Devil in Pinstripes Page 4

  Amit had put an end to the discussion. He did not quite understand the thoughts going on in her mind. Chanda was more worried about the basics. What will happen to their morning coffee in the balcony if she was on the 6 a.m. shift? What will happen to their dinner time? She hadn’t told him that a twenty-four-hour service centre meant that it had to be operational on weekends too. Which in turn meant staggering of weekly offs for all the staff and hence she might not always get an off on a Sunday. Even the day off that she shared with and greatly cherished, was under threat. As Amit said, she decided to cross the bridge when she came to that. It was still sixty days away.

  The next week was performance appraisal time for Amit. It was just the middle of the year. The management trainees had completed three years at NYB. After their induction, they had all been put in individual roles and had been given certain deliverables. It was time to take stock and decide if the individual had performed as per the expectations in their new role. In NYB, management trainees were a special lot. They were pampered, taken care of and were managed separately as compared to thousands of other employees. They had yearly meetings with Aditya, something which others would give an arm and a leg for. They had annual reviews with Aditya to take stock of their performance, their career aspirations and how the organisation could help them move towards their mutual goals.

  Aditya was a perfectionist to the core. He would prepare in advance for all meetings . . . even if it was a meeting with the lower level and junior management trainees. In preparation for his sessions with the management trainees, Aditya was sitting with the monthly league tables looking at the branch-wise performance of all the branches and that of the individual relationship managers. He went page by page, parametre by parametre trying to look at individual performances. It did not look logical. Something was really wrong. Something like this had never happened in his career thus far.

  Now staring at him were sheets of paper, which said only one very pleasantly surprising thing. Across all parametres, there was only one branch topping the country numbers and within that branch, there was only one individual who was streets ahead of the rest – Bombay Fort Branch and Amit Sharma. While it didn’t speak volumes about the rest, Aditya momentarily swelled with pride. Wasn’t he the one who had hired Amit?

  He stretched his right hand and extended it towards the exquisite Meridian phone on his table and pressed a red button, thereby activating the speakerphone. He dialled an extension number and waited till it was answered from the other end.

  ‘Yes boss?’ it was Melinda, his secretary on the line.

  ‘Melinda, can you get Amit Sharma and give him thirty minutes today? Preferably towards the evening.’

  ‘Sure sir!’ and Melinda hung up. The meeting was arranged.

  At 6.30 the same evening, Amit walked into Aditya’s huge plush cabin.

  ‘Good evening young man!’ said Aditya as he got up from behind his table and walked towards the sofa kept on the right corner of the room. As Aditya’s arm made a sweeping gesture towards the sofa, Amit walked towards the sofa and sat down on the seat, farthest from where Aditya was sitting.

  ‘I don’t bite,’ said Aditya and he guffawed with pride at his own wise-crack. Amit gave a slightly nervous smile and moved closer. His mind was still busy trying to figure out why he had been called. The performance appraisal discussion was only scheduled for later that week. Above all, Amit was wonderstruck – he couldn’t believe that he was sitting on the sofa with the man he so admired! Aditya was the one person he genuinely looked up to. Wasn’t he the reason why he had ignored Anderson and joined NYB? It was a dream come true for him to be sharing the same professional space with Aditya.

  ‘Thank you sir,’ said Amit, suddenly coming out of the dream-come-true spell and realising that it’s about time he showed some manners instead of looking like a child who had just seen Disney Land for the first time!

  ‘I think I have told you this many times in the past . . . and if I recollect, even during your interview . . . my name is Aditya. There are no sirs here.’

  ‘Yes Aditya.’ God! He remembers even this. Amit was astonished to know that this man remembered even the tiniest of details that would normally have been too insignificant to care for. Amit was surely impressed.

  ‘One year. Long time since your last appraisal.’

  ‘Yes Aditya. It’s been one year. A lot has happened.’ So was this about his performance appraisal then.

  ‘Good or bad?’ asked Aditya in a dare-you-to-answer tone as he casually lifted his legs and placed them on the table in front of the sofa.

  ‘More good than bad Sir . . . errr . . . I mean, Aditya.’

  Aditya smiled. ‘Did Melinda tell you why I called you here?’

  Amit was too shocked to allow words to come out of his nervous mouth. He could feel that ‘no’ stuck somewhere in the middle of his throat. It was just when Amit really wanted to give himself a rap on his head for acting smart and saying things like ‘a lot has happened’ that Aditya recognised the blank look on Amit’s face and continued. ‘I was looking at the branch league tables. Your branch doesn’t seem to be doing too well.’

  Amit looked a bit confused. Now where was this coming from? Is this some sort of trick question? If it is then I better keep my smart Alecs to myself and be confident. ‘But Aditya, we are actually topping them. I am sure there is a mistake in the numbers provided to you.’

  ‘Are you saying that my team has given me incorrect numbers?’

  ‘Er . . . no Aditya. I meant that . . .’ Amit was at a loss for words. He did not know what to say. Once again, he had opened his mouth and said something which was open to interpretation.

  ‘My friend, if a rookie like you tops the performance charts and takes the branch to the top position in the league tables, what are your other colleagues doing? If I take you out of the equation, your branch performance tanks. Yes or no?’

  ‘I haven’t seen it that way sir. We were all very happy to see that the branch is doing well. Maybe we can check and revert.’ Ha! That was a perfect answer. I am sure he is impressed . . . on second thoughts, no, he doesn’t look too happy. Okay, let’s try to play safe here now. Amit added, ‘The branch manager (BM) would surely know sir.’ His level of nervousness had reached greater heights by now. Any rookie would be, when he is in a conversation with the head of retail banking.

  ‘Ha ha. Just kidding. I am sure the BM would have a better idea. I will chat with him separately. I wanted to meet you to let you know, young man, that we are extremely happy with your performance so far. I can see that you have a bright future in this bank.’

  ‘Thank you sir!’ He was overawed and relieved.

  ‘I will be personally tracking your performance my friend. I hired you. Remember . . .? If you ever get into a sticky situation, and need help, let me know. I will . . .’ The sentence was forced to halt as at that moment, Melinda walked into the room. ‘Aditya, call from Martin Stone’s office on line one. It’s urgent.’

  Martin was the worldwide group head of communications. He was based in New York and reported to Tedd Bridge, the CEO of the bank.

  ‘Hold on Amit. I will just come back to you,’ said Aditya and he walked up to the phone. He pressed a button and Martin’s voice crackled on the speakerphone. Aditya didn’t feel the need to be discreet given that Amit was in the room. He was probably showing off in front of the rookie.

  ‘Hi Martin! What’s up? What are you doing so early in office?’ he screamed into the phone. No matter how educated and trained in etiquettes, when it comes to international calls, something in our Indian vocal cords always prompts us to just scream our throats out! And the accent . . . it changes instantly. Aditya had a distinct American twang and drag when he spoke out to Martin Stone.

  ‘Hi Ady boy. Ain’t I glad that I got you?’

  ‘What happened? You don’t sound too good.’

  ‘Tedd is steaming Ady. Haven’t you seen the front page of the Wall Street Journal?’


  ‘No. But what’s it about?’

  ‘About you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘As in . . . about India.’

  ‘What about India?’

  ‘You haven’t seen it? I sent you a scanned copy about ten minutes ago.’

  Aditya quickly sat down at his desk. He did not move the line off the speakerphone. In the ensuing melee, he probably forgot that Amit was in the same room. He got busy trying to log into his email account.

  ‘Melinda!’ he hollered. He couldn’t have used the extension as Martin was on the line. Hence the sudden bellowing.

  ‘Check my mailbox. Take a printout of any email from Martin and bring it in.’ He took a five-second-pause which was like the lull before the storm. Just when his expressions seemed calm and composed his facial expressions unexpectedly concocted into an irritated look followed by a sudden and extra loud ‘Now!’

  Melinda disappeared as swiftly as she had come in.

  Meanwhile, Aditya found the much-wanted mail and clicked on it. ‘It has just come in Martin. I am trying to open it.’ A pause again. ‘It’s opening. Will the government ever do anything about telecommunications in this country? The bandwidth is so fucking low!’ The wait was so frustrating.

  The mail was heavy. The image which Martin had sent was large and hence was taking time to open. Aditya waited with bated breath trying to figure out what was going on. Just when he was about to lose his last ounce of patience, the mail finally opened. It opened with such a bang that it hit Aditya extremely hard. He did not know how to react.

  ‘Fucking shit!’ he mumbled to himself. It is strange but true – mumbling obscenities act as momentary stress-busters.

  In front of him was the image of the front page of that day’s edition of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The front page lead story covered almost half the page and surprisingly, it was on India. The headline screamed in front of him. It read:

  ‘NYB FLEECES POOR PEOPLE IN INDIA TO FILL ITS OWN COFFERS – a story of fraud, abuse of power and disrespect of the legal system.’

  Written by Khalid Bilal, a staff correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, the article was vitriolic. It was a frontal attack on the India NYB management.

  Melinda walked in with the article. With a frown on his face, a look that focussed only on the screen of the laptop and a hand that was suddenly held up, Melinda understood what he meant. It was a clear ‘do not disturb’ sign. Smart that she was, she quietly walked towards the table where Amit was sitting, gently placed the folder on the table, turned and walked back. From where he was sitting, Amit could read the article very clearly. When he saw the headline, he became curious and began reading through the entire article carefully.

  ‘I am reading it Martin. Hold on,’ and Aditya continued reading on his screen. Amit too was midway through the article.

  The article was about a bank customer in Delhi, called Naveen Gulati, who had apparently taken a car loan from NYB for buying an Opel Astra. When the customer didn’t pay the instalments on time and regular visits by the bank agents didn’t bear any results, the bank handed over the collection to musclemen. These men had forced their way into the residential apartment where Naveen stayed. They waited there for the Opel Astra to be brought in. And when it did come in, they stopped the car, beat up the driver and the occupants, which included a lady, forcibly took possession of the car and drove away in it. According to the WSJ it would qualify as a criminal offence in USA, good enough for the banking license to be revoked.

  The story did not end there. As luck would have it, the repossessed Opel Astra turned out to be that of some man called Naveed Bilal and not Naveen Gulati. Both of them lived in the same apartment complex and had a steel grey coloured Opel Astra. And this Naveed, turned out to be the first cousin of Khalid, who was the WSJ staff correspondent.

  ‘What a bastard, this Khalid fellow!’ exclaimed Aditya on the phone after finishing reading the entire article.

  ‘You have no right to complain Aditya. It’s an India screw up. Tedd is fuming. We are announcing our annual results this afternoon. More than the results, I can bet my ass, this issue is going to dominate the investor meet. Tedd wants to know what you have to say.’

  The discussion with Martin was a long and difficult one. Martin clearly communicated to Aditya that Tedd was disgusted with this issue. It only complicated things further that the issue was first reported in the Wall Street Journal and hence the India Management had no clue about what was going on. Aditya tried telling Martin that he would investigate and get back. However, Martin had only one point of view – ‘Aditya, Tedd needs to see some action quickly. He wants some accountability to be fixed and heads to roll. Nothing short of this would be acceptable to the NYB board. Please do whatever you want to do within the next few hours. We want to kill this issue when it comes up in the investor meeting. Tedd doesn’t like being embarrassed. Please remember.’ With that, he hung up.

  Aditya was clearly taken in by the sequence of events. He did not like being told to do things. Everyone knew that. On his part he would normally make sure that situations are not brought to a head in such a manner that they put him in a spot. He did not like being asked difficult questions. In this case he clearly was under pressure. An unexpected turn of events, not completely his doing, had put him in the limelight. He was wondering what to do when it dawned on him that he had company in that room.

  He quickly dialled his secretary’s number, ‘Melinda, please get me Moses. Ask him to come to my room now.’ Moses was the collections head for NYB. He was the one responsible for collecting money from the customers who did not pay back their loans. Quite a thug he looked. Six feet something, muscular and brawny, the story was that he had eight eggs for breakfast, followed by a jug full of apple juice. Nobody had seen him feasting in office though. Probably at breakfast he ate for the full day.

  Looking at Amit, he smiled. It was clearly one that was put on. Amit could easily tell. ‘Amit, I am so sorry. Something urgent has come up and it needs immediate attention. Can we meet some other time? I will ask Melinda to line up some time with you next week.’

  ‘Sure sir,’ Amit couldn’t have said anything else. He took the hint and walked out of the room, pitying Naveed Bilal, who had his car taken and bones broken for no fault of his. On his way out, he stopped at Melinda’s desk to thank her. It was not necessary, but Amit was just being courteous. From her table he could make out that Aditya was again having an animated conversation with Martin. It was a discussion which was surely going to last long. He turned and walked back to his desk. He had taken a few steps when Aditya walked out of his room and looked at Melinda. ‘Melinda, can you ask Prabhat to come in right now, before Moses.’ Amit didn’t understand the implication but was not naïve enough not to understand that it had everything to do with the call that Aditya received sometime back from New York.

  Prabhat, the head of Human Resources (HR), walked in within the next few minutes. He did not have the slightest inkling about why he was in that room. Aditya took some time and briefed him on his conversation with Martin. Moses joined them in another five minutes.

  ‘Go right in. They are waiting for you,’ chirped Melinda as he walked in.

  ‘Hi Moses,’ said everyone in chorus. Moses did not like the tone of the people present in the room. The drag was obvious. The mood was tense.

  ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aditya, coming straight to the point. He shoved the printout of the WSJ article under his nose.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ said a shocked Moses after quickly glancing through the article.

  ‘That’s what I am asking you Moses.’

  ‘I know about this case. This customer’s car was wrongly repossessed. We had apologised and returned the car. The agent has been sacked and the agency which did the repossession has been warned. We even sent Naveed Bilal a cake and some flowers to his wife, along with an apology.’

&nbs
p; ‘Well, Mr Moses, clearly, that was not enough. This would not have happened otherwise.’ Aditya was furiously waving the copy of the article at him.

  Moses was a tough no-nonsense guy. ‘Aditya, these things have to be managed. In the collections line, if everything we do starts hitting the press, then all the pages of the daily newspaper would not be enough.’ And as an afterthought, he added, ‘You seem to have forgotten the days when you were in collections, Aditya.’

  Aditya looked at him. Moses had a wry smile on his face. The sarcasm was not lost on Aditya. What Moses was saying was right. What Aditya had done during his earlier days at collections was nothing different from what other collectors do. Mistakes do happen. It was an entirely different issue that ninety percent of the mistakes do not get reported.

  ‘Let me cut to the chase Moses. I got a call from Martin Stone in New York. This has come out in the WSJ, just ahead of our results announcement. This has embarrassed our senior management no end. Unless they have a credible story to tell this afternoon, they will be lynched by the media in today’s press briefing on the annual results.’

  ‘So?’ Moses was acting difficult.

  ‘You will have to put in your papers.’ It was Prabhat who spoke this time around. He had been a silent spectator so far in the entire conversation.

  ‘Says who?’ and almost as an afterthought added, ‘What if I don’t?’

  ‘We will be forced to terminate you. This is a serious lapse. A big lapse in controls and procedures.’ Prabhat was getting irritated at this conversation. What the heck? A mistake happens. Hits the media. And not just any ordinary media but, the Wall Street Journal in New York! ‘Give me a break!’ he thought, though he didn’t say it out loud.

  ‘And who is this WE?’

  ‘The organisation, and of course Aditya,’ said Prabhat.

  ‘Did you ask this man here if he wants to sack me?’ and he turned and looked at Aditya, who in turn looked at Prabhat. He was banking on Moses quitting on his own. He didn’t bargain for Moses to get difficult. It was all happening so fast that Moses could not have reacted in any other fashion. Survival instincts take over in times of extreme crisis.