Every one left to have lunch at Arjun's home once they were done with the agreement. It was already past 4'o clock by the time they reached his home, where he introduced both to his father and mother to whom they was very respectful towards. The duo admired these couple very much, Especially considering Arjun's acumen in business they could only reason perhaps it was because of his upbringing.
Prabhakar was initially skeptical of Tharun's claims about Arjun being self made. But after noticing their home conditions and learning Pratap was only a government clerk he had to accept the reality. Both of them returned to the town once they were done with their evening lunch.
For the next week Arjun and Pratap spent most of their idle time helping out at the Printing press. Kavitha who had busied herself while preparing book covers and layout book was finding it hard to adapt back into her previous lifestyle. These past couple of weeks felt very satisfying to her but now with both Pratap and Arjun being busy at the press she felt bored out of her wits.
Unable to contain herself she mentioned this to Arjun. Arjun who was busy with the affairs at press did not pay much attention to his sulking mom in the past few days. But as he thought about it he recongnized his mom had an entirely different aura when she was working. She was more outgoing and smiled way more often that she usually did.
Arjun did not want his mom to go back to her previous shell. As he thought more about it Arjun remembered his previous idea of making the press print drawing books to fill in the gaps during the summer break. This would not only help press keep running it would add another book section to their press collection.
The more Arjun thought about it the more he liked this idea but he felt just printing usual drawing books would be too simple and perhaps hard to penetrate the current market. There were already many such books in the current market. Instead he came up with the concept of Smart Learning Drawing Book which would integrate drawing, writing and basic learning into the same book.
Their book would provide Guided step by step drawing, practice section and educational integration which would like every drawing to learning. For example they could provide the kids a step by step method to draw an apple or a house and after the practice section make the kids practice their name or their usage for a couple times to make it engrained in their brains.
When he explained his idea to Kavitha she started to get excited, finally she too had something to do to help her son. Sari too exclaimed in excitement "Anna i am also going to help mom with this. I love to draw" Sari said with a wide grin on her face.
Arjun could sense the troubles this kid would put their mom through but was helpless. The more he denied her from doing something the more Sari would do it just like all the other kids out there.
With the entire family getting busy time passed very quickly and the appointed time with the shipment company for transporting the newly printed All in One was already here.
This time Arjun chose accompany Bhargav during their transport. He felt Bhargav might start to have other ideas if he was the only one overseeing the transport process every time. Once they handed the shipment to Tharun, Arjun took Bhargav to visit the nearby telephone exchange office.
Arjun felt he had delayed this matter for too long and now that he was into some money he felt the need to get his own phone number as it was taking too long to get information from village to town. If he had to contact with their distributors for some reason, he had to send Bhargav to inform them and this took an entire day. He felt this was too much of a hassle, having a telephone would help speed up the process immensely.
When they reached the telephone office there was only one office worker available. This being a weekend most of the office workers had not attended which was pretty common during this era throughout the government offices. When they approached the guy and let him know about their purpose Vidya Sagar who was at the other side of table asked them to come on a week day in a irritated voice.
Simply put he did not want to take up the task as they had to give a connection in the distant village. Even though the village already had a telephone line and few subscribers, they still had to send someone to give the connection.
Arjun understanding the issue slipped a five hundred rupee note to Vidya who upon noticing the tinge of green in his hands showed a wide grin. After all this was almost his salary for an entire month, He promised to install the connection as soon as possible. When Arjun hinted the possibility of handing another five hundred once the connection was established Vidya Sagar mentioned he would personally visit their village to oversee the proceedings.
Arjun although was disgusted by this behavior could only sigh and let it go. This was a very major problem in India which was prevalent even in the future though in a much more covert manner.
Once they were done they visited Ravi at the Mannath distribution center to take his number and informed him of getting their own telephone within the next couple of days. Ravi was relieved once he came to learn about this, he too was concerned about this as the only way for him to contact people at P.K printing press was to wait for them to approach him or send someone to their village.
Arjun promised they would visit the next weekend to handover the remaining books as per the agreement. When he enquired about their current sales Ravi said they were already through half the stocks and perhaps might need to place even more orders but he also mentioned it was too early for that and he would let them know after the second shipment was delivered.
Arjun and Bhargav returned to their village on the public bus service which only made two trips one in the morning and one in the evening to their village.
The next day Vidya Sagar came to the village to install their telephone connection as he had promised earlier. Although Arjun was busy with school he had already informed Kavitha about the matter and handed her another five hundred rupees to be passed onto Vidya Sagar.
He informed her to make sure the connection was working properly before handing out the money. Vidya Sagar was perceptive enough about this and never mentioned anything about money until Kavitha handed him the money after which he thanked her profusely and handed her his office phone number to contact anytime if there were any issues.
Vidya Sagar still could not make sense of how a family living in a small village house had enough money to hand him a thousand rupees without batting an eye at it for a simple telephone connection, not that he cared about it though. He had done his work and received the compensation for it was all that mattered to him.
After coming back from their school Sari excitedly approached the new addition to their home. She had seen such thing at Madan's home once but did not know what it was. As she tried to approach it to play with it Pratap pulled her away and explained it was a telephone, it's purpose and also that it was very expensive.
Noticing disappointment in her face Arjun carried her to the phone stand and explained how to use a telephone to Sari. He also mentioned a fun game of coming up with a new number and trying to speak with some unknown person on the other end, which Sari found very fun to try.
Being from a small village she barely had the chance to speak with anyone new. Now suddenly having the chance to talk with any number of people blew her small brain to no small extent. He promised to get her a telephone directory on his next visit to the town and explained what a telephone directory was.
Pratap who was concerned about the potential huge bill coming their way once Sari learned how to properly dial a number, noticing nonchalant demeanor of his son he put the thought aside. If this rich kid of his did not mind then neither would he. After all this was money made by Arjun and he could decide how to spend it. He was not even informed about the decision to add a phone connection at their house after all.
Arjun then proceeded to call Ravi and Tharun to give them his number so they could contact him anytime if needed. He then dialed the number Vladimir had given him, It took Vladimir a couple of minutes to remember the kid who had helped him in his previous trip to India.
He noted down the number and informed Arjun that products he had acquired during his previous trip were almost sold out as soon as he arrived except pickles which took a little longer. He also mentioned he will be visiting India in middle of June and would inform Arjun about his needs before his arrival to speed up the acquisition process as this time it would be a much larger lot of order.
Once Arjun was done with the conversation he left to the printing press handing the phone to Kavitha who was already glaring at him with anger whispering that he was taking too long on the phone and there were others who want to use it too.
As Arjun approached the printing press he could notice Shiva Ram waiting for him at the front gate with a very excited expression.