mockery.
"So your little one builds sewers now?" said a rival queen with a delicate laugh. "He might soon ask to join the traders' guild."
Another minister added, "He was born in the wrong varna, perhaps."
But Devika simply smiled, draped in moon-white silk, and sipped her rosewater.
"Better he lift people with knowledge than be lifted by pride."
And in her heart, she thought: My son is not misplaced. He is misplaced in time.
💧 The Sewage Flow
Adityaveer didn't stop with water.
He soon realized that the bathroom waste had nowhere to go. So he sketched another layout—underground clay channels sloped away from the palace into a concealed soak pit. Liquid waste would be absorbed into the earth. Solid waste covered with ash and leaves.
To test it, he asked the stable boy to dump cow urine through the pipe.
The waste disappeared, no smell, no overflow.
A functional sewage line, centuries ahead of its time, now lay under Chandrika Mahal.
👩👦 A Prince of Servants
By his fifth birthday, Adityaveer had made life easier for every servant in his palace.
Maids no longer carried pots.
Sweepers had less mess to scrub.
The smell of human waste had vanished.
They began calling him "Chhote Devta"—the little god.
He hated it. He didn't feel like a god.
He felt like… a fixer. A boy who couldn't stand seeing people suffer.
He'd sit in the kitchen with Mira, letting her braid his hair while she told him tales of her youth. He gave the stable boy a stool to rest on during long hours.
One day, Naina asked, "Why do you care so much for people like us?"
He blinked. "Because you all do so much. No one sees it."
She smiled, tears glistening. "Then may your hands always stay in the soil, Prince. And may your name live past your bones."
🕯️ Mother's Wisdom
Every night, Maharani Devika would light a brass lamp in the prayer room, with Adityaveer beside her.
"You will be mocked," she told him softly. "Not because you're wrong, but because you're ahead."
He nodded.
"Is it wrong to be ahead?"
"No," she whispered. "But it's lonely. You must learn to walk alone first… so that one day, others can follow your path."
Her voice trembled as she added:
"And I will walk behind you always, even if the world walks away."
He pressed his forehead against hers.
"Then I will never stop walking."
🌿 A Growing Reputation
Within weeks, rumors spread. A merchant's wife visiting Chandrika Mahal returned to the capital and told her neighbors:
"There's a boy who makes water fall from walls. A real prince—not just by name."
Soon, other noblewomen grew curious. Some even requested a visit. But Devika declined them all.
"Let him build, not perform."
Still, whispers grew louder in markets and among merchant guilds.
A few even joked:
"The palace has birthed its first Vaishya prince."
They didn't know that this boy was preparing something that would touch every home in the kingdom.
Not politics.
Not war.
But soap.