The next day Arjun and Bhargav woke up early to visit the local famous temple they had visited previously when they bought the new car. Since Bhargav was still hungover Arjun had to wait in the lobby to wait for the guy to get sobered up and once he was ready they both headed to the temple.
Arjun never believed in god in his previous life and had not even visited any temple even once after his parents passed away. But after his rebirth he started believing more in supernatural forces, he had to as that was the only reasonable reason for his rebirth that he could conceivably imagine.
Arjun had thought more about his purpose of rebirth every night since his rebirth but could not explain what was the reason for this. But he reasoned since he was reborn he had to do something meaningful with the extra time he was given.
With the future knowledge he had it would be a cake walk for him to become the world's richest man but this goal didn't satisfy Arjun as he expected more of himself.
In his past life even without any such knowledge he could still be considered more successful than most people in the country with such a vast people that too without the support from his parents.
In this life with his parents helping him along the way and being an emotional anchor Arjun wanted to set a much high goal for himself. After thinking for over a month he decide taking his country India along with him to stand on top of the world was going to be his new goal.
This was almost an impossible dream but Arjun liked the sound of it. But thinking of how to accomplish this task gave Arjun even more headache than he could imagine.
After all India in 1989 or even in the future was a quagmire of various problems both on the inside and outside. The societal values which helped the country stay united in the past became the chains around the countries neck choking the upcoming youngsters from being able to accomplish their dreams and the horrible corruption did not help either.
As Arjun thought more about it he started regretting setting such high goals even before he started working on doing better for the country.
Arjun decided he would start small and felt investing ten percent of his profits for the people would be a good starting point for now as he was too small to consider about bigger issues.
The mystery surrounding his parents did not help either after much deliberation Arjun felt starting with the education sector would be the better choice for now as his dream was a very very long term oriented one and investing for the future was the best solution he could come up with for now.
Since he had already decided to donate ten percent of his profits for the people making the book donation campaign proposal to Madan did not hurt him one bit and even gave further inspiration to Arjun that the donation need not be a complete loss but instead be a win win situation for everyone as proved by the Union's willingness to take part in the campaign too.
Even though everyone involved were doing this for their own benefits the people were still the ones getting the ultimate rewards. After all donating two lakh worth of books by a small company was almost unheard of in these days and the union wanted to ride on the coattails of this popularity but their willingness to let go of the seven rupees per book profit and join the campaign showed Arjun that he was on the right path. Just that next campaigns would have much bigger impacts and perhaps even unforeseen consequences but Arjun was prepared to face them all for his goals.
Arjun visiting the temple was related to this too, even though he could not really believe in supernatural powers even now he felt the need to explain his goals to someone and the temple which was famed as manifestation of deity of power and wealth seemed perfect place to be the start of this great endeavor.
As Arjun was lost in his thoughts they had already reached the temple and instead of heading directly to the top of the hill where the temple in car Arjun made Bhargav stop the car at the bottom and they headed to top on their foot.
Arjun wanted to takin the raw experience before it gets ruined by urbanization of the future and just as he expected their walk up although tiring was filled with awesome scenery of the town, The amazing Krishna river which supported over a million families and the greenery of the hill along with the holiness of the temple gave a surreal feel to Arjun.
Bhargav meanwhile who had already been here many times in the past did not feel any of it and just followed along Arjun and since it was still early in the morning there wasn't much crowd or head making their climb much easier.
As they almost reached the top however a bearded sadhu who was almost indistinguishable from the local beggars on the side came in front of Arjun and started shouting some unknown syllables and mantras.
Arjun and Bhargav paid no attention to the guy thinking of him as another person who had lost his mind and continued on their way but as they were heading ahead the guy still followed them but one sentence that came out from his mouth stopped Arjun in his tracks and look at him in amazement.
The madman paying no attention still continued while Arjun walked back and asked him to repeat what he had just said but he did not and continued with his antics while staring straight into Arjun's eyes.
Bhargav meanwhile was freaked out by what was happening and hurried back to Arjun and joined him in questioning the guy but this too failed to be effective.
The guy went on for another five minutes after which he suddenly stopped stared into Arjun's eyes again and took some vermillion powder from his bag and applied it on Arjun's face who was still reeling from shock without his permission and left on his way.
After he was gone for a while and noticing Arjun had yet to wake up from his day dream Bhargav shook Arjun a couple of times before Arjun finally came back to reality.
Bhargav tried to question Arjun what was this about but Arjun did not p[ay much attention to his words and continued his climb while still lost in thoughts. Bhargav tough confused still followed along.
Arjun meanwhile was still ruminating the words the Sadhu mentioned in huis gibberish, although he could not make sense of most of his words that sentence "Be careful Reddy no matter how many precautions you take the world and goddess have their own plans for you on the second week of may".
Arjun could disregard most of his words but that mention of second week of may brought back the nightmares of his past which he still couldn't let go of. After all it was the week where his entire life took a complete U-turn, was it going to be the same again? he questioned himself.
The reason he hired Balram for, the reason he made up the excuse of pamphlet taking Madan along with him to Madras was all for this reason. Even though the event existed Arjun knew about it because of his acquaintance from the future and the pamphlet was a good misdirection to make it more believable to others and especially his parents and Madan.
His parents and Madan were attacked on their return from a function in the nearby village and since Madan was the only one with transport in the village his parents accompanied him.
Arjun later came to know that the attackers who did the attack were of another section of people from Madan's party who were unsatisfied with Madan getting the seat for the local election and attacked him in the night in between the villages and escaped before anyone could properly identify who they were. Arjun always thought his parents were by-standing casualties of this incident but the Sadhu's words raised more suspicions in Arjun's mind.
He did not want the same thing to happen again but had done all the stuff he could, since Madan was coming alongside him if the attack happened it would be on them on not on his parents who were anyway going to go to the function. Arjun did not know how to explain all this to his parents and stop them from going there.
Even he did explain Arjun did not believe person like his father would trust him completely or back down. In fact Pratap was the sort of person who would charge forward in such scenarios.