Foresight

Chapter XXXXVII

"Hello, This is Mr. Mehra speaking. Who is this?" Mr.Mehra answers the call, while reading his morning newspaper.
"Good morning Mr. Mehra. My name is Suyesh Khuranna. My son, Rajesh Khuranna is you daughter Pallavi's boyfriend." Mr. Khuranna speaks with a nervousness in his tone.
"Oh yes. Pallavi had informed me that she found love again. I was very happy to listen that my daughter has found a gentleman again." Mr Mehra speaks with a jump in his tone.
"Thank you sir. I am actually more lucky to have obtained such a good natured daughter." Mr. Khuranna replies with an equal excitementin his tone.
"So Mr. Khuranna, to what occasion do I owe this call?" Mr. Mehra comes to the point, without beating around the bush.
"Well sir, I am supportive of my son. And since he is showing promising growth in his professional life, I thought to take their relationship to the next level." Mr. Khuranna explains his point.
"I understand sir. I will speak with my daughter and get back to you soon with a positive reply as soon as possible. Then we can have a face to face talk and come to a better decision." Mr. Mehra, proposes his side of plan.
"That would be great sir. I will be waiting for your call. In the meanwhile, I will get started with some preparations. Better to have a small headstart. It was good talking to you Mr. Mehra" Mr. Khuranna relays his ideas and progress.
"That would be good sir. I will call you back soon. Good day sir" Mr. Mehra hangs up and gets back to his morning newspapaer, with a smile.
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"Here is the omelette." Rajesh announces, as he walks edgily, balancing the flimsy omelette in the ladle, towards the dinnig table. Pallavi looks at him, with a small giggle, her boyfriend making her first breakfast. Successfully bringing it to her plate, Rajesh puts it on her plate, planting a small kiss on her forehead and heading back to the kitchen for the next omelette. He heads back to his plate with his omelette and some toasted breads. They finish their breakfast, talking with thier eyes and exchanging grins. Finishing their breakfasts, they grab their bags and head to the parking lot. Getting on his bike, Rajesh zooms off to SIDCO, to drop her and then to head to his company. Twnety minutes later, Rajesh enters his office, to find Neeraj blowing a cigarette off and Tarun furiosly typing off in his computer.
"Morning guys" Rajesh announces as he plops on his desk.
"Morning dude" Neeraj replies, while Tarun has no idea, since he is immersed in his world of coding and music.
"Heard you moved in Pallavi? Is it true?" Neeraj asks, throwing off his cigarette butt, out the window.
"Yep. Yesterday" Rajesh replies.
"Thats great. Probably we will get to see less of you from now" Neeraj remarks with a smirk.
"Naah dude. I will still put in my usual time." Rajesh replies.
"Well you better do. Because we just got another project" Tarun chimes in, popping up from his desk, indicating that he had been listening to them all this time. He gets up and heads to the white board. Grabbing the marker, he scribbles a name and some more points below that. Once done, he turns towards to his comrades.
"This is the new programme which we need to develop with SIDCO. Its a huge programme. Will take all three of us to break our heads onto it. We need to dump the game development to our interns. But we can't use the present interns because they are not qualified to develop it. So we need experienced interns and we need to start hiring latest by tommorow if we have to keep up the speed" Tarun finishes his speech, without taking a breath.
"You already accepted it?" Rajesh asks, getting up from his chair.
"Yes I did." Tarun replies cockily.
"You could have atleast told me Tarun. Kept me in the loop atleast" Rajesh replies, with a clear irritation in his voice.
"I could have, only if you ever paid any attention to the mails I sent to you over the last one month." Tarun replies with a smug look.
"What do you mean Tarun?" Rajesh asks back with a gritted teeth.
"I am saying that if you had given atleast 50% of your attention to our company you would have been in the loop Rajesh. But all your attention was towards your girlfriend." Tarun lashes out.
"Tarun you do realise that I had got her pregnant. Adding to the fact is that we are not mamarried."  Rajesh shouts out. The interns look at the commotion inside the room, which Neeraj is quick enough to catch on.
"Hey easy Rajesh. The interns are looking here." Neeraj hisses. Rajesh takes a deep breath, to calm himself down and heads towards Tarun.
"Dude. I am sorry that my attention was little away for the past month, but Pallavi was freaking out a little. I had to calm her down and not end up taking a rash decision myself" Rajesh explains with a calm tone.
"I am all onboard with your progress dude. I am happy for you. But if we do not keep our sights on the growth of the company, we may end up in a bad state. And if will affect you too. That's why I lashed out a little, took a decision without consulting you" Tarun explains back, placing his hand on Rajesh's shoulder.
"I know bud. I am sorry lashing back at you. Anyway, lets back to the task at hand." Rajesh points towards the board, getting back to his desk.
"As I was saying, we need to hire some new interns. Six to be exact. That way, we can dump the game workload onto them equally, while we rack our heads on this new software development. We have a projected growth of 6%. I know that seems a small number, but over the years our returns will grow. So we all stand to gain from this deal" Tarun finishes his explanation.
"That is real good. I am glad you went ahead with this project man. So how we are even start going to look interns and hire them? You are saying that we have to get them on board by tomorrow, so as to keep the workload balanced." Rajesh asks, perplexed at Tarun's eagerness.
"Well I took care of that too. I put up an advertisement on the internet, like we did last time and told our interns too. I have received a few good responses. So I have lined up a few interviews in the noon, after lunch" Tarun explains, as he reaches for his bag, fishing out the resumes he got. Rajesh and Neeraj scan them out, mentally selecting a couple ofcandidates based on their academia and projects. The rest of the day rolls by, with the trio selecting five candidates and telling them to start working from the next day. As they start to wind up, Rajesh's phone rings. Looking at the caller id booming Pallavi's name, Rajesh picks up
"Hey baby. I am winding up, will be there at your office in twenty minutes." Rajesh starts rattling, as he packs his bag.
"That's ok Rajesh. Drive safely" Pallavi replies, though Rajesh notices a slight grimace in her tone.
"Is everything ok Pallavi? Your voice is sounding different" Rajesh asks, stopping for a minute.
"No I am all ok. You drive safe" Pallavi replies, trying her best to sound normal.
"Yeah cool. See ya in 20 minutes" Rajesh hangs up, as he swings his bag over his shoulders, removing his headband, running his fingers over his shoulder length hair. Contemplating to ask Pallavi about her sounding odd on the call, in person, Rajesh starts his bike and vrooms towards Pallavi's office, to pick her up.
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"Hey honey" Rajesh calls out Pallavi, who is busy fiddling with her phone. She looks up to him, with a minor discomfort clear in her face.
"Hey Rajesh.' she speaks up, feebly.
"Pallavi, is everything ok? You sounded odd in the call and I can see discomfort in your face now. What is the problem?" Rajesh asks, sounding concerned.
"Actually, I am having pain over one side of my stomach. Also I am feeling bloated from late morning. So I have scheduled apponitment with gynaecologist. So can we visit her now?" Pallavi asks, him.
"Sure thing ya. Why didn't you tell me in the morning itself? I could have come by and we could have gone." Rajesh complains, as Pallavi gets on the bike.
"It was vey mild in the morning. Now it has increased." she replies back, as Rajesh turns his bike around.

Thirty minutes later they find themselves waiting for the reports that Pallavi had taken as per her gynaecoloists suggestion when they came to her clinic. The doctor calls them in. Pallavi and Rajesh take their seats, as the doctor sits across them with a poker face.
"Pallavi, we need you to be brave. With early diagnosis and mordern medicines, we can overcome any situation." the doctor tells, reaching out to hold her one hand. Listening to the doctor's words, Pallavi shoots a look to Rajesh, immediatelly grabbing his hand with her another free hand.
"What is the problem doctor?" Pallavi asks, witha quiver in her tone.
"You have......