Part 11

They traveled to the venue in two cars; Aakash, mama, mami in one car; Arnav, Anjali and Nani in the other. The boys were driving themselves, they had asked the drivers to leave as it was a Saturday evening. When they reached the venue, they stopped at the entrance so that the ladies and mamaji could get down and drove around the place to park the cars.

When Arnav had parked his car and got down to head towards the venue, he noted that a lot of the other cars were of the expensive kind. So this girl knew where she should invest her time to get the returns she wanted he thought. Unknowingly his brain had started filing a case of mistrust against this Doctor girl, without even meeting her, without even knowing her name properly.

 All his businessman brain gathered was she helped his Nani and then sold tickets to the same family, which shows she knows how to use circumstances for her gain. His brain conveniently missed that fact that the tickets sold were for charity and she gains nothing from it at all. It also forgot to clarify his ASSUMPTIONS with the people who were there when it actually happened.

At the entrance he was directed to a hall for meet and greet, before the actual show started and some soft drinks were being served, actually there was no one serving them, the drinks were neatly stacked in an ice pack and people would go and grab one. A huge sign on the wall said “Thank you for serving yourself.”  “How cheap.” he thought.

He looked at his watch there were 10 more minutes for the show to begin. He looked around the room. He recognized quite a number of people in the room, he just kept on looking till he found his family, ASR just didn’t do small talk. He saw his mama and mami deep in conversation with another couple. He started moving towards them, he saw the other couple say their parting namastes to mama and mami and move away.

He heard his mami say with a sigh “I have no such luck with my son… I hope at least this works out.” then she said to mama in a threatening manner “There is no need for you to go and tell everybody about this till everything is finalized, I don’t want it jinxed.”

“What are you saying Manorama, jinxing stuff by talking about it?? Which century are you living in?” his cool headed mama asked.

Then the two realized that Arnav was coming towards them and he was close enough to overhear their conversation. Mami nudge his uncle in the ribs and said “Remember what I said.”

Then she turned to Arnav who had reached them by now and stopped. “Arre bitua, you are here, we are waiting for you and Aakash to come before we went inside. We were just talking to old friends in the mean time.” She explained

ASR gave a nod to acknowledge her words and turned towards the door to see if Aakash had made it yet. He didn’t give a damn about mamiji’s little secrets; he had far better things on his mind just then Aakash walked in with his camera equipment stunning all three of them.

Aakash never liked clicking gatherings of people, he preferred nature, and he only took pictures of their family that too on normal days when they were going about the house doing their daily activities. He never even took pictures of any events held at their home, he would wait for all the guests to leave and then click the family’s pictures when they sat down relaxing and talking about the party. Arnav knew how much Aakash hated clicking the models at AR Fashions. Hate or not his brother was a genius with the camera and ASR respected his skill.

But right now ASR was shocked to see Aakash with what he knew to be Aakash’s most favored camera hanging around his neck and a goofy grin on his face, looking for something around the room. He spotted his family and moved towards them, but ASR noticed his eyes kept searching for something. ASR frowned and thought, “what is going on?”

When mami voiced her thoughts Aakash shrugged it off and said “Just like that, Maa.” And then turned to Arnav and said “Bhai, shall we go inside?” ASR nodded and started to walk out of the meet and greet room to the actual event place, when loud booming laughter caught their attention. Immediately ASR was on high alert, he knew that laugh. He looked around the room and spotted the source of the laugh and smiled to himself “ASR is never wrong.”

He told his family to go on inside, after taking his ticket from them and said that he will join them in a bit and then moved towards Mr.Singhania.

There were few ethical people left in this business world and Mr.Singhania was one of them. ASR admired the man, it also helped that Mr.Singhania had guided ASR when he was new and just making himself a part of the business world. ASR being ASR had taken off from there and flown high, but he never forgot his roots. He would forever be obliged to Mr.Singhania. He reached Mr.Singhania and said

“Hello sir, how are you? When did you get back in town?”

“Arnav,  my boy!! Great to see you.” said the jovial man and took ASR into a side hug and ASR obliged. This exchange had all the people who knew ASR to drop their jaws and stare. No one touched ASR, at least not without ASR being the person to initiate it. Arnav noticed this and looked some of them in their eye, conveying the message that this was a privilege for only this older man and no one else.

Mr.Singhania was oblivious to all this had started introducing ASR to the people around him, “This is Arnav Singh Raizada, he is into multiple business ventures, you must have heard about him. He is a great kid.” he finished. “KID” did Mr.Singhania just call the ASR a kid, more like a giant in the world of business they thought, but smiled politely to acknowledge the introduction.

An elderly man came near the party and addressed Mr.Singhania “Gaurav, let’s go in, it’s about to start.” Mr.Singhania nodded happily and turned to Arnav and said, “We will catch up later my boy, now let’s go see my butterfly dance.” Arnav just nodded and moved forward with all of them, he had no idea what the older man meant by a butterfly dancing, he knew better than to ask.

Arnav settled in his seat it was neither the first row nor the last, but he was at almost eye level with the dais. The curtains were drawn, he pulled out his IPhone and got to work, ignoring the annoyed glances of his family.

 

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Aakash pulled out his camera and moved to join the two other photographer’s near the stage and got ready. The room fell into silence as Payal came on stage looking beautiful; Aakash was mesmerized by her beauty all over again. When she started speaking into the microphone Aakash was jolted out of his drooling session and got to work to capture the beauty of his beauty in his camera for eternity.

Payal went on to thank the major contributors to the charity and all the people who had worked hard to make the event possible. She went on to explain what exactly the money they donated would achieve, thanked all the people who contributed big or small to make a difference in this world. She said they had an entertaining event planned for the audience and asked them to sit back and enjoy the ride, which was starting with a Bharatanatyam performance by Doctors Raja and Radha.

And so it began….