The Bankster (Ravi Subramanian)

by Ravi Subramanian

  ‘Juliana, the branch people tried to hide things from us. They clandestinely hid documents which could have landed them in trouble. I suspect the intent of the people in the branch. I don’t think we should be lenient towards them.’

  ‘Raymond. Don’t you get it? You have always landed in trouble by not listening to your supervisors. People warned me when I hired you in my team. But I liked you and wanted to give you a chance. Please don’t make me wonder if I was wrong at that time. Withdraw the report. And redraft it without the cheque deposit box issue. I would like to validate the report before it goes out to the branch. That’s all I called you for. Thank you.’

  Raymond stood there like an idiot, wondering why all this was happening. Where had he gone wrong? Hadn’t he been nice to the branch team till such time they tried to cheat him? He felt as though his feet were glued to the floor in shock. He didn’t like a word of what Juliana had just told him. But she was his boss and called the shots.

  ‘We are done. And now if you excuse me, I have to make a few calls, Raymond.’ With her curt response, he was brought back to reality.

  ‘Thanks, Juliana,’ was all he could say before exiting Juliana’s room. Angry and bitter, he went back to his desk. He sat down, staring blankly at his laptop screen for a few minutes. Is this the way an organization pays one back for all they have done in the past? He had given them ten years of his life. In the bargain his personal life was screwed, his wife was on the verge of leaving him. He had no savings. And now his dignity was being targeted. Today, despite his past, he was humiliated for no fault of his.

  He picked up the phone and dialled a number. ‘I need to come and see you for ten minutes. Can I come now?’

  ‘Give me fifteen minutes and then come down.’

  ‘Cool,’ and he hung up.

  Within ten minutes, he was outside Tanuja’s cabin and shown in by her secretary. He was hoping that in a professional organization like GB2, HR would intervene and set right all the issues he was facing.

  ‘What happened, Raymond? You don’t sound too good. Don’t tell me there’s an issue with your boss again.’

  ‘In fact, Tanuja, there is an issue,’ and he narrated the entire sequence of events.

  ‘Tu bhi na. . .paagal hai.’ When Tanuja said this, Raymond raised his eyebrows. ‘Why do you want to take pangas with everyone? Do your work quietly and go back home. Enjoy life. Why do you want to get involved with multiple people and fuck up your life and career?’

  ‘What? Tanuja, do you even realize what Juliana told me to do today? She asked me to withdraw a report in which I had raised serious issues. She wants me to shove it under the carpet.’

  ‘Arre bhai. It’s not like that. She wants you to take it up with the branch and resolve it informally. Why do you want to make a song and dance about it? What do you gain? Nothing, na. Look Raymond, in one’s career, it pays to be loyal to individuals. It pays to be aligned to powerful people. There is no point fucking around with powerful people because if they start fucking around with you, you will soon be dead,’ and after a pause, added, ‘professionally dead.’

  ‘Who are you talking about? Juliana?’

  ‘No. Why do you want to get into Vikram’s bad books? See, even Juliana wants to keep him humoured. Indrani likes him. Why would you want to take him on by screwing his branches and his favourite RM?’

  ‘Favourite RM?’

  ‘Yeah. Don’t you know Zinaida is his favourite RM?’

  ‘No I didn’t know that, but how does that matter? And what should I do if his people are running riot in the branches?’

  ‘You think he doesn’t know?’

  ‘I’m not sure he knows.’

  ‘He’s not a dickhead, Raymond. I’m sure he has enough control over his people. And secondly, boss, in this bank there are a lot of people who would want to be Zinaida’s saviour. Don’t even try to kill her career in this bank. Even before you realize, you will be history. Just in case you didn’t know this, she was the only MT in her batch that was not hired from MBA campus. She was hired from the market and she is not even a management graduate. That should tell you something about her contacts. Just be careful.’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’

  ‘Look, Raymond. You are smart. I’ve told you what I wanted to. What do you want to do? If you go against Juliana or, more importantly, Vikram, you might become a hero. . .or maybe you will be out of the bank in fifteen days and I might have no control over it. It’s your call now.’

  Raymond didn’t say anything. He was lost in deep thought, when Tanuja spoke again. ‘Chal, I have another meeting. Kuch problem ho toh phone karna. Thoda chill kar yaar. Why do you stress yourself so much?’

  Raymond got up and left the room, completely disgruntled and frustrated.

  ‘Raymond came to see me. Just left,’ said Tanuja on the phone.

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘Told him not to fuck around with anyone, particularly you,’ and then started giggling before adding, ‘That’s my birthright honey. . .only mine.’

  ‘Hahahaha, of course,’ Vikram guffawed, before he hung up.

  Within the next forty-eight hours Anand got a mail from Raymond with a cc marked to Nikhil and Vikram, which just had two lines in it.

  Dear Anand,

  The Audit report sent to you two days ago is withdrawn due to some internal inconsistencies. We will repeat the audit at a future date.

  Regards,

  Raymond.

  Though Anand was happy with the retraction of the report, he was left wondering what had happened over the last forty-eight hours to change the course of action.

  15

  Spencer’s Store, Malad

  28th January 2012

  Mumbai

  Inorbit mall in Malad was teeming with hundreds of people that Saturday. It seemed as if all of Mumbai had descended on one of the oldest shopping paradises in the suburbs. The Mumbai winter, hardly cold enough to be called winter, was in decline and almost all the shops had a sale on, because of which the footfalls were staggering.

  The person at the billing counter at the Spencer store inside the mall had the look of a very harassed man. Steve (that’s what the badge pinned to his chest said) looked up from his desk and saw a long queue of people waiting to be served. Over the last fifteen minutes, it was the sixth time he had lifted his head up to take stock and each time it was bigger. Hurriedly, he stole a look at his wrist watch—there was still time for his shift to end. ‘Goddamn,’ he cursed under his breath and went back to billing. Each shift of his was four and a half hour long. Another three hours to go before someone else would relieve him of his cash duties. A thousand thoughts weighed heavily on his mind as he scanned the bar code on one item after the other. It was a monotonous job. After all the work they did, most customers didn’t even bother to say thank you. The lady on the other side of his counter signed on the charge slip and handed it back to him. Steve collected the charge slip, opened the cash tray, slipped the charge slip into a pre-designated section and pushed the tray back in. Time for the next customer to be billed.

  He started scanning the barcodes on the items the next customer bought—a steam press, two kilogrammes cashew, expensive imported chocolates, four bottles of wine and a lot of other stuff. ‘Bill amount is rupees twenty-eight thousand, six hundred and forty-eight, sir’, he said and looked up. One glance at the customer, a quick look at the queue and he looked back at the screen in front of him. Something was not right. ‘Maybe he’s just an errand boy,’ he muttered to himself as he punched in ‘Cash’ as the mode of payment. ‘Rupees twenty-eight thousand, six hundred and forty-eight, sir. . .’ and as an afterthought he added, ‘Do you want a carry bag, sir? We charge for it.’

  The customer just nodded. He brought his hand up, dipped into his shirt pocket and whipped out a credit card.

  ‘Oh, you’re paying by card?’ He noticed the card came out of the shirt pocket. Normally, card users carry it in their wallet. His antenn
a went up almost instantaneously.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am so sorry, I thought you were going to pay by cash. Please give me a minute, I have to change it on the system.’ Steve then got busy. Changing the mode of payment on his billing system, he also buzzed his supervisor to come to his counter. Such changes had to be explicitly authorized by the supervisor. In this case, he wanted his supervisor to also take a look at the customer.

  In no time, Steve’s supervisor was at the counter. Steve whispered something to him. The supervisor heard him out and discretely evaluated the customer from head to toe.

  ‘Is this your card sir?’

  ‘Mine. My card.’ The customer couldn’t speak proper English.

  ‘What’s your full name, sir?’ The supervisor asked him again.

  ‘On the card. It written.’

  ‘I can read that sir, but I am asking you,’ this time the supervisor was firm. The customer mumbled his name.

  ‘Is this your card, sir? Where do you stay?’

  ‘Why? Why should I tell you?’ the customer demanded. He clamped up and became tense and edgy. This was signal enough for the supervisor; something was definitely out of place.

  ‘Do you mind stepping this side for a moment, sir?’ requested the supervisor. But the customer knew it was not a request, it was a clear instruction.

  ‘Why? What problem?’

  ‘Sir, please step aside, you are blocking the queue.’ By this time, two burly security personnel had also stepped up next to the customer. They didn’t hold him, but they left no ambiguity in his mind that if he tried to scoot, they would not hesitate.

  Steve and the supervisor, followed by two guards, led the customer to the waiting room. Steve excused himself and made a few calls. In no time, Shankar and Unmukt, two officers from the fraud control team at GB2 who had dashed to the store on getting the call from Steve, joined them.

  After an hour of interrogation, a call went out to the local police station and the cops were called in. By the time the saga ended, a handcuffed Lyndon was led out of the store by the cops, for attempting to use a credit card that was not his.

  ‘People have become very careless with their credit cards these days,’ Shankar looked at Unmukt and said. ‘Lyndon has been using this guy’s card and our man doesn’t even know that his card has been stolen.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Unmukt replied. ‘Let’s call the customer and tell him his stolen card has been recovered. Hopefully then he’ll realize that his card was stolen.’

  ‘What kind of people have cards and don’t even realize it’s been stolen?’

  ‘Rich, very rich ones, who have many cards and are also quite careless about their money and accessories,’ Unmukt replied patiently.

  ‘But, you know. We also run a screwed-up process. . .’ Shankar mused. Unmukt looked at him. ‘As in?’

  ‘It could also be this guy reported the card lost or stolen and our team fucked up and missed hot-listing the card.’

  ‘Possible. Very possible. I won’t put it past our team to have committed such a screw-up.’ They smiled at each other as one of them pressed the button on his car key to lock his car. They walked out of the parking towards their office building.

  ‘Let’s finish fast. The party would have begun,’ Shankar said, as they settled down at their workstations next to each other.

  Shankar hurriedly logged into the cards system using his ID and blocked the card—that was the process.

  ‘Shankar,’ Unmukt called out to him. ‘The card is with the cops, the fraudster is in their custody. It is a Saturday, so no courts will be open and Lyndon will be safely in lock-up till Monday. Why can’t we just leave for the party and come back and handle this Monday morning? There is no financial implication in any case.’ The rest of the fraud control team was in Madh Island, celebrating a great year gone by.

  ‘Not a bad idea. Let’s quickly send a case report and leave.’

  Both of them drafted a short note to their supervisor, giving him the details of the case, and quickly logged off from their laptops. They were getting late for the Madh Island jamboree.

  16

  Vienna

  29th January 2012

  Harshita’s trip to Austria and Switzerland was one of the most exciting vacations that she had ever taken. Frustration at work was so high it was festering negativity in her—it threatened to destroy her pleasing personality, her work and, possibly even her marriage. It was her quest to maintain sanity that made her walk up to Anand and ask him for permission to take some time off. Thankfully her visa had come on time.

  It was not difficult to decide on Vienna. Harshita was a student of history, keenly interested in music and architecture and in Vienna one would find remarkable architecture, loads of artistic treasures and museums. What skewed the decision in Vienna’s favour was the city’s tryst with music. No other city in the world could boast of such diversity in its music and of being the home to scores of great musicians.

  Architecturally, Vienna was a delight. Majestic buildings dating back centuries dotted the impressive Ringstrasse—a five-kilometre horseshoe-shaped boulevard, which began and ended at the Danube canal. Together with the canal, Ringstrasse completely encircled the city. No visit to Vienna was complete without spending a day walking up and down the Ringstrasse.

  A walk down the exquisitely delightful gardens of Schonbrunn palace was like a dream come true for Harshita. This was the first time she and Siddhartha were on vacation in over five years and she wanted it to last forever.

  The sight-seeing bus of the Panorama Tours and Travels drove into the gates of Hofburg Palace and stopped. The tour guide started off in French, which neither Harshita nor Siddhartha could understand. Thankfully, she repeated everything in English. Though German was spoken all over Austria, their guided tour had a mix of English and French speaking tourists, which explained the tour guide’s diction. The entire history of the centuries-old Hofburg Palace was communicated in all of four minutes. ‘So much for compression of facts,’ said Siddhartha, smiling at Harshita.

  ‘We will be here for the next thirty minutes,’ the guide said into the microphone. ‘Please be back in time people, else you will have to walk out through these gates and take a cab back to your hotels.’

  Harshita looked at the overbuilt and bulky Siddhartha. ‘Only thirty minutes. What the hell?’

  ‘It’s okay. Let’s get down and see. If we like it, we will let the coach go and explore on our own.’ That made Harshita smile. ‘Okay, let’s go!’ She picked up her bag, her camera and with a wide grin walked out of the coach. Siddhartha had to puff and pant to keep pace with her.

  The moment they got off the coach, Harshita’s phone rang. She looked at the screen, smiled, but didn’t pick it up. International roaming was too expensive. If there was anything important, the caller would SMS or email her. She dropped the phone deep inside her handbag. The next thirty minutes were pure bliss. Siddhartha and Harshita visited every corner of the Hofburg Palace, clicked hundreds of pictures to show off to friends and family back home, and also a few interesting ones to be put up on Facebook. By the time they were done, their thirty minutes were almost up. They were a good five-minute walk from the bus. Harshita ran and Siddhartha followed suit. Luckily the bus was just pulling out of its parking place when Harshita saw it and flagged it down. Hurriedly she got in and waited for Siddhartha to come. As she settled into her seat, she could hear a muffled noise. It was her phone ringing. She dug into her bag and pulled it out. It was the same caller.

  ‘Who is it?’ By then, Siddhartha was lowering himself into the seat next to her.

  She just turned the phone towards him so he could see who the caller was.

  ‘Oh, okay. Why don’t you take the call?’

  ‘Mad or what? You know na, how expensive international roaming is? From Day One I have been staying away from all unimportant calls. The only calls I will pick up are mom’s and dad’s, both yours and mine.’ She was about to put t
he phone back, when she stopped.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed. The shiver in her voice startled Siddhartha, who cut short his last few moments of admiring the Hofburg Palace through the bus window and turned to look at his wife. ‘What happened?’

  Harshita had a shocked look on her face and the screen of her phone was turned towards him. On the screen was a notification: ‘14 missed calls’. And next to it was one number. ‘Something seems to be wrong. I think you should call him back,’ advised Siddhartha on seeing the screen.

  ‘Wait. I don’t want to call him now. Let me check my mail when we get Wi-Fi next and then, if need be, I will call him. He would surely have sent me an email if it was so important. Else I will Skype him from the hotel in the evening. Wi-Fi in the room is free.’

  ‘You and your obsession with free stuff,’ smiled Siddhartha, looking out, back to admiring the streets of Vienna.

  ‘The coach will now stop at the Parlament,’ announced the obese guide who had a sexy voice. ‘The Austrian Parliament building is where the two houses of the Austrian parliament sit. Dating back to the late nineteenth century, this imposing structure has a span of over 13,500 sq metres. Built in Greek style, this is one of the largest buildings on the Ringstrasse. Please do not forget to take pictures at the Athena fountain, at the entrance of the Parlament. The fountain, ladies and gentlemen, was not part of the initial design but a late addition. You have twenty minutes here. The coach will pick you up from the parking lot outside the Café Coffee Day outlet fifty metres down the Ringstrasse to your right.’ She bent down and pointed in the front, straight out of the windscreen of the bus. ‘Can you see the purple signboard in front of us? That’s the Café Coffee Day outlet.’

  Despite her belligerence, Harshita couldn’t ignore the fourteen missed calls; they distracted her. She worried about what could have caused all those calls. She was lost in thought; the only time she really paid any attention to what the tour guide was saying was when she heard Café Coffee Day. ‘CCD? In Vienna?’ Harshita looked surprised. Back in Mumbai, Siddhartha and she would go on late night coffee dates. CCD was one of their favourite places. Even in the days Siddhartha was dating her, the Carter Road CCD outlet was their regular haunt.