Arjun was sure Bhargav would not say the same if he tried Biryani from the famous Shah Ghouse Biryani but since he never had the chance to do so in this life time Arjun did not want to raise his expectations especially when he could not explain how he had the chance to do so when the Biryani house was in Hyderabad which he never visited.
They took their time to have the lunch and headed towards the college area to meet up with the studio gang and check their progress for a while.
Sumanth received them just as usual and apologized for not being there when Arjun's dad had visited and showed Arjun their new designs.
Arjun just put them on the side and took the entire gang for a movie to get them relaxed. Arjun could feel the tension in the warehouse when he entered and figured it would be tough for kids to woprk while also doing their college and asked them to take a couple days off to get back to their rythem.
Sumanth thanked Arjun on behalf of everyone since he was the only one with enough street smarts to recognize why Arjun was doing this among them.
Vinod could not be seen anywhere and when Arjun enquired about it Sumanth had mentioned that his father had passed away which explained the heavy atmosphere in the warehouse when Arjun entered.
Arjun felt bad for making the wrong assumption but since everyone's spirits were lifted upon hearing about the leaves he did not bother thinking about it again. After all he could not take back his words and get on their bad side for this.
He instead offered to sponsor their trip to Vinod's village but most of the4 kids were unwilling to do so until Sumanth convinced them as Vinod's village was near Araku area which was very famed for it's sceneric views and vast farms.
Arjun too wanted to go along with them but he had his exams the next week and would visit that area to Vishakapatnam port for the delivery anyway.
Once the cinema was done Arjun handed Sumanth a cheque for ten thousand rupees since he did not have any cash on him and banks were already closed since it was a saturday and banks close at noon during these times.
He took Vinod's house number from Sumanth to console him as he did not want Sumanth to carry his words as it would be demeaning to Vinod if it was done that way.
Arjun dialed to the number from the hotel telephone once they returned to the hotel but no body picked the call so he could only let it go for now. He informed the lobby management to inform him immediately if they called back and went back to his room to relax for the day.
Bhargav was curios about the software stuff Arjun had previuosly mentioned so they spent rest of the evening discussing various possibilities that software industry could bring.
Bhargav was impressed by the stuff Arjun was saying and questioned back why he was not entering such a lucrative industry to which Arjun just gave a sly smile and explained even though software industry would be very profitable in the future it would be decades in the future and that too was a big maybe.
He wanted to focus on hardware side of things till the software industry matured more for the heavy investments or collabs with the hardware industry.
Once Bhargav was satisfied with the explaination Arjun let out a sigh of relief, he felt he almost got caught when the decades into the future thing slipped out from his mouth but at least he reasoned why that was the case in a logical way.
Still Bhargav was skeptical how a kid could make sure prediction about an entire industry or multiple industries but seeing Arjun's track record so far he did not know what to say.
They had their dinner at the local mess Lalitha had introduced them to and returned back to hotel for the night. Arjun was not really tired but he didn't really have much to do so he spent some time in the in hotel swimming pool.
He had to sneak past a couple of guards since swimming was not allowed in the night but was surprised when there were already around four to five college kids in the pool by the time he reached there.
He introduced himself to them and had some fun. They felt was too cute trying to act mature around them and welcomed the change in surroundings.
Arjun returned to his room after twelve in the night by then Bhargav had already fallen asleep and was snoring his hearts out. Arjun regretted having taken a double room with this guy but since there was nothing he could do now he took out some cotton from the first aid kid and plugged his ears before going to sleep.
The next day they woke up early and went to the agency once they were done with their breakfast. Since this interview was of many more people than last time, people at the agency promised to arrive early to take care of the proceedings so they too went there to help them out while Arjun wanted to see who would arrive early and who would be late as this would kind of indicate their necessity of the new job.
Arjun believed necessity was the mother od invention and dedication. He wanted to hire people who were hungry for progress, even though they would have their own set of issues like wanting to climb the ladder quickly Arjun did not mind it one but and wanted them to have such thirst especially since he was going to go much bigger in the next couple of years and needed some capable hands to handle the responsibilities.
Srikanth Reddy was the first one to arrive for the interview so Arjun and Bhargav quickly called him inside the chamber for the evaluation. Srikanth was surprised looking at the kid at the main chair accross the table but did not feel much about it since he was already informed this was going to be new factory and new management leading to the opening of production manager position.
Most of the companies already had multiple poeple in the pipeline for such important positions or there were recommendations involved. He had already worked at two companies as assistant manager previosly but they too had similar issues and even thiugh he was the one with mostr contributions he was never even considered for the position.
Srikanth was very dissappointed with his situation but could not do anything about it but when he learned about this interview his spirits which were already down lifted up a bit but still he did not have high hopes.
Arjun then asked a couple of random current affairs qusations to Srikanth who was surprised about the questions but still answered them to the best of his abilities.
Arjun then asked about Srikanth's views about work place politics and etiquette and what he heard satisfeid him alot.
As Srikanth had already faced a lot of discrimination in his past five years as assistant manager he was vehemently against it which was the same thing Arjun wanted still he wondered whether someone this young could handle people who were much older than him but he still wanted to take the chance.
He could see the fire in this young man's eyes and wanted to see what he could bring to the table.
When Arjun brought up the topic of salary Srikanth along with Bhargav was taken aback. He did not think answering those couple questions and his workplace policies would be enough to satisfy anyone, not even himself but here he was being asked about his salary.
Srikanth took his time to think and asked in return about the factory and huis responsibilities at the factory since the agency did not really give much information about the factory.
When Arjun explained about their factory and his new products Srikanth was impressed. If what this kid was saying was true then their products really had good potential.
He had a degree in food and nutrition so he knew more about the current food products in the market more than the two sitting accross the table. He wondered about the possible leakage of their idea to big companies but seeing how relaxed Arjun and the guy next to him appeared he figured he would remind them later once the contract was signed.
He proposed a salary of four thousand for start since he had to move to the village alongside his family. Arujn who was expecting a quote of somewhere around six thousand was taken aback by the low ball offer but could feel his desperation for the promotion.