AMBAR

Chapter 27

Dev's POV

Chetan Dhar had planned to come here and take government contracts of scrap as he decided to expand. For that prerequisites were owning a warehouse near Bangalore. When I enquired further with some Delhi friends of mine they told me that he was supposed to take contracts from Kochi and Hyderabad. This change was all of a sudden. Few weeks before I got to know that the other junior lawyer who worked under my father died. Cause of death: hit by a truck. Now I could feel the truck approaching towards me.
Chetan Dhar had started to buy some land and lease most of it. He wanted to lease an old warehouse from Srinidhi but Srinidhi never likes to do business with outsiders. She says they are hard to trust and difficult to nab.

I was studying all the documents that Srinidhi sent me to study and all of them reeked of Chetan Dhar's old ways. There were loop holes and he would then take advantage of it. Damn. This time he had no idea that Srinidhi is mother of this game. She had already met every real estate agent and alerted them about Chetan's fraud. Saved a bunch of people from loosing their rightful ownership of their land. I called some old friends with whom I had good will. They were ready to help me. I just wanted to get rid of Dhar as soon as possible.
When Srinidhi got him arrested the look he had on his face. The strike of sudden action that was unexpected hits hard. I was watching it all from a window in Srinidhi's office. She had told me that I must not appear before him and that was a sensible decission.
I had not been home for a few days because of all the trouble. I reached home and saw Mira. As I walked towards her she noticed my presence. "Hi." I said to her. A huge smile appeared on her face. We hugged each other and then she looked at me.
"Welcome back." She siad.

Armaan's POV

Some weeks later Dhar got bail and he came straight to Delhi. Few days later I arranged a meeting with him at my house. When I saw him I was surprised to look at him. Old age had reduced him to a shrink of his past. He joined his hands in front of me. "Namaste Ranayal Sahab." He said.
"Namaste." I said. "Please sit." He pulled a chair and sat on it. He was looking down towards his shoes. "I heard what you tried to do in Bangalore." I handed him a cup of tea.
"Take it as an advice and just forget about your revenge. Because if you tried to organise your revenge from Delhi and harmed Dev or any one from his family then let me make it clear I will kill you."
He looked at me and then started to laugh histerically. "It was because of you that years ago Dev Mehra left Delhi. Now you are the one who is protecting him. Why?"

"Your benefit lies in doing what I said to do. Not in digging past." I kept a bundle of papers in front of him. He took them and started to read it. It was a detail report of how Chetan Dhar did black marketing. I sipped my cup of tea. "I have more like these." He looked at me. His pride was broken and so was his arrogance. He agreed with me and pleaded with me to not reveal about these things to anyone. A deal was established between us. After that he left. I still had my people to keep an eye on him.

When I was fit enough I started to go back to office. I saw Rina after sometime and felt good. She was working on her desk which was near my cabin. I went behind her. "Hello." I said. She looked towards me and hugged me. "Thank God you are fine." She said. I smiled. "It was just a small episode of high blood sugar that's it." I said to her. We both then started to do our work. I tried to reduce my work hours and started to spend more time with kids. Ambar was always busy with stud as her 12th boards were approaching. One day I was working when Rina came in my room. She looked all panicked. "What happened?" I asked her.
"Ambar's principal called you to meet urgently." She said.
"Why?"
"How will I know?" She said. I took a deep breath and then thought that this too is a part of parenting. I drove to her school and went into the principal's office. The lady was very short woman. In her mid 50's and had grey hair. She wore small rectangular frame of glasses. There were some teachers in the office and Ambar was sitting with her friends. "Hello mam." I said to her. She looked at me and then at Ambar.
"Ambar's father?" She asked.
"Yes." I replied. I again looked at Ambar and her friends they all were trying to suppress their laughter and all of them were looking each other from corner of their eyes.
"Mr. Ranayal how do you handle her at your home. This is first time in my career that I am complaining about a girl who is in 12th grade." She said. I again looked at Ambar. "What happened?" I asked.
"Sir today her whole class started a water fight in ongoing lecture." I again looked at all 4 of them and noticed that their clothes were slightly wet. "But if"
Before I could even complete it the principal said "these idiots started it." She said.
"That's it?" I asked her. She looked at me and laughed. "You think that. She was playing cricket in biology lab with artificial skeleton bones. Hands were wickets and legs were bat." I seriously wanted to laugh on that. But I controlled myself. Now all four of them had a grin on their face.
This was not it. I heard more complaints of Ambar then I could have imagined. I don't think that I might have done so many mischievous activities in my entire childhood compared to what Ambar did in a year. The principal looked at Ambar. "4 of you go out and wait." The kids got up and left.
"Mr. Ranayal, I know that you are a single parent. Perhaps her upbringing lacks values which should be present in a girl." I looked at her. "What?" I said. "Boy or Girl, kids play pranks. I did when I was of her age." I said. She looked at me and regretted what she said.
"Her upbringing is upto date madam. I don't expect her to be a glass doll. She is what she likes to be and I am glad of that." The principal then shook her head in left and right.
"Mr. Ranayal you're getting me wrong. Ambar is a fine girl. I agree but she is very disoriented. She is respectfull towards teachers and non teaching staff. I have seen it. But today what she did was very inappropriate." I listened to what she said. I took a deep breath.
"I can agree on that part. I'll talk to her." I looked at the clock and it was near 2. I left the school with Ambar and asked Chandar to drop Ambar's friends to their home. Today my perception towards Ambar has changed. She is more like me in nature. Instead of driving home I took Ambar with me to a restaurant for lunch. I ordered a salad for myself and Ambar was turning pages of menu. "Do you guys have pizza?" She asked the waiter.
"Yes mam but it's in large." He said.
She smiled and gave the menu back to the waiter. "Fantastic. Bring me a large chicken sausage pizza with lemonade."
"Very good mam, anything else?"
"No. That'll be it." The waiter left. I looked at Ambar in surprise.
"Large?" I asked.
"Yes. There was peanut in breakfast and I had to plan water combat in break time so I missed meals." She said. I picked up the glass of water in front of me and drank some.
"You don't like peanuts?" I asked. She suddenly looked at me as if I passed some sexist comments.
"I am allergic to peanuts." She said. "Didn't you read my files." She asked. I was dumbfound on that. Her face rested on her palm and her hand was supported by a chair.
"You can track people beyond states but can't look into my medical file." She took the glass of water in front of her and drank water from that.
"Why did you brought me here?" She asked.
"Well it was past my lunch time and I can't fill up on your principal's bickering." She laughed on that.
"Why did you do that?" I asked her.
"Because I liked it." She said. The waiter by then came with our food. There was another waiter holding Ambar's pizza and lemonade. They served us our food and the second waiter sliced the pizza after they left Ambar started to eat. She was famished that seemed evident.
I usually don't prefer fish but this is all I can have now because of diabetes.
"Doing such things won't help?" I said to her. She chewed on her pizza as if she was not listening to me. I took another bite of my salad.
"Even if there are thousands of complaint against you, I will not send you back." I said. She looked at me with a wide smile.
"When I was 5, I started Dad's car." I was surprised hearing that. "I accidentally removed the hand brake and the then put it in reverse. I accidentally smashed the car to a tree. Got plenty to listen and got grounded. I once locked a cat in fridge to see if it really turns blue the way they showed in cartoons." I listened to all that carefully. "I have done way serious things than this never got to hear that I did any of that for attention." She said.
"Doing these things keeps me sane in your insane and insufferable house."

"I didn't meant to say that." I said. "Having a history of notorious behaviour does not gives you permission to do such things in school." She looked at me.

"Wow, you can talk sensibly. I had no idea about that." I laughed on that. Ambar actually finished her pizza. We left for home. The first thing I did after reaching home was reading all the medical files of Ambar. There I found out that she is prone to asthma due to cold. Weighed only 2 kgs when she was born. She had pneumonia and is allergic to peanuts and pineapple.