Since they were all tired and had a busy day ahead they drifted to sleep very quickly while Arjun was enjoying the cool wind and started rewinding his past three months after rebirth. Even though he could have done much more he felt he had done enough seeing the happy expressions on his family members who were already asleep.
If he could keep it this way Arjun felt it was worth more than any amount of money but still his ambition could not be forgotten and he too had to work hard for it, thinking about these stuff Arjun too drifted to sleep marking the end of a peaceful yet busy day for the entire family of four.
The next day Arjun woke up early to the sounds of people moving around the house while Sari was still dosing. He could see Lalitha and Kavitha discussing something from the corner of his eyes and when he looked at the time it was already past seven in the morning which made him wake up begrudgingly. Even though he wanted to enjoy more time under the cooler today was going to be a busy day and he did not want to add on to other's troubles due to his delay.
Arjun quickly got ready and woke Sari up who has surprisingly not woken up yet, it seemed she too enjoys the cooler very much. Arjun then and there decided to buy one for their household immediately.
He wondered to himself why had he not thought so before or else his previous sleeps would have been way more comfortable.
It was already past nine by the time everyone in the household were ready luckily it would take much more time for the guests to come as their village was almost three hours away from the town.
Arjun alongside his family, Lalitha and the village priest headed to the Ganesh temple which was on the north end of the village on foot. It was tradition to start off any good occasion by offering prayers to the god Ganesh in Hindu customs. Since it was Sari's favorite god too she too had no objections in walking all the way there and even started skipping along the way.
As the trip up and down the mountain was going to be a hectic one all the family were in much simpler clothes and not their custom wares. Once they reached the top however Lalitha took Sari into her embrace so as not to allow her to run around the temple which might not be safe for kids.
The priest did his usual chants for over fifteen minutes and only finished it quickly once Arjun requested to speed it up after which he offered his blessings to the family and the placed the new book series in front of the god's statue and asked Arjun to retrieve them at the end of the day. All the family members then broke the coconuts while Lalitha assisted Sari in doing so and all of them placed the broken shells in front of the statue while the priest handed them one shell and asked them to wait outside the temple while he continued the prayers.
All of them then sat at the temple stairs and started having the blessed coconut pieces while discussing how peaceful the temple on the mountain felt like. This gave a completely different feel to the other hill in Vijayawada which was although peaceful was too crowded to his liking even though he had visited early in the morning when there was less of a crowd.
Once the priest came out and locked the door all of them returned back down the mountain. the priest then went on his way to the event place to get the preparations for opening ceremony done while the family members too returned back to their home to get changed.
Arjun and Pratap donned their usual white shirt and blue pant attire while the ladies put on the black dresses Arjun had gifted them earlier. Arjun did not wear his suit as he did not want to make his close associates feel obnoxious and since most of the people coming here were his very close personnel Arjun wanted to be down to earth in front of them as well as in front of other villagers and his school teachers.
Once they were done they left towards the event shed where Arjun could already see chairs being placed by the workers. He had borrowed them from the government village office which Madan generally used for his meetings. Only few people had come most of them being family members of the kids who helped Arjun in making the questionnaires and other stuff.
Arjun quickly went to them and thanked for arriving this early and asked the workers who were on the side to quickly arrange the air coolers as the humidity was already making them sweat and the sun's reflection from the waves only made it worse.
The family members joined the priest at the sacred fire ritual and quickly got it done in the next hour after which Kavitha made her way to the cooking station where the other village ladies had already started the cooking procedures for several dishes as some of the dishes like biryani required at least one hour just for preparation and another hour to get the proper Dum effect and get cooled.
Arjun and Pratap meanwhile headed to greet Madan who had just arrived alongside his family. Arjun then got hold of Karan and headed to the village entrance to accompany those who were coming from town as it was almost that time for them to start arriving.
First to arrive was Tharun and Vikram who both wore white shirt and black pants befitting to their future political leader aspirations. Arjun then accompanied them to the event place while he asked for Karan to stay there and guide if any others come in the meantime.
Once Arjun reached the event place in Vikram's car and got down Sari came running to him alongside some of her friends while curiously looking at the new comers.
Arjun then proceeded to introduce them to Sari and Pratap but when he was about to introduce Pratap to Vikram, it was Vikram who stopped him and went ahead to touch Pratap's feat to take his blessings which took all the bystanders by surprise.
It was then that Vikram mentioned he was a distant nephew of Pratap which took Pratap by surprise as well as confusion too. He did not want the cat to get out of the bag so soon and started giving eye signals to Vikram to keep his mouth shut and quickly took him aside to speak something.
Tharun meanwhile took a Teddy bear he had gotten for Sari from the car trunk which got her very excited and she hurriedly took it from the new uncle and hugged the bear tightly. It was only when Arjun reminded her that she thanked her new Tharun uncle who was embarrassed by the call and started begging Sari to call him brother but she did not budge until he offered to bring her a bag full of chocolates on his next visit.
All the people who were watching this exchange gave a loud laugh after the deal and went to take their seats while Arjun returned to the village entrance but on his way he was stopped by Karan who was accompanying Ravi Kumar the manager of Mannath distributions.
Thinking these were all of the guests he had invited from the town Arjun quickly took him to the event area and did the same introductions. Unfortunately Sari did not receive any gifts from this uncle which made her a tad bit disappointed but she quickly recovered when one of her friends mentioned about the colas being distributed.
All the school teachers and the head master too arrived in the next half an hour after which Arjun was ready to take the stage but it was Balram who suddenly came running mentioning someone else was there at the shed entrance asking for Arjun, curios Arjun went ahead but as he neared the entrance he started to sweat. Balram seeing this reaction started preparing for a fight but it was only a lady and he did not know how to fight a woman that too at the village entrance.
Saheri seeing Arjun hesitatingly approach her gave a big smile and hugged him questioning what Arjun forgot to invite your this lady for your first big event?
Arjun had too many questions in his mind and her words did not get registered in his mind at all. He was busy thinking about how closely this woman was monitoring him and what else did she know.
Still he recovered in time and asked her to come inside and introduced her to Sari who was running around the chairs, when Saheri took out a gold chain and wore it on Sari everyone who was observing the interaction were taken aback.
After all gifting a gold chain on their first meet was ultra rare thing for them, at least the villagers had never heard about it in their life time, meanwhile Sari who wore the new chain gave a big hug to her new Aunt and went to Pratap to show off her new gift but seeing his stern expression she quickly escaped and made her way to the back stage where her mom was there.