Footprints on Sand

Five: Sunrise

Arnav turned around with furrowed brows to look for the source of the ringing sound echoing his room. The sound eventually died leaving him perplexed until it started ringing again. He finally leaped towards the drawer on his bedside table where his phone had been. Aman Mathur's name flashed on the screen along with a red and green button to accept and reject the call. He didn't have time to wonder when he switched out the Blackberry to this, or whether this was the phone that Khushi had kept on the bedside table the evening he had returned home; instead, he simply picked up the phone.

"Hello!"

"Hi, Sir! —woh I had some questions about the Ma'am's shoots but how are you doing?" Aman's familiar voice echoed in his ears until he finally realized that this was the Aman Mathur who he had promoted for about a month, two years? ago to be his personal assistant.

"I'm fine," he replied curtly

Aman's eyes darted to the mess on the table to pull off the phone on his ear to look at the mouthpiece from which ASR had replied. Unfortunately for Aman, he had gotten used to a softer tone since the past seven or so months from ASR and this one was not doing much for him. He made a face and groaned before putting the phone back to his phone. "—what did you call Aman?" Arnav's curt tone rang in his ear.

"Sir, was just wondering if I should send Bhabhi, I mean Ma'am's shoots photos to your house to approve if you're not going to be back soon?"

"How much work is pending?" he questioned realizing that being tied up with the new additions in his life had him preoccupied to the extent that work moved to the last thing he had been concerned about to date.

"Not much Sir, just the Summer Collection needs to be finalized. We already launched Spring while you were in the hospital. Akash Sir approved half of the line and the rest was taken care of by me. I hope that's alright."

"Anything else?"

"The construction projects we undertook have two new bidders. The supervisors from the Kolkata factory and the Chandigarh factories are demanding pay raises. It's been negotiated but we need your signatures on the contracts. Your personal attorney appointment was last week as well, and I've had that rescheduled to the end of the month after Holi. I don't think there's anything else that's necessary for the time being but we'll have to look at models approved for Fall and entering the fashion weeks. You were talking about market research for other utilization of textiles the day before the accident so I don't know if you want to go further with that, otherwise nothing else." Aman paused after checking off most of the checklist in front of him. There was still a huge pile of paperwork he had to send to HR and skim through but unfortunately, that remained his problem. He levied a sigh as an okay echoed from the other end of the phone after a mild pause.

"Okay— Come over tomorrow with everything and schedule Akash to sit in as well." He said firmly, "And make sure that this is off the books."

"Sure." Aman replied through a stifled yawn and curiosity piquing in on the 'off the books' meeting, "But sir are you okay to come? I mean did Khushi BhaMa'am say you can work again"

"Excuse Me?!" Arnav replied confused and angry at the posed question. "Do you have any questions for me right now?"

"Ah, no. No." Aman once again pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at the imprint of his ear on the screen before putting it back, "Get Well Soon, Sir." His phone was disconnected by Arnav in seconds. Aman felt confusion ring in his head but he brushed any thoughts surrounding ASR to focus on the miseries that were to envelop him until perhaps near midnight if he was fast enough to not procrastinate. He grumbled at the life he had chosen for himself and poured in a cup of coffee from the coffee pot behind him. "He's lucky I don't tell on him to Khushi bhabhi as much as I could."