After taking a stroll around the local market for a couple of hours Arjun returned to the hotel with Bhargav where they had their dinner and retired for the day. The three hour long journey felt very taxing because of all the potholes on their journey Arjun felt his entire body had taken a beating.
Perhaps a proper night's sleep was all that was needed to help them recover as Arjun woke up the next day feeling very refreshed. Bhargav had left a note for him saying he had gone out to do his chores and warned Arjun to be safe while he was outside.
Arjun had a light breakfast at the same in house restaurant where he had met Vladimir previously. Once done he left to meet up with Tharun at the union office where the vice president was already waiting for him.
After their initial chat Arjun settled down opposite to Tharun who handed him the sales data for the last week. When he noticed these people had already sold over five thousand copies Arjun was flabbergasted.
He had expected them to sell around one or two thousand copies in their first week and that too was an over estimation in his opinion. But reality had slapped him hard, These kids who had never sold a thing in their life sold goods worth over two lakh rupees in their first week. Arjun realized he needed to speed up the printing process. With the new order from Ravi and now Tharun who was already through half the stocks they probably had to run their press at full capacity for the next couple of weeks.
When Arjun noticed a couple of kids had already sold over two hundred copies each he was even more amazed. He wondered what methods they had adapted to sell such amount of books within a single week. They did not even have a shop to speak of but they sold more than what two or three shops might sell in the span of multiple weeks.
"But... Arjun there might be an issue with the time of payment..." Tharun spoke slowly waking up Arjun from his thoughts.
"What is the issue anna, your sales figures are so excellent, I don't understand why payment needs to be delayed."
"Well it's like.... the people who sell the books have yet to deposit the funds into union's account" Tharun replied with a shy smile.
Arjun understood, He had expected this to happen with the sellers being kids. Once they had the bills in their hand they probably felt it would be better to pocket the money themselves rather than submitting it to the union and earn pennies. Who would want to make pennies when they could pocket thousands of rupees. What they failed to consider was that they were committing a crime.
"Hmmm.... I have many ways we can use to deal with this anna but if i interfered it'd be me interfering in your union affairs. How about this let's extend the payment window by a week for this shipment considering this is our first venture together. If you still cannot find a solution by the next week i will suggest what steps to take."
Tharun was satisfied with the outcome. He had another week to deal with this problem, He did not want to take help from this kid, He already felt bad about being lead by nose by a kid last time, he would rather resign from his position than take help from this kiddo.
He proceeded to ask for a new batch of ten thousand copies of All in One to be delivered by the next week.
Arjun accepted the order for the new shipment but warned they would only be delivered after the union transfers payment for the last one. He felt the need to be strict in this matter, losing out on first payment might be okay but delivering a new shipment without receiving the payment for first one would be naivety.
Tharun was even more depressed after Arjun put forth this condition. This was the same as rubbing salt into the wounds of a wailing dog. He was already regretting his choice to broker this deal between the union and Arjun. If he could not solve this problem within a week the others who were eyeing his position at the union would probably force him to resign.
Arjun left the office tacitly noticing the dismay on Tharun's face. Perhaps this was his first time facing such situation but he had to deal with it himself. Arjun did not feel the need to comfort a guy who could not even stick to the promises he made. Perhaps this might be a wake up call for the small vice president of the student union.
He left to enjoy some movie time after having his lunch. While Arjun was having time of his life watching the newly released superstar movie Tharun was busy trying to think of every method he could come up with to make their union dealers cough the money.
He had already tried contacting them personally, Even contacting their local union leaders to warn them about potential repercussions. But the replies he received were not satisfactory at all. Most of them were trying to shift the blame onto others or trying to delay the payment.
Without any other option he approached Vikram for his help in this matter. Vikram after hearing Tharun's problems laughed out loud.
"Hahaha leave this matter to me Tharun, you go ahead and relax. I will get this settled by tomorrow" said Vikram to the stunned Tharun.
Tharun could not process how the problem he was having such a hard time dealing with could be dealt with in a single day. But not receiving anything more from Vikram he started to retreat back to his office.
"Ohh Tharun!! leave the details of the people who are refusing to pay their dues with me please" Vikram uttered in a mocking tone.
Once Tharun had left the office Vikram called up his assistant and asked him to gather details of the parents of the kids who were refusing to pay the money and went on to call them one by one informing them that their kids actions and warned that they were committing a crime, if the amount was not cleared within a couple of days he would have them sued in the court.
Most of the parents of kids who had joined the union were everyday laborers. When the parents heard their kids were going to be sued they all lost their cool. In these times when most were honest people especially the elderly who treated their honor as their life, the thought of their kids trying to cheat the union did not sit very well with them.
Most of the these people were already part of some or the other worker unions, and they were all taught that trying to cheat their fellow union members was same as cheating themselves from the time they joined the unions. They had assumed both their union and student were similar types of unions which made them even more angrier.
When the kids who were enjoying their newly made wealth returned to their homes only to find their parents with sticks in their hands they were astounded. They had never seen this coming, What more could kids fear more than their parents, Tharun unfortunately did not realize this point and approached Vikram to offload his problems.
Within the next few hours Tharun received apology calls from everyone who was trying their best to skip him just a few hours back.
"Did someone drug these people" Tharun wondered, He could not understand how people can have such a huge change of heart in just a few hours.
Tharun quickly approached Vikram thanking him for solving the issue. He mentioned how the kids had promised to deposit the money first thing in the morning once banks opened and begged him not to escalate things further.
They also asked for resupplies as most of them were already through the share of money they had earned after blowing them off at parties thinking they had much more to spare which they suddenly found they did not anymore.
Vikram too was happy as he never considered suing his own union members. If he had really done so, he might as well say goodbye to his presidency.
As Arjun was walking out of the theatre he could notice many fans crowded around the cut out of the movie star. They were bathing the huge cut out of the star in milk while some were dancing celebrating the movie success.
Haaa he did not know what to make of this situation. Most of these people were regular laborers and college kids. They would rather stay hungry an entire day to drown their favorite star's poster in milk. This fanatism continued well into future generations and one thing Arjun did not like about the Indian movie industry, But he was too helpless to do anything about it. He was sure if he stepped up to speak about it he'd be drowned in a sea of slippers.
He could only silently lament in his heart and left towards his hotel. Upon reaching their room he noticed Bhargav had yet to come back, seeing this Arjun had his dinner alone and went to sleep early after informing the reception that Bhargav might be late for the dinner and made them pack a set of meal for him and left it at along with a note about dinner at the table.