Nothing Lasts Forever - No Secret Can Stay Buried

by Vish Dhamija

  'Where's Serena?' Sonny asked, looking around the living room.

  'She's still getting ready.'

  'You've got a very beautiful wife, I must say.'

  'Thank you.'

  'Want to have a look at my portfolio?' Sonny pointed towards his sloppily dropped camel leather bag.

  'What's the need to dash into it, we've got all evening.'

  Serena came out of her room a few minutes later wearing a dark pink knee length dress with a corset-style waist in viscose that gripped her narrow waistline to highlight her petite frame. It had flared sleeves and the wrap over the front provided a provocatively high slit, in case it was required to impinge on Sonny's attention. 'There you are, gorgeous,' Sonny said getting up to welcome her.

  'Hello, Sonny.'

  Raaj was sitting on the sofa opposite Sonny. Serena leisurely walked over and sat on its arm, paying special attention to flash just a little bit of leg for Sonny to notice.

  Raaj looked at Sonny. 'Do you want to come to my makeshift office or would you have a drink first?'

  'Let's have a drink and forget the office. We can see these papers over a drink. I don't mind Serena being around. There's nothing professional between you and me.'

  'As you wish, but remember I don't want you to trust me blindly. All decisions should be yours, though I will guide you like before — however, for a fee from now onwards.' Raaj smiled as he got up to make the drinks. 'What will you have?'

  'I'll have some Bacardi, please.'

  Raaj returned with the drinks for all three of them.

  'Cheers to you and Serena. I wish you all the success in the new business.'

  'Cheers.'

  Sonny got up and opened his bag to show the contents. The business card on the file showed him as one of the directors in his father's business, signifying where the money came from, and not as the professional chef that he was.

  'That's a great card. I like the embossed hologram on it,' Raaj complimented the moment he saw it, suddenly realising that this careless goldmine could be helpful in more ways than one.

  'It's unique. Not many printers do this kind of stuff in the country yet.'

  'I haven't yet thought of a logo for my new company and this gives me an idea.' Raaj's mind was racing miles ahead now.

  'My dad's company gets it printed in Bombay, I can introduce the printer to you.'

  'Great. Thanks. I don't want to get too creative with a logo that cannot be printed. I would like to visit him first to understand the printing technologies and jargon.'

  'Of course; my dad gives him so much business in a year that he would provide you with all the time and information you want if I gave him a call.'

  'Thanks.'

  Sonny's portfolio was in a glorious mess. He had some good blue-chip stocks bought on Raaj's advice, but a large accumulation consisted of relatively unknown and scarcely traded companies. Raaj looked at the share certificates and saw that over ninety percent of the portfolio hadn't been transferred, yet, to Sonny's name. Serena, who gazed at the papers, instantaneously understood what Raaj had explained to her on their honeymoon.

  'May I suggest that you sell some of this junk to consolidate into a few good stocks?' Raaj commented after a quick browse through Sonny's entire portfolio.

  'Anything you say. I can leave them with you.'

  'I cannot give you a receipt since my company is not registered and I don't even have any stationery at the moment…'

  'Don't embarrass me, Raaj,' Sonny said, stealing a glance at Serena who moved a bit. He thought he saw a little more skin.

  The evening was good. They agreed to sort out Sonny's portfolio with Raaj tasked to sell the identified, useless shares and buy some great performing ones that should provide good returns in a few years. Sonny was pleased that he wouldn't have to run around for all his work since, for a moderate fee, Raaj would henceforth take care of all his investments. They had a few drinks and Sonny helped the hosts by providing the final garnish to the dinner. He was too drunk to ride his motorcycle by the end of the evening and hence the hosts gladly offered him the spare bedroom in their apartment.

  ***

  'I told you he would be the best to start with. Did you notice he didn't have a large part of his high value shares transferred to him and he's been holding them for years now? Who knows how many hands those certificates have passed through before they've ended in this thickhead's portfolio?' Raaj told Serena after Sonny left in the morning.

  'I saw that when you looked at them.'

  'I knew you would.'

  'How much is he worth?'

  'Quite a lot, though I will have to run some numbers to estimate them better, sweetheart.'

  'You're a genius,' she complimented.

  'Thanks, sweetheart.' Raaj accepted the compliment and blew a kiss to his wife.

  'I love you.'

  Sonny fixed an appointment for Raaj with the printer for the next week. Raaj visited the site and spent an entire day asking questions on logos, holograms, embossing, serial numbers for receipts and other stationery, different kinds of papers, inks, colours, kinds of printing and timelines required for complicated tasks. By the time he left he could write a white paper on printing. All it required, now, was to find the precise printing press for the plan to progress.

  ***

  Bangkok

  End-1993

  The Bangkok vacation at the end of the year was also a business trip for Raaj and Serena. He had scouted for printers in non-English speaking counties and zeroed in on Thailand. He took Serena along with him so that it seemed like another honeymoon for the newlyweds. They parked themselves in Menam Riverside Hotel and wandered in the market for a printer — he had shortlisted a few already — till he found Mr Chalong who struggled to say a word, after hello, in English. Raaj pretended he was working on a confidential case with some important documents, and he ought to be present on site when the printing went on, and hence it would be ideal if Mr Chalong could run his printing operation for a couple of nights. It was quite a conversation, with Raaj carrying an English-Thai dictionary, to convey that he would be around to help choose the paper and type the actual words on the page and Mr Chalong would need to focus on managing the layout, the designing, colours and the technology. Two nights of hard work and Raaj had more script printed than he could possibly use in a decade. He had already noted from his visit to the Bombay printer that the serial numbers were stamped later and not a print job.

  'All done, sweetheart,' he announced walking into the hotel room with the loaded bag.

  'Let's do something different tonight,' Serena said excitedly.

  'Heard of Patpong?'

  'You mean the notorious place?'

  'Adult entertainment is a better description.'

  'Will I be comfortable watching that?'

  'You're the one who asked for something different.'

  'What should I wear?'

  'Nothing. Most of the women who perform there wear nothing,' he said it with a smile, keeping the bag securely in the corner.

  Patpong had some really vibrant market streets, with stalls that spilled on to the pavement, trying to sell anything from cheap souvenirs to adult toys to fake electronics.

  'Buy me a fancy watch, please,' Serena urged, as they passed one of the street vendors.

  'You know I hate fakes,' Raaj quipped.

  'You are such a convincing liar.'

  'I'll buy you an original soon, sweetheart. Very soon.'

  ***

  Bombay

  1994

  Back in Bombay, Raaj started his counterfeiting operation with gusto. He found larger and more imprudent fishes in addition to Sonny, and they all looked comfortable when they received the counterfeit certificates. Meeting Kim in early 1994 was a bonus. She came with a large circle of financially-illiterate, cash-rich friends and friends of friends. When Kim met Raaj for the first time she was surprised to learn that he ran a successful finance company. 'If I did not know Raaj, and had me
t him at the local brassiere, I might have exhausted all my guesses and never thought he was a finance guru,' she had told Serena later. 'My friends would love to grow their wealth with someone like Raaj, who is so untypical of a finance broker… I mean he is so much like any of us.'

  'Thank you Kim,' Serena smiled accepting the compliment on her choice of guy.

  The prices of the stocks that Raaj recommended to his clients soared in the next eighteen months and his commissions rolled in, that was all in addition to building his own portfolio of original share certificates that he could sell later. With money coming in and their investments growing, they bought a sea-facing apartment in Worli that symbolised their success, and rented out the one they were staying in. The new place was in an older building, but large enough to house both their home and Raaj's office. It had three en-suite bedrooms, and a study that lay between the master bedroom and the huge living and large dining area, this opened into a small balcony with sea views. They allowed some time for a reputable builder to plaster the walls and paint them in an ivory matte finish, and change the ancient lighting to recessed halogens in the ceilings that could be directed at the paintings and other objects d'art in the house, as well as carry out modifications to make the study room into a working office.

  Serena was thrilled at the whole idea of a new place to decorate, since they had left the old apartment with the furniture and fittings to be rented out. They constituted the only inheritance Raaj had from his father's side — an old family Persian carpet in an uncommon earth and pale blue colour that he had carried to Bombay after his mother's death. He had done this because she had lovingly displayed and taken care of it for over three decades, not because of any attachment he had to his father. The carpet was handmade of silk and wool, with tassles on all four sides. The natural dyes had aged beautifully, making it worth a small fortune. Kim was a great help in taking Serena around to shop for antique furniture and new furnishings. Raaj selected all the electronics without any help from anyone. It took them a while, but both of them enjoyed setting up their new home.

  The Worli residence brought them closer to the more financially sound-but-ignorant crowd.

  24

  Mumbai

  January 1996

  Bombay changed to Mumbai in 1995 but there was another big, unforeseen change coming. 'What happened?' Serena asked as she saw Raaj looking dour when she walked into the house after being at the office.

  'We're done.' Raaj sounded ominous.

  Serena hadn't seen Raaj so dejected since his mother's death. He pointed towards the newspaper kept at his office desk. She scanned through the headlines.

  The Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) announced the dematerialisation of physical (paper) share certificates to bring all the shares — and the holding individuals or organisations — to book. Every individual that held shares would now have to dematerialise these holdings and trade through Demat bank accounts, which would record all transactions. As in the developed Western economies, people could no longer hold and trade paper shares without the companies knowing who the actual owners were. Every time a deal took place, it would be recorded in the books through the banks. SEBI gave a window of two years for the companies and banks to work out the modalities.

  'This means…' she started.

  'This means we are headed towards the end. We're finished, ruined.'

  'What do we do now?' She was shaking dreadfully.

  'I can't think of anything.'

  Raaj lit up in desperation. The omens certainly did not look good. Serena had already started shuddering at the sheer thought of the people around them — in fact everywhere — getting to know about the fraud. Nothing spells doom more than being a target for schadenfreude at parties or the office. Then, prison...

  'You said they would never be able to trace the source.' It was more a question than a statement from Serena.

  'But I didn't know we would have to rush things. If I had more time, I could have made some more deals to distance myself from the counterfeit certificates. Two years is all I've got, and too frequent transactions would raise eyebrows. There's a limit to how fast I can run.' He belligerently hit his fist on the desk.

  'Calm down. Let's have a drink. I'm sure we can think of something.' Serena tried comforting him.

  All the recent success in which Raaj had revelled appeared to be heading towards a grotesque end at high speed. His magnificent plan had turned into a terrible disaster, a nightmare. He lost his balance totally by the evening, having too many drinks, too quickly. The couple sat in Raaj's home-office drinking till midnight, without much communication, absolutely unmindful of the time or anything around them. The evening had passed like a wrist slashing session as a dangerous uncertainty hovered all around. Serena, eventually, convinced him that they sleep on the problem and that might help figure out some approach.

  'Promise me one thing, sweetheart,' Raaj expressed as they got into bed.

  'What?'

  'If something happens to me, do not ever admit to anyone that you had been a part of it or, even, knew about it. It was totally my plan and as I am the sole owner…'

  'Don't be a nitwit, Raaj… and you promise me that you will not do anything brainless. It was our plan, we will think of a way to get out of it,' Serena said in a very stern tone.

  ***

  She took the rest of the week off from work to be with Raaj. She felt uncomfortable in leaving him alone, given his current state of mind and the kind of conversations he had with her the night before.

  'There is no way out,' Raaj told Serena when she got tea for them in the morning.

  'You are more intelligent than this, Raaj. You cannot give up so easily.'

  'Let me think.' For all his bravado, he knew that the chances to succeed in getting out of the mess he had created were very slim, almost nonexistent. 'Aren't you going to the office?' he asked.

  'I have taken a few days off.'

  'Don't do that. We must not show any signs of this blow to anyone.'

  'I told them you weren't well, so its okay, I'll go back to work from Monday. Let's relax.'

  They stayed home for the rest of the week but could not think of any solution.

  'What if we admit what we've done and inform the police?' Serena suggested.

  'Will they forgive us? Have you lost your mind?'

  'What if we buy all the fake ones back?' Another one.

  'How can we do that? Some of them might have changed countless hands by now. Besides, where's the cash?'

  The spectrum of serious possibilities was decreasing with every idea falling short. Raaj was fazed, beset by the problem. He couldn't decide whether he had been overconfident, foolhardy or a complete idiot by rushing into his plan a couple of years ago. He certainly hadn't foreseen this catastrophic development and could not think of any escape from the dreadful consequences. The thought of devastation and dark clouds led him into a self-evoked trance for a while. Faced with the need for a bail-out to cover his disastrous bet, Raaj needed an idea. There was no simple answer.

  Sadly, there was no answer.

  Kim invited them to a party as she had got herself a new painting in lieu of a big contract. It wasn't a big brand name to endorse, but visibility in her profession was paramount. She had started getting offers after the assignment with Serena's bank, and she wanted to show her gratitude. Raaj and Serena considered opting out, but Kim wouldn't budge. She was willing to change the day and date to suit their schedules. They accepted the invite fearing that their absence could send unwarranted signals. 'Let's go. It will take our minds off this mess for a while but remember to remain calm. No one should even get a whiff of it,' Raaj advised.

  'I agree. I'm sure we will find a way out.' Serena comforted him by coming close and putting her head on his chest.

  How? Raaj thought.

  'I'll think of something. Sometimes one has to find a new way to look at the same problem, to find a solution. Let's not lose hope, sweetheart.' He put
his arms round her trying his best to sound undaunted.

  Kim had received a signature piece of art — it was a true beauty. Moreover, she had completed the furnishing of her pretty house. She paired the new painting with her own skimpily clad photograph on the opposite wall. Women at the party were awed by the painting. Men drooled over her photograph.

  'Kim, why don't you wear something like that when you invite us over?'

  'You mean wear something or not wear much?'

  'Whatever. With a body like hers…'

  Raaj hit the bar. Sonny was there to match his drinks so it looked more like the guys were bonding rather than Raaj drinking due to any stress. Serena warned him a few times during the evening until Kim told her to stop nagging. Listening to some of his conversation, with the other guys, Serena realised that Raaj was still advising them on the financial markets and recommending stocks, which was a solace, as it was an indication that he was coming out of the depression she had seen him in since the alarming news. She had immense faith in his capabilities and was very confident that he could work his way out of the most terrible mess of their lives, if he applied himself. When they left after dinner at midnight, Serena drove, as Raaj had been drinking all evening. Being a party animal, he had done it a few times in the past so this was not any disclosure of their troubles. But he seemed especially down at the moment. 'Everything could be sorted, if I die...' he started.

  Serena screeched to a halt on the side of the road. 'You say that one more time and I will kill myself,' she yelled at him and burst into tears. Serena had hardly ever raised her voice before this. She was more the sulking kind if things went wrong, or they had split hairs over something in the past. This was a totally new version of Serena that he saw; frustration combined with fear, forgery and misfortune had fired her up. 'Raaj, we got into this together. Why are you being so diffident? You are not a weak man...I know you can think of a way out.'