To Be or Not To Be A Family - Chapter 67

It was almost after dinner time in Korea. Everyone was sitting in the living room eagerly waiting for Ashma’s reply. But there was no answer. Everyone kept checking their phone in between talks. Suddenly a phone chimed. It was Young-Jae’s. He opened his phone and read the message. He looked up from the phone and saw everyone staring at him.

“What?” he growled.

“Nothing, nothing,” said Bong-Cha. Everyone thought that Ashma messaged him but that was impossible. No way in the world that she would message him and no way in the world he would not react after receiving her message. He would have broken his phone if she messaged him. It must have been some work-related e-mail or message, no one knew.

After almost 15 hours since she was gone, all the phones chimed together. Everyone jumped at the vibration of their phone. They immediately took out the phone and opened the message.

“That girl, she couldn’t call. She send a stupid message,” shouted Vidhi. “I have eaten,” said Vidhi in a mocking voice and air quotes. “What is her problem?”

“She must be busy,” Hei-Ran supported Ashma.

“What busy? She can’t even call her mother. Let her come, I will punish her. I will give her two slaps, then only she will learn. I need to call my father. I know she must not have informed him.” Vidhi excused herself to make a call.

Yong-Sun was sitting sadly as he didn’t receive any message. Everyone else’s phone chimed and chirped but not his. Lastly, he received the message. He eagerly opened it. It was a generic message. He was a little sad but at least she messaged him. And being in the fashion industry he knew what plagiarism meant for her.

She already had to deal with an issue regarding her dress a few days ago and now again a problem arose. On top of that, she had a fashion show on its way. He understood that her mind was preoccupied with a lot of problems and thinking about him and his kiss would be difficult for her and he was right.

“Now that everyone received a reply from her, let’s have dinner, it’s late,” Eun-Kyung announced. Then she mouthed, “Shiahbuhji must be hungry.” Everyone looked at Young-Jae but immediately removed their gaze with fear.

Young-Jae rolled his eyes. Everyone was acting as if Ashma was the most important member of the family and the family was incomplete without her. This irritated him a lot. It seemed as if their food would not get digested if they don’t talk to her or talk about her. He was getting fed up as since early morning everyone kept talking about Ashma.

They all went to the dining room and had their dinner. Every guest returned to their home and the rest of the family members slept peacefully knowing that Ashma was fine.

In the meantime, Ashma was having her meeting. They discussed all the things they were supposed to do and must do to deal with the plagiarism problem. It was decided that the marketing team will first send Paul’s team a warning message and the PR team will begin their damage control. To get in the social media’s good book Ashma proposed an idea. All were shocked when she told them the name. But they accepted as it was a good idea. Her idea transcended the colour, creed, religion, age even the country barrier. Instead of using an Indian model, she was hiring an influencer, which was new for her.

After the meeting, Priyanka called a cab for Ashma and she went home. Before she could get out of the cab and open the main gate, her grandfather appeared from behind the gate.

“Nooo!!!” shouted Ashma. “She informed you. I wanted to surprise you.” She ran into Surya’s arms. He too opened his arms and received Ashma with love.

“How are you?” asked Surya.

“I am good. How are you?” answered Ashma, swaying left to right in his arms.

“I am not good. My girls are not with me. How do you think I would be?” pouted Surya.

“Sorry, but it’s your daughter’s fault,” said Ashma.

“That’s true. Well, you have been a lot in the news,” commented Surya.

“Oh no! you saw all that,” asked Ashma.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were injured?” scolded Surya.

“It was just a scratch, Nanaji.”

“And what about the plagiarism issue. The whole media community is buzzing about that,” said Surya.

“Oh, it’s nothing. We are handling that, don’t worry,” she assured her grandfather.

“You both will keep talking at the gate or will come in?” shouted Madhu from the door.

“Maasi!” Ashma shouted and dragged her luggage behind her. She threw herself in Madhu’s arms and said, “oh how much I missed you.”

“Yeah, that’s why you never talked to me?” complained Madhu.

“It’s been crazy days and nights in Korea. First mom was hospitalised, then something or the other kept happening.”

“I know. Tell me this, is he really a cuckoo?” she placed her finger near her temple and moved the finger in a circular motion.

“Oh, there is no word to describe him, he is a complete cuckoo, a bully who is a cuckoo. He tried to pick a fight with me, but you know me,” explained Ashma.

“Yeah, you never lose,” winked Madhu.

“Exactly!”

“Now, get in. Your mother asked me to feed you.”

“Don’t tell her that I lied. I said that I ate but I am starving.” Ashma placed her palm on her stomach and gestured towards her hunger.

“We know. She is your mother and I am your maasi. We know you didn’t eat,” said Madhu with a smile on her face.

“You guys are so intelligent.” Ashma pulled her cheeks with love.

All three went inside after the initial greetings. Ashma took a bath and had dinner. After everyone went to sleep after hours of talking about Korea, Ashma went to her room. She was going to sleep in her bed after days. She moved her hand over her pillow and blanket and took in the familiar warm feeling.

She fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. She woke up early morning. She picked up her phone and send a message, “You up?”

The reply came, “Yes.”

She immediately called up the number. It was the influencer she wanted to be her showstopper. After Ashma explained everything, the influencer chirped happily, “Are you sure?”

“I am positive. Would you do the honours?” asked Ashma.

“But my age? Will people accept me?” doubted the influencer.

“You have a long list of followers and you are doubting if people would accept you? Listen to me, you are very young and beautiful. Will you do this for me?” Ashma first reassured her and then again asked her to be her showstopper.

“You really want me to?”

“Yes, of course. Why would you think otherwise?”

“Fine.”

“But you have to maintain secrecy, no one can know. You cannot publish the story in your feeds. Promise!”

“That would be difficult but I will try.”

“Thank you. I will send you the tickets and get here in four days.”

“Okay.”

“And tell no one especially…” Ashma started her sentence.

“I know.” But the influencer interrupted her mid-way. “I will tell no one.”

“Thank you.”

For days Ashma just went to her office and came home. All she did was eat and work. The marketing team along with the legal team warned Paul’s team and got their reply.

“Dear Samvlta Team,

We are deeply regretted about the problem we created for you. But please be aware that it was your employee that made us believe that it was his own design so we bought it from him. We had no idea that we were doing fraud. We apologise again.

Please note that we have already brought the clothes in our collection, taking them out will cost us a huge sum.

We would like to counteroffer you. You let us use your design and we will pay you 60% of the profits. Even if we remove your designs from our collection, yours will automatically become secondhanded. Let’s meet in the middle and resolve this problem.

Ours is a small company, surely we would not want to pay a hefty sum if you get us to the court. We would also not your legal team to be involved.

Sorry again for the problem. Here’s hoping that we could civilly solve this.

Best Regards

Paul Baston’s team.”

There was a small celebration in the Samvalta after they received the e-mail.

“Send a legal contract for the partnership and royalty share on every one of our designs and file a case on Rishabh,” ashma ordered the legal team. Everyone acted on her order.

Ashma filed a case against Rishabh after receiving the mail from Paul as now she had a piece of solid evidence. As soon as Rishabh was arrested, Vidhi immediately called Ashma.

“What mom, I am very busy,” said Ashma while holding her phone with her neck and working with her hand on new dresses.

“What did you do?” shouted Vidhi.

“Uh… what did I do?” asked Ashma calmly.

“You send Rishabh to jail. His mother called me,” screamed Vidhi.

“She didn’t pick my call. I would have informed her myself,” said Ashma indifferently.

“But Ashu!”

Ashma stopped her work and grabbed her phone with her hand. “Mom, it was necessary. He was behind the leak of my designs, my team’s design. It was a mistake to hire him and I paid for it. I don’t care his mother is your friend. I have had enough of his bullshit. Do you have any idea how much work of ours has he increased? All my dresses and designs were done. I will have to start from scratch. And I only have four days,” explained Ashma.

Her explanation calmed Vidhi down. She understood the amount of pressure her daughter was in because of an incompetent employee. “Oh, I am sorry about that.”

“Okay, talk to you after the show. I will be very busy designing new dresses,” said Ashma.

“Fine, do your best,” said Vidhi.

“Thanks, mom.” Ashma placed her phone on the table and started working on new designs.. The whole design department had cups of coffee in front of them and was working like machines.