When Arjun returned to his home he could notice Kavitha still engrossed in making the new drawing book while Sari was still fiddling with the telephone and the telephone directory beside it, it seemed she had yet to grow bored of the new device.
He put his backpack down, had the evening snacks his mom prepared for him and returned back to the telephone table. After coercing his sister for a couple of minutes he finally got hold of the receiver and proceeded to call Vladimir once again.
This time Arjun finally heard the voice he was familiar with as it was Vladimir who picked up the call.
"Tell me Arjun, my house cleaner informed me about your call yesterday, but i was too drunk to care. Hope you don't take it to heart" Vladimir expressed his apologies.
"No no Mr. Vladimir, i called you very late yesterday without any prior intimation, it would be a surprise if you picked up the call. Went on for another drinking party with friends of yours?"
"Yes Arjun, you know even if i try to swindle my way through them they somehow end up finding me. I am thinking of moving to Moscow to establish my new base there instead of staying at St. Petersburg as these people have their eyes everywhere over here. So what did you want to talk to me about?"
"Ummm.... how's the situation back there? i mean economically"
"I am not sure myself but dad says it's pretty bad right now. The newly implemented Perestroika reforms are ineffective and dad complains everyday about the growing inflation and declining sales." Vladimir said in a depressed tone.
"Can i ask you to look around for advanced UHT system machinery, i am going to start a dairy beverage factory and am in need of one very urgently" Arjun enquired in very curt manner.
"You're starting a factory Arjun?" Vladimir was taken aback, he did not expect for Arjun to have enough liquidity to start a factory. Last time they met this kid was so happy to receive his twenty thousand ruble tip he seemed to be over the moon. Now he comes up asking for machinery worth at least three to four hundred thousand rubles, Vladimir did not understand how Arjun could come into so much money so quickly.
"What is your budget for this Arjun?"
"Uhhh... for now i can only come up with two hundred thousand rubles Vladimir, but i am sure i can pay back the remaining before the shipment reaches India" Arjun replied.
"Okay let me ask around for you, i will let you know by the weekend. But i should warn you not to be over expectant, it would be tough to find a seller with only half the payment even if their situation is bad." Vladimir said still contemplating how this kid could come into so much money.
"Try to look into factories out of Russia, like Ukraine and Belarus but manned by Russian born people, i have a feeling they'd more inclined to sell the machinery, try to find ways to get the money to go into their pockets rather than the company." Arjun spoke in a hushed voice.
Vladimir finally got the kid's motives, But since it would not impact his country or their business in the least he did not mind helping out. There were plenty of such people outside who were looking for a way out, perhaps the machinery could be bought for much less than five hundred thousand rubles he had initially estimated.
Vladimir was impressed by Arjun's thought process. Him doing so for his businesses might be difficult especially with all of his father's business being stationed in mainland but it would be a different case for Arjun who was thousands of miles away. "Okay leave this matter to me, just wait for my call" Vladimir replied.
"If you do call please do it before seven thirty Moscow time in the evening. My parents do not allow me to make or pick calls after ten as i have to go to sleep" Arjun said in a depressed tone. This was starting to get on his nerves already, He was a huge night owl in his past life and being forced to go to bed at ten did not sit well with him.
It was then that Vladimir realized he was talking to a kid who was still in his fifth standard. He replied okay and cut the call.
Vladimir wondered what Arjun did in the mean time to come into such amounts of money, As he did not seem like someone from a wealthy family on their first meet and ordered his men still in India to do a thorough investigation in the next couple of days.
He meanwhile started enquiring his contacts in Petersburg about people who managed dairy factory in those neighboring countries and wanted to cash out.
He did not find anyone at the start but as the word got out people started reaching out to him, but most of them proved to be duds who were trying to scam money out of Vladimir.
After two days Vladimir received the information sent by his informants from India. According to them Arjun started a printing press with the money handed to him and some of his own. He was amazed upon knowing that Arjun started two separate lines of book sections, Even more amazed when he decided to employ a local student union for selling his new section of his books instead of going to a traditional distribution house.
When he learned that he already made over sixty thousand rubles already from that new section and was about to make around two lakh rubles from the distributors he did not know what to make of it. Even though he made more profits through his imports from India, he needed to travel to an unknown country, spend time in such heat only to be nearly get beaten by a small kid.
Meanwhile back in India Bhargav finally gave the necessary estimation of costs of machinery and required machinery for starting the dairy beverage factory. Arjun was shocked by the huge list in front of him for starting a middle scale dairy beverage factory.
It had over nine core machinery each costing at least fifty thousand rupees to two lakhs, this was all excluding the advanced UHT system which was estimated to cost around ten to fifteen lakhs just by itself. All together excluding the UHT machinery it would cost around ten lakhs. These were all very necessary machines that could not be skipped on.
The factory needed a milk storage & handling machine, filtration system, A homogenizer which Bhargav marked as very important, A UHT system the core of the entire operation, a cooling system, mixing tanks for making more complex milk flavors, packaging machine, a cold storage system and a generator. All of them together would cost around twenty five lakh rupees.
Arjun would only get around ten lakh rupees with his current sales and rest of the money would be entirely dependent on them being able to sell more All in Ones in the next five weeks. If they could not, this plan of his might fail even before it gets started.
Arjun was stressed out, He wanted to approach Madan to take another loan but he did not have the heart to do it. He wanted to have his own company and had already taken too much of Madan's help already. Ten or fifteen lakh rupees was too much money to ask for a loan especially during these times when it could feed over a hundred middle class families for an entire year.
He started thinking to think of other methods to make quick money. He would have gone to the gambling route but he did not remember any major events happening in this period. Even if he did, finding a bookmaker who would trust him with such amount of money is probably impossible.
He could go for the stock trading option but with the economy in depression and the stock trading needing a adult to have his own brokers he would have to put this aside too. His parents would probably kick him out if they got to know he was going to gamble in stocks. Even though he had some knowledge about stock moments, there were not many significant ones to make huge sums in the upcoming months.
Arjun who could not come up with a solution set this matter aside for now. He felt it would be better to revisit it again after Vladimir gives him a quote, if not starting a beverage factory had to be let go for now.
Instead he started thinking about other ways to make money from the printing press he already had. Even though they were busy round the clock right now, it would only last until next five weeks. The drawing books Kavitha was making were meant to keep the press occupied but he did not expect them to really be a huge hit as his All in Ones, after all there were many similar types of books in the market.
Even if they applied their innovation in differentiating their drawing books, the new books will be more costly than others already in market and in the present day India where most of the parents accounted every penny they spent, Selling them in high numbers was an impossible task.