My father understood that as time passed, I was getting more and more determined to fight against the British, and I would do it with or without his support. He told me he would help me within limits but asked me not to get directly involved until I was an adult—let's assume adult = 16 years. (For reference, I was 10 years old at the time.)
I readily agreed and told him I would create a plan and share it by tomorrow. I ran to my room and asked the servant to bring me paper and ink. I started building my plan. First, I needed to establish an intelligence organization and find a way to secure a stable amount of money without the British noticing, as I couldn't always depend on my father. My brothers would notice if there was too much dependency on the royal family's accounts since the accountant was also a British subject. At this point, the British controlled the Mughals completely; Shah Zafar was just a puppet king.
For intelligence, I would follow the steps of the master of whispers from Game of Thrones (Varys). I would use orphans and beggars, as there were too many of them in India because of the current zamindars and Britishers.
As for the business, I thought it would be best to create something that could also help my intelligence organization. After a lot of thought, I concluded that starting a soap brand would be the best option. It could help in transporting intelligence too.
To create soap, I would need lye, oil, and water. I could create lye using a wood burner, mix it with water to create lye water, and then combine it with heated oil. Once set, we would have soap. I could also add fragrances from various flowers for scent and adjust the oil for different strengths.
The next day, I told my father about my plans. He agreed but asked me to plan it more carefully: Who would handle the business? Where would I get the resources? How would I even know if this way of creating soap would work? Would anyone even purchase soap amid the ongoing poverty? And how would he handle relations with the British?
He mentioned he knew a person he could trust and would organize a meeting for us. He also agreed to provide some money for the operation that wouldn't be noticeable to the British.
Later that night, a servant told me my father was calling for me. When I arrived, he was sitting with two people. My father introduced me to the elder, a famous general named Bakht Khan, who was in his 50s, and next to him was his son, Sufiyan Khan, in his early 20s, who had a scholarly vibe.
My father told me he had already discussed the plan with them, and Sufiyan would work with him to make the plan come to fruition. As I started to discuss with him, I understood why my father said I could trust him; he had a scary understanding of politics—one that even I found intimidating with my limited knowledge. He was like Tywin Lannister.
As I explained my plan, he told me we would need to rethink it, as it was plain stupid. He asked me how I would ensure that the people I recruited would not provide false information and how I would ensure their loyalty.
It was already midnight, so we decided to meet again the next day. Our meetings would continue at night to keep things as secret as possible.
The next day, we made a plan to delay the soap factory initiative for some time. We could create a more accurate plan after gathering information for proper planning.
For the intelligence organization, we needed to first identify sources of intelligence, then build a network, then determine where we would collect the information, and identify what was useful. So, the structure was confirmed.
After planning, we concluded that we needed to run this organization in a very small area to identify who we could trust? and how it would actually work? We decided to try first in two areas: Kalkaji Mandir and Jama Masjid, where there would be the most traffic and many orphans and beggars present.