The Incredible Banker (11 page)

'Then?'

'We have a bigger problem, my friend'

'Will you tell me, Joel? Or will you keep running around in circles?'

'Bhellaa, we cannot hire the guy!'

'But why?'

'In the AGM in Singapore, there was some discussion around the headcount in India. Apparently it was quite acrimonious. Serious questions were raised about the retail banking business in India.'

'What questions?' Bhalla wanted to know

'Pretty much the same stuff which keeps cropping up every time. Which everyone talks about. GB2 not doing well. SCB doing much better. Productivities, costs, business volumes, profitability! You know all that goes around, Bhellaa, don't you?'

'Yes, I know. But what has that got to do with the price of coffee in Brazil?'

'Pardon me?' Jeol couldn't get the sarcasm.

'What does that have to do with the hiring of Srinivas?'

'It has, my friend. It has. Michael Smith is mighty pissed. And when he is pissed the way he is, no one argues with him. He has put a blanket ban on any hiring in India. This morning I have received a detailed note from Singapore. It calls for a complete review and overhaul of our retail business in India. It calls for a complete freeze on the headcount in India till this entire review is over. It may take three months or even six months. I really don't know.'

'Which means we cannot hire anyone in the retail business? What if someone leaves?'

"The note from Singapore prohibits even replacement hires. So you can't hire from outside. Period.'

'When did this mail come?'

"This morning.'

'Joel, then I have an easy solution.'

'What?'

'Issue Srinivas a backdated letter. Issue the appointment letter dated yesterday. We will be home,' Bhalla smartly suggested.

'Bhellaa, are you sure what you are saying is appropriate, especially in front of the head of HR?' Joel suddenly took on the trademark moral and ethical high-ground stance that most international secondees project when they take on a role in India.

Bhalla suddenly realised that what he was asking Joel to do may not be appropriate and quickly backtracked.

'Haha, Joel, I was just kidding,' the nervousness in his laughter could reach Joel. 'But what do we do now?'

'Speak to Sanjit. Maybe he will be able to help. I am sorry, it is out of my control now.' Joel was quite upset with Bhalla's suggestion to backdate an appointment letter.

'Ok. Let me try.'

The next call that Bhalla made was to Sanjit. HR came voider Sanjit's direct line of control. If there was something which could be done now, Sanjit was the one who could do it. Thankfully Sanjit was in office and his secretary put the call through.

'Good morning, Sanjit.'

'Hey Bhalla, how are you, my friend? How come so early in the morning?'

'Sanjit, I am facing a small problem...,' Bhalla made Sanjit aware of the hiring issue.

'Hmm...I am aware of this direction from regional office. But you know what, Bhalla, when Michael Smith passes a directive, no one messes around with it. We cannot issue a backdated letter to Srinivas.'

How the hell did Sanjit know about this? What an ass Joel was! Even before Bhalla could call him, Joel had called up Sanjit and briefed him about the entire predicament.

'I was just kidding with Joel. Of course you know that I was not serious,' Bhalla tried to save face.

'Yes, yes...I know. I have worked with you long enough, Bhalla.'

'Anyway, let's see what can be done. Let me think about it and come back to you.' Sanjit hung up.

That evening Sanjit called back Bhalla.

'Bhalla, I have thought about the options in front of us. I have even sent feelers to the regional office and they have come back strongly on it. I seriously do not believe we have any hope in hell to hire anyone from outside. You will have to sell this job internally, to someone within the bank. But that might also be a tough job because no one will be willing to let go of people at a time when hiring replacements has become so tough.'

'Ohhhh gawwwd!' Bhalla was clearly disappointed.

'It's ok, Bhalla. We have been through worse times. And this is just a matter of three to six months. You can do your hirings after that.'

'I will get screwed in the bargain.'

'Why don't you try to hire some internal candidate? I will give you a waiver on the mandatory internal job-ad process. Identify a candidate, and if he wants to move and his boss is supportive, I will allow you to move him without advertising the job internally. This is purely on an exceptional basis.'

'Which boss will be supportive and release his team member... especially in these times? You only said that a moment ago.' Bhalla didn't seem to be encouraged.

'Yes, I know. But I also know of one such candidate, who I will be able to convince and also his boss.'

'Who?'

'Deepak Sarup. Interested?'

Sanjit dropped the bait and Bhalla fell for it. He thought for a moment and said, 'Will you talk to him? Or do you want me to do it?'

'Let me do this for you. I will speak to Deepak, Bhisham and even to Ramneek and revert to you.'

"Thanks Sanjit,' and Bhalla hung up. He felt that he had swung a deal. Sanjit smiled to himself. He had kept the last bit of the commitment that he had made to Deepak. His conscience was clear now. He could leave in peace.

Within three weeks Deepak moved as the Regional Head -Credit Card Sales for GB2 for western India.

May 2008 was his first month in his new role in GB2. Isn't life all about being in the right place at the right time and the universe conspiring in your favour? The reporter, who asked the aggressive question from Michael Smith at the AGM, had done a big favour to Deepak, who wanted to desperately move out of audit and control into a line function.

U
MAKANT Mahato owed his allegiance to the Maoists. He lived in the Jhargram area of west Midnapore in West Bengal, a town 150 kilometres west of Kolkata. That day he had come to Kolkata, all alone, by a state transport bus from his small dusty town. In Kolkata he went to Ultadanga, near the Salt Lake area, seeking a shop, whose address had been hastily scribbled on a small piece of paper.

Not many people knew where it existed. Half the people he spoke to looked at him as if he was some other-worldly creature. It could possibly have been due to his attire. He was dressed in a dirty dhoti and a vest, considered quite unusual in that area of town.

Finally he met someone who didn't know the exact location of the shop but knew the topography and guided him to a narrow lane at the far end of the road connecting the local branch of Magma Finance to Salt Lake. He entered the lane. It was crowded. It looked like a wholesale market. There were many small shops selling everything from clothes, groceries, household goods, rice, etc. Once he entered the lane, he did not have to struggle to find the address on the slip. This shop that he was looking for was on his left. It was a large ration shop dealing in wholesale quantities of rice, pulses, wheat. 'Ultadanga Kirana and General Store' announced a large board hung precariously above the narrow shutter of the shop.

From the outside he could see some activity. There were in all about six workers and four customers already in, and it wasn't even noon yet. A number of large bags of rice were stacked outside and the workers were arranging them on the steps leading to the main store. Inside the store there were over a dozen sealed and stitched bags, presumably of rice and wheat, a weighing scale and large weights indicating it was a wholesale shop. A Shopping and Establishments Act approval certificate hung on one of the walls. It looked fake but one couldn't be sure. A large picture of Goddess Lakshmi hung on the wall just behind the main counter. A fat, pot-bellied middle-aged man, josstick in hand, was making a very devoted attempt at bribing Goddess Lakshmi to endow him with some of her everlasting and never-ending wealth. By the looks of it, Goddess Lakshmi had relented.

Umakant Mahato stood outside the shop, looking at the activity inside, trying to decide whether to go in or not. He stood there staring intently at the store when one of the shop boys came to him and asked, 'Do you want something?'

'No, nothing. I want to see Shri Jagan Mohapatra. Is he there?' Mahato asked the boy.

'Bada sahib?' Then the boy pointed towards the person sitting behind the counter doing pooja. 'He is there. You see that gentleman at the counter, that's Bada sahib. Do you want to meet him now?'

'Yes. Please tell him that Uma from Jhargram is here.'

'Ok.' The boy nodded. 'I will let him know.' He walked up to the Bada sahib and told him about Uma waiting outside.

'Send him in,' Jagan roared in Bengali.

The timid shop boy immediately disappeared and came in with Umakant Mahato. After ushering him in, he quietly vanished.

'Bolo!' Jagan thundered.

'I have come from Jhargram. I was asked to see you.'

'Who sent you?'

'Sunil Mahato. He asked me to see you and give this to you. He said you will understand.' He pulled out a torn half piece of a ten rupee note. Umakant had only one half piece, which he showed to Jagan. The note was torn almost through the centre.

Jagan looked at it. He read out the currency note number on the torn half note and walked up to his table. From the bottommost drawer, he pulled out a bundle of notes. All of them were torn. In fact it was a bundle of torn half notes. He looked through the bundle as if searching for something. After rummaging through about fifteen notes, he stopped. He pulled out a half note from his bundle and stepped back towards Umakant. For the first time he smiled at him.

He held up the torn note which Umakant had given him alongside the half note that he pulled out from his bundle. The two parts of the notes fitted against each other. They were two halves of the same ten rupee note. Jagan was satisfied. Umakant was genuine. Not a decoy.

'Ok, tell me. What do you want?' Jagan asked.

Umakant took out a slip of paper from the hidden pocket in his vest and handed it over to Jagan.

Jagan took the slip, walked up to his desk again, took out his spectacles and started reading the note. When he finished, he looked up at Umakant and said, 'I may not have all of these. Stock is yet to arrive. I will give you whatever I have.'

'Hmm...ok,' said Umakant. 'Just write on the piece of paper so that I can take it back to them.'

'Don't worry. We will do all the paper work. Now come in.' He started walking towards a door at the back of the store. He had a small key in his hand. The door was locked. It seemed as if it was rarely opened.

A few workers gathered around him when he stood next to the door, opening it. 'What are you doing here?' Jagan barked and all of them scurried back to their jobs. He looked at Umakant and smiled, 'I don't want people around me when I go into this room. You never know who will open his mouth to the outside world. So the only person who enters this room is me.'

Umakant had a look of ignorance on his face as he entered the room with Jagan. He did not know what Bada sahib was talking about. It was a large, dingy room which looked like a godown. It was dark, too, and a damp smell emanated from inside. It was a restricted zone. There was, however, nothing suspicious about the stuff lying in the room. There were about twenty sacks full of what looked like rice and wheat. Pulses occupied one corner of the room. It looked like any other godown of a wholesale shop.

With his left hand Jagan fumbled for the switch board behind the door and switched on the solitary bulb in the room. It was not enough to light up the entire room which still looked very dark. He walked ahead to the farthest corner of the room where four large sacks were stacked.

'Come here. Help me to move them,' he said. Together they moved the four sacks from their positions. On the floor below the sacks was a latch. Jagan bent down and opened the latch. It was in fact a secret door, well hidden from the eyes of everyone by sacks of rice. Jagan lifted the secret door and sat down next to it. He pulled out the list from his pocket and looked at it intently, as if he was memorizing the contents of the list. He kept the list back in his pocket and bent down and started pulling out certain objects from the secret closet.

It took him five minutes to take out most of what Umakant wanted. He put the stuff on the small table adjacent to the secret compartment and then packed it neady into two boxes and sealed them.

'How are you going to pay for it?' he suddenly asked Umakant. Umakant was empty-handed; he didn't look like he was carrying cash with him. Umakant heard him and again rummaged through the secret pocket in his vest and pulled out something. It was a credit card. Jagan looked at it and smiled.

'Wait. I will now have to account for this money.' He thought for a minute and said, 'Ok. I will show it as purchase of rice. Let me give you a bill for the same. Otherwise, how will I justify this payment?' And he set about making a real bill.

After making the bill, he swiped the credit card given by Umakant and then looked at him.

'I have swiped 46,000 rupees. You have that much available in the card na?'

'Don't know, Jaganji. I was just given this and told to give it to you when you asked for payment.'

'Hmm...ok. What's your name?'

'Umakant Mahato.'

"The card is in the name of Ankush Tandon. How did it come to you?' Jagan asked him.

"They gave it, sir. They came home and gave me this card and the list and asked me to get this material from you.'

'Hmm...all right. Not for me to ask,' Jagan said to himself as the screen on the card swiping machine displayed – 'Approved' and printed the charge slip for Umakant's signature.

When Umakant began to sign, Jagan stopped him. 'Sign as Ankush, not as Umakant.' The latter who had just begun to sign his name stopped and signed as Ankush.

Within a few minutes, Jagan led him to the back door. 'Go straight, take the first right. It will lead you to the main road, which will bring you to the front of the shop. And come back in August for the balance material mentioned in the list. I will get another consignment in forty-five days' time.'

Umakant thanked him and made his way out of the godown towards the main road. In his hands were two large boxes, containing three INSAS rifles, four countrymade revolvers, gelatin sticks and improvised explosive devices. All this had to be delivered back to some people in his village. They were the same people who forced him to grow opium in his maize field. They had paid him enough to keep him and his family happy. He earned some extra income by running some errands for these guys the way he ran it for them today. It was not much of a work for him, and the money offered was good, too. To hand over this entire booty to them he would get
5,000. To him that was as much as he would make by two months of working in his field. So he happily did what he was told.

Umakant returned to Jhargram. The same night a man covering his face with a muffler came to their hut. He paid him
5,000 in cash and picked up the two boxes from him. He turned to leave the house, took a few steps and then stopped.

'Where is the credit card that I gave you?' He had nearly forgotten to take it back. Umakant got up, went towards the wall where his vest hung on a nail hurriedly forced into the brick. He pulled out the card from the secret pocket of the vest and handed it back to the person who had come to collect it. That was the last he saw of him. He did not see his face. If he ever met him on the road by chance, he would not be able to recognise him.

After the visitor had left, Umakant entered the kitchen, which was nothing but a corner in the same room, opened the sugar-box and stuffed the entire cash into it. It was to be used at an appropriate time. Not immediately.

In the first week of August 2008, Umakant made another trip to Ultadanga Kirana and General Store to get the second lot of the consignment and again paid with the card in the name of Ankush Tandon.