Devil in Pinstripes (6 page)

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.’

‘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.

‘Prabhat, give us five minutes.’

After Prabhat left, he turned towards Moses.

‘If I go, you go with me . . . I have enough aces under my sleeve and you very well know that. In my line Aditya, we have to protect ourselves from “everyone”. External scavengers and internal preys. If something comes upon me, you know what I will do. I have enough evidence on various matters to nail you and the organisation.’ Moses had never spoken like this with anyone in the organisation, but today was different. He was battling for survival.

‘Relax Moses,’ said Aditya. He had to make a decision quickly and tactfully. It was a tricky situation. He walked up to the phone and dialled a number. After a few minutes, he kept the receiver down, looked at Moses and smiled. A few seconds later, his fingers worked on the phone and dialled another number. While he was speaking, Moses had walked up to the printer and had picked up a piece of paper. When Aditya was into his second conversation, Moses picked up a pen from Aditya’s table and began writing something on the paper.

After Aditya put the phone down, he walked up to the door and called in Prabhat. When the latter walked in, he looked at Moses, who extended one hand towards him. In the hand was a piece of paper.

Prabhat took that paper from him and glanced at it. He began reading it.

To

The HR Manager

NYB

Dear Sir,

I herewith submit my resignation from……………

…. Sd/

G.
Moses

He did not read beyond the first line. It was not necessary. How the hell did Aditya manage it? It had taken Aditya all of fifteen minutes to get this done.

Aditya called Martin Stone, minutes after the meeting to tell him that in response to the issue highlighted on the front page article in the WSJ, the head of collections in India had been fired.

Moses’ resignation from the organisation was announced the next morning. It was so sudden and unexpected that it took everyone by surprise. His last working day was Friday, which was only three days away. When the mail hit his inbox, Amit knew why this had happened. ‘This is corporate life,’ he said to himself. ‘You pay for someone else’s sins.’ He forwarded the mail to Chanda in SCB. The subject of the mail was ‘It sucks’.

The week after, Moses joined Great Western International Bank as country head of collections. No one knew what transpired behind the scenes. Amit knew that the head of retail banking, at Great Western International Bank, Kaushal Pandey, was a close friend of Aditya Bhatnagar. He was an ex-NYBanker and owed his career to Aditya. Aditya had demanded his pound of flesh from him, and Kaushal had willingly obliged.

___________________________

*
In foreign bank parlance, a town-hall meeting is an informal gathering of employees, (a term derived from the traditional town meetings of New England) where the management addresses the staff on issues which are relevant. Key messages are passed down the line. The staff is given the opportunity to voice views and concerns which are then addressed by the management.

T
he wait at the station was becoming unduly long. Naik too seemed to have disappeared eons ago. Looked like he had forgotten that there were souls waiting for him on the bench. The two men who had come in with him, also disappeared into the room, that seemed like a black hole. People only went in. No one came out.

Amit was getting more and more fidgety. He had a family to provide for. A reputation to protect. Not many knew that he was now struggling to deliver on either of the two. Family life was hurtling towards disaster and his reputation was now rolling downhill at a feverish pitch. He was clearly at his wit’s end.

The reason for this arrest had not been mentioned to him yet. Though the Non-Bailable Arrest Warrant mentioned that it was being issued in response to an FIR filed with the police, the case details were missing. He couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Had he known, he could have acted and taken preventive steps. But unluckily that was not to be.

Chanda was also getting worried. She had been married to him for long, and had been through many ups and downs. Recently there had been more downs than ups, but she still held on to their relationship by the last string of the thread. However, she had clearly not bargained for this. What had he done to deserve this? Had Amit done something which would deal a death knell to their relationship? She couldn’t say.

Both of them were so lost in their thoughts that they completely missed Naik, who had walked out of the black hole room and had come right in front of them.

A hand on his shoulder made Amit look up.

‘Naik, what is the problem?’ he asked in a pleading voice. He had never been so helpless. Always in control, this situation was quite alien to him. He shifted his glance to Chanda who was also looking at Naik.

The look on his face was not a confidence-building one. ‘We will wait outside,’ the two lawyers in black coats told Naik as they stepped outside.

‘It’s not looking good Amit,’ Naik’s words belied his expression. It gave no encouragement to either Amit or Chanda.

‘We have a situation, and we have no clue how to deal with it. We need to get the legal guys involved.’

‘But you mentioned that you had taped up Pathak.’

‘Yes we had, but when I called him now, he claimed that he was unaware that this was the case. It is out of his jurisdiction.’

‘What does he mean? He owes it to us. We have taken care of him so many times in the past.’

‘I don’t think so Amit. The case is such. Even he can’t do much.’

‘Why is it such a big deal? Who can help?’

‘No one.’ This answer left Amit looking at him with his mouth wide open. He was shocked. His eyes were wide open and he was looking alternately at Chanda and Naik as if imploring them to do something.

‘Naik,’ he said finally. ‘Will someone honestly tell me what the fucking issue is?’

T
he next three years for Amit were normal. Being sighted quickly as a high potential resource by the senior management helped him. Aditya pulled him up from a relationship manager and made him the manager of a small branch in Mumbai. He was now the youngest branch manager at NYB.

Chanda on the other hand, was going through a torrid time. The shifts and the daily rosters were taking a toll on her. She was finding it difficult to manage. One day she would leave home at 5.30 a.m. to be at work by 6 a.m. and the next day she would leave at 2 p.m. only to come back at 11 p.m. The lack of predictability around work hours made it very difficult for her. She also had to take her weekly offs on days other than weekends and that led to her spending less and less time with Amit.

On days that they would be together, she would pour her heart out to Amit. Working in the banking industry was her decision. She was not the kinds who would give it all up at the first signs of stress. A fair chance is all that she wanted to give to SCB. However, no one could prevent her from being a touch worried that it was eating into her family time and the shifts were not making it any easier.

And then it happened. The big day that Chanda was waiting for finally happened. On 26 October 1999, three years into her job, she got her first promotion. She moved from being a phone banking executive to a supervisor in the tele-banking team. She had a team of her own and was now the boss of twenty-two people. Boy! Was she thrilled? The change in the money was not significant; however, the promotion meant a lot to her. More than a professional move forward . . . there was an even bigger motivation. She was off shifts. A supervisory role meant the return of some stability in their lives.

‘Gosh, now I will have to see you on weekends. I was beginning to enjoy my Saturdays without you.’ Amit teased her when he heard that the supervisory role meant getting off shifts. But heart of hearts he too was thrilled. Their life could get back on track now.

The late 90s extending into 2001, was the period when a consolidation happened in the Indian banking industry. A number of foreign banks entered the Indian market and quite a few exited the scene as well.

ABN Amro Bank bought over Bank of America’s retail business, Standard Chartered bought over ANZ Grindlays Bank, and BNP Paribas decided to exit the retail banking space. There were many such examples. It was a time of turmoil and consolidation in the banking industry. Turmoil for some and opportunity for the others.

Amit was at that stage in his career when opportunities were aplenty. Being a fast achiever, he had built a reputation in the industry too. He was quite happy working with New York International Bank, so happy that the thought of a career shift didn’t occur to him at all. While people thought it was time to encash the equity that he had built up for himself in the banking industry, Amit’s thoughts were far from theirs. He considered himself to be a career NY Banker – someone who had spent his working life with NYB and wanted to spend the remainder of his career with NYB . . . or so he felt till this opportunity came his way.

One day in early 2001, as Amit was driving to meet a client, he received a call on his mobile. It was a number he didn’t relate to. However, he picked it up on instinct. It could have been a customer in need.

‘Hi, am I speaking to Amit Sharma?’

‘Yes. Who is this?’

‘Hi Amit, this is Sharmila Ganguly from Spenta Consultants. I am calling from Delhi. Is it a good time to talk to you?’

‘Hmm,’ Amit was just wondering why they had called him. He hadn’t heard of them.

‘Amit, let me introduce ourselves. We are a leading recruitment consultancy firm in India and we specialise in the banking and financial services space. I had picked up your reference from our network quite some time back. There is an interesting position that has come up, which I thought I would run past you and see if you would be interested.’

If Amit ever looked back at his life, this could be counted as one call that changed his life. After this call, his personal and professional life would never be the same again. It was one such moment, the gravity of which one doesn’t realise till such time that it’s long over and gone.

Though he was not interested, he still had a distance to drive. He had some time at hand. Something in the woman’s tone told Amit that he needed to explore more. ‘No harm in talking,’ he thought. He continued.