Bankerupt (Ravi Subramanian) (16 page)

She looked at her watch. It was past seven. If Gangu Tai had to be met at eight, she had to leave in fifteen minutes. The cup of coffee touched her lips for one last gulp. She dumped the glass into the sink and ran into the bathroom. She was late for the meeting.

27

Mid-October 2007

Mumbai

Shivinder returned to India in the first week of October. Aditya met him the same evening. Skipping the niceties, he got to the point.

‘What’s with this new contract manufacturing in Dharavi? I didn’t know you had one.’

‘Dharavi?’

‘Yes. Cirisha visited a facility which was manufacturing shoes for you.’

‘Are you sure it was for Snuggles?’

‘She showed me the order copy.’

‘It must be manufacturing fakes.’

‘It was signed by Deven Khatri. Dated prior to him running away with our money.’

‘Is it? Let me find out.’

‘Are you sure you are not doing something behind my back? We are in this together. Don’t try to play games with me, Shivinder.’ Aditya was livid.

‘You must be kidding, Adi.’ Shivinder was unfazed. ‘You have helped me when things were difficult. Do you think I will shortchange you?’

‘You better not.’ Aditya walked out of Shivinder’s office, got back in his car and drove to his office. Back home that evening, he wanted to tell Cirisha about his conversation with Shivinder. But he held back. What would he have told her in any case? She knew nothing about his deals with Shivinder.

As they were sitting down for dinner that night, Cirisha’s phone rang. She ran to pick it up.

‘Hello?’

‘Can I speak to Ms Narayanan?’

‘Speaking. May I know who is on the line?’

‘Ms Narayanan, I would like to meet with you sometime tomorrow. Will that be possible?’

‘Well, would you care to introduce yourself?’

‘My name is Nick Rand and I am from Boston.’

‘Do I know you? What is this regarding?’

The moment he told her who he was, she looked up at Aditya. He was busy reading the newspaper while enjoying his rotis. She walked into the bedroom, whispering into her phone.

And when she walked back into the dining room, she was clearly excited.

28

Mid-October 2007

MIT, Boston

‘So it’s clear, James. Very clear,’ Richard said while shutting his laptop. They were in the conference room, debating the data.

‘Hold it! Hold it!’ Deahl exclaimed. ‘Can you pull up that table on the screen again? Let’s go through it once more.’

Richard fiddled with his laptop and in a jiffy the chart was up on the screen. He looked at Deahl, whose eyeballs were fixated on the table on the screen ahead of him. (See facing page)

‘This is only Chicago, right?’

‘Yes,’ Richard replied. ‘And James …’ Richard began to explain, only to be cut short by Deahl, who was holding up his palm to silence him. He wanted to draw his own inferences. ‘So the data indicates that the homicide rate is highest in areas which are high on the poverty scale.’

‘Yes, James. And …’ Richard hesitated.

‘And what?’

‘An even more damning correlation is the combined effect on gun-related crime, of poverty, lack of education, unemployment and concentration of African American people in the neighbourhood.’

‘Yes. That is obvious in this summary. Poor locations with a high African American concentration have a very high homicide rate.’

‘I can understand, James, if the homicide rates in the poor black areas were twice as much as the rates in the white upmarket areas. But here it is roughly fifteen times higher. That is a ridiculously high number.’

Poorest Locations in Chicago

Richest Locations in Chicago

‘Our story will be simple. Places high on the poverty scale, low on education and high on unemployment will be high on drug abuse, alcoholism, violence and resultant gun-related homicide. Children born in these areas are less likely to have a normal childhood and hence are more likely to grow up into violent teens.’

‘Yes. Children reared in such environments have a high propensity to turn to crime.’

‘And if you want to pull them away from crime, taking away guns is not an option. Focusing on their economic development is probably the only way out.’ And he looked at Richard. ‘So we have a story.’

Richard smiled. ‘We have a very good story, if the Chicago example were to be looked at. It screams from every nook and corner of the city that gun control hasn’t worked. Economic development and social initiatives to get the African American community into the mainstream will bear more results than any change to the Second Amendment.’

‘Wonderful, Richard! Let’s also look at gun ownership patterns over the year across the United States and see if there is anything for us to report. A few more examples like Chicago will add meat to the study.’

‘Sir,’ said Richard and shut down his laptop. He had made his point. He then opened his notepad where he had jotted down some notes. ‘James, just a couple of points that I wanted to discuss with you, if you have the time.’

‘Tell me.’

‘The prison data for three locations has been compiled.’

‘Of felons convicted of gun crime?’

‘Yes. The results there are a bit warped.’

Deahl just raised his eyebrows.

‘We interviewed felons across a few prisons. The purpose was to figure out if they would have committed the crimes for which they had been convicted had they not had easy access to guns. Our hypothesis going in was that the non-availability of guns would not have prevented these crimes. That these felons would have committed the crime irrespective. If not guns, they would have made use of some other weapon of destruction.’

‘That would prove beyond doubt that gun control would not have stopped the crimes that did take place.’

‘Absolutely. That’s why we interviewed these convicts in detail, asked them relevant questions and compiled this data. However, James, when I look at the data which has come in from inmates in Vermont, it presents an entirely different picture.’

James hastily turned towards him. ‘What do you mean?’ There was a touch of concern in his voice.

‘Data from Vermont suggests that without guns the convicts would not have committed those crimes.’ Deahl’s look turned to that of anxiety. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. Shoulders drooping, he looked at Richard and asked him, ‘Are you sure, Richard?’

‘Yes, James. That’s how it looks as of now.’

‘Have we got data from any other prison?’

‘Florida. We interviewed seventeen inmates. Same result. Sixteen said that without guns they would not have had the courage to commit the crimes for which they got arrested. Phoenix. Same result. Eighteen out of twenty-two inmates said they wouldn’t have done it. Surprisingly, it points to the fact that had guns not been so freely available, over 80 per cent of gun-related crimes, many of them leading to homicide, would not have been committed.’

‘This is bad news.’ Deahl went into deep thought. His palms moved up to cover his face and he rubbed his eyes with his fingers.

‘We will dig deeper into this. Maybe there is more to this.’

‘The Chicago example proves that gun control has not yielded results. The convict interview shows that gun control could have prevented crime. We are back to square one.’ He looked at Richard. ‘Who is helping you in data gathering?’

‘Caroline and Philip. It’s just the two of them and me on this prison assignment. I did the Vermont, Florida and Phoenix interviews myself.’

‘Great. You focus on the Chicago analysis. Ask Caroline and Philip to see me. I will oversee this directly. It is of critical importance to our research.’

Richard was surprised, but didn’t show any emotion. After all, Deahl had committed to his tenure this time around. He would rather play along. ‘James, I’m off to the Boston prison tomorrow. They have given us permission to meet their inmates. This meeting has come about after numerous rounds of discussions with them. They needed a fair bit of convincing.’

‘It’s OK. Don’t bother. I will coordinate that. Just ask Caroline and Philip to see me. As I said, I need you to focus on the Chicago data. That’s the most critical piece for me.’

Richard got up from his chair. He had a confused look on his face. He was wondering why Deahl didn’t want him involved in the prison interviews. ‘OK. I’ll let them know,’ he said and walked out of the room.

The research report was due in a month. They could at best stretch it to two. Any later than that and Lucier would flip.

29

November 2007

Coimbatore

Narayanan’s phenomenal success had attracted a number of people to the emu trade. The most prosperous emu farmer of Tamil Nadu launched a new scheme in November 2007. The paper emu scheme.

It was a big hit. The scheme was simple. Invest two lakh rupees and have six emu chicks allocated to you. Unlike earlier schemes where the customer would take the chicks and rear them at a farm set up on his own land, this time around, Narayanan set up his own mammoth emu farm and simply allocated a specific number of emus to the customer. These chicks would then be reared on Narayanan’s own farms.