4 ideas
He earns fees by standing outside a cooperative bank and helping illiterate peasants fill its forms and navigate its rules. He also lends them money to repay one loan so they can qualify for the next, so the rigidity of the formal institution is itself his business model.
Margayya treats money as a deity. He performs a forty-day ritual to the goddess Lakshmi and hunts down a rare red lotus to secure her favor. Seen this way, financial ambition is less a calculation than an act of faith, with the same superstition, sacrifice, and hope for grace.
Margayya's first real capital comes from publishing a sex manual that the shady Dr. Pal wrote, and he repackages it respectably as 'Domestic Harmony.' The book sells widely because it meets a demand people will not admit to publicly. Margayya's later respectability rests on a commerce he conceals.
Margayya becomes a deposit-taker who promises high interest and pays existing depositors from new deposits. His operation therefore depends entirely on public belief. When Dr. Pal spreads a rumor, everyone demands repayment at once, and he is ruined within days.