Bankerupt (Ravi Subramanian)

by Ravi Subramanian

  ‘Not as ridiculous as the genesis of this research, James.’

  ‘What if I disagree with the two of you?’

  ‘As I said, you will not be able to publish this research as an MIT-sponsored research.’

  ‘And how could you deny me that right?’

  ‘You need three peer reviews to get this research published,’ the dean said. His body language was aggressive. Meier had been balanced in his approach and communication, but the dean was arrogant and aggressive. This did not go down well with Deahl.

  ‘Oh. So you will make sure that no one from the faculty at MIT reviews my research. This kind of arm-twisting is appalling. I guess I will need to talk to my lawyer, gentlemen, before I do anything further about this.’ Deahl got up and walked out of the room in a huff. As he was exiting the room, he turned, looked at the dean and thundered, ‘My three peer reviewers don’t necessarily have to be this university’s faculty. The peer review can be from any individual of repute and standing. I hope you realize that! You can’t stop the world from reviewing my research. Can you?’ He turned and walked out of the room. Deahl had no fear. After all, he was a long-term tenured professor.

  Meier smiled. He looked at the dean and said, ‘You ticked him off. He will not put it up for peer review now.’

  Cardoza didn’t share his confidence. ‘Don’t underestimate James. We don’t even know what he is capable of.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Meier stepped in. ‘Even if he puts it up for a peer review, he has to keep the OSP informed. Once he does that, I will bring in sanctions on the project citing misconduct. The university rules give me adequate authority to do so, as long as the investigation gets completed in a hundred and twenty days. So we have time to figure out what to do.’ He turned to Cardoza and said, ‘Michael, can you please inform the OSP to keep me posted if and when James puts it up for peer review.’

  ‘Sir,’ Cardoza acknowledged as he got up to go. There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Coffee!’

  The hundred and twenty days that the university rules gave him to investigate any wrongdoing would be enough to figure out a way to scuttle the issue. At least that’s what the provost thought.

  31

  End-February 2008

  MIT, Boston

  A furious Meier stormed into Cardoza’s room. The latter was in a discussion with the dean on some academic and student-related issues. Meier was clearly agitated as he walked up to Cardoza’s table and, in one swift action, he lifted his right hand and banged what he was carrying down on the table. A loud thud echoed.

  ‘Were you aware of this?’

  Cardoza rose from his chair. It was impolite of him to have continued sitting when the provost was standing. The door opened. His secretary walked in hurriedly. Cirisha was standing behind her. Her India project was over and she was back to her Boston–Mumbai grind. Both of them had rushed in hearing the loud noise. It had sounded as if something had collapsed.

  ‘It’s OK. Nothing to worry about.’ Cardoza faked a smile and hastened to add, ‘Cirisha, don’t go away. I need to talk to you after this meeting. Hang around.’

  ‘Yes, Michael.’ The door shut behind them.

  Cardoza flipped through what Meier had flung on his table. He didn’t like the look of it. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘No clue. I will get him. We had specifically told him not to do it. And what does he do? Just the opposite.’ The provost was fuming.

  ‘It’s a free country, provost. You will not be able to stop him. At least legally you cannot.’

  ‘Now I know why the OSP did not get any intimation of a peer review request being sent out. It’s simple. He didn’t send one out. That arrogant son of a bitch.’ Everyone in the room was shocked. They had never heard the provost mouth profanities before.

  ‘Let’s talk to him. Maybe he can explain his actions.’ It was a poor attempt at calming him down.

  ‘Talk to him? You must be kidding. This calls for action. Send out a message to the disciplinary committee. Call a meeting in an hour. If the members are in the classrooms, send someone and ask them to assemble in my room.’ And he walked out.

  Cardoza heard the door slam shut. But he didn’t look in that direction. His eyes and his mind were focused on the book Meier had slammed on his table.

  On the cover, in bold letters, were the words Staring Down the Barrel. Authored by James Deahl. Instinctively, his hands reached out for it and he flipped open the cover. On the first page was a message. ‘Dear Gordon, with best wishes … Hope you enjoy reading this. James Deahl.’ Along with it was a bookmark prominently displaying the Barnes & Noble logo. ‘In all Barnes & Noble Stores, March onwards.’

  There was a feeble knock on his door.

  ‘Michael?’ It was Cirisha.

  ‘Come on in.’ He was still flipping through the book.

  ‘What’s this, Michael?’

  ‘James decided to give the peer reviews a skip. Instead of getting it published as a research paper in one of our research journals, he has gone ahead and published it as a book. A hardback which will be available in all bookstores. Accessible to anyone who wants to buy and read.’

  ‘What?’ she exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that inappropriate?’

  ‘Yes, morally speaking. Though legally, he is well within his rights. As long as it is a sponsored project and the university does not pump in its grants, he can do it. Article 4.3.12, para seventeen of the research guidelines gives him that right.’ And he went back to flipping through the pages. ‘Though I have never seen anyone exercise this right ever. James is a smart cookie.’

  32

  March 2008

  India

  In early 2008, GB2 was hit by unprecedented losses worldwide. The subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–08 had taken its toll. GB2 had bought Mortgage-Backed Security (MBS) from the market, which were subprime in nature. In late 2007, a number of Americans stopped making payments on their home loans; to make matters worse, the real estate market tanked on account of massive foreclosures and the MBSs were not even worth the paper they were written on. With billions of dollars in open position on the MBSs, GB2 was faced with a crisis. And as most organizations in that situation, GB2 too had a knee-jerk reaction. The businesses were realigned. Investment banking was downsized and severe restrictions were imposed on how the investment banking business was conducted across the globe. It was like killing the goose that laid the golden egg, but desperate situations called for desperate measures. GB2 was forced to show the market that it was in control of the situation. India too was impacted.

  Against this backdrop, Aditya’s nervousness when Kevin Moore, the CEO, called him for an unplanned meeting, was only natural. The CEO had also requested the HR head to be present. Only the previous afternoon, a Sunday, Aditya and Moore were playing a game of golf together. Moore had not mentioned anything to him then.

  Aditya walked into the CEO’s cabin and found him seated at the far end of the room. Seated next to him was the HR head, Piyush Shrivastava. Aditya was flummoxed. Why was HR in the meeting? ‘You wanted to see me, Kevin?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes, Aditya. Please take a seat.’

  ‘What happened? Hope all is well.’

  ‘Not really, Aditya. We would like you to read this, before we begin.’ And he handed him a letter.

  Cirisha took a flight out of Boston the same night. Whatever be the reason for his sacking, she couldn’t have left him on his own. She had made up her mind to give him a chance to explain. If he was not able to, she would then decide on the next course of action.

  33

  March–April 2008

  Boston

  The disciplinary committee meeting chaired by Meier ended in a stalemate. A strong pro-faculty lobby shot down Meier’s demand for action, including possible termination for Deahl. Conflicting perspectives emerged. And when the meeting ended, all that Meier could do was to push a resolution curtailing Deahl’s teaching duties, the rationale being that if he was a
llowed to freely mingle with the student community, he was likely to dump his ideology on unsuspecting students.

  Staring Down the Barrel released on the designated day to a fabulous response. In no time, the book flew off the shelves. Scandalous excerpts from the book had been leaked to select sections of the press. Deahl was all over the papers and on television. The New York Times reviewed the book on the day of its release and gave it a thumbs up. As a result, in the first week of release, the book became a non-fiction bestseller on all the three major lists: New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA-Today. This was just the beginning.

  On the electoral front things were heating up. The North Carolina and Indiana Democratic primaries were to be held on 6th May. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigned extensively before that. The contest thus far was too close for the NRA’s comfort. They had a single-point agenda: keep the Democrats out of power and even if they did manage to win, make sure it wasn’t Obama who would be President. For the NRA, Deahl’s book couldn’t have come at a better time. They bought space in leading newspapers to campaign against Obama’s perceived anti-gun ideology and the book was their tool, their bible, which proved that crime was not related to proliferation of guns amongst the masses. Tighter gun-control laws were not required nor were they good enough to build a robust, progressive country of peace-loving people.

  In all this chaos, one man gained. Deahl had become an overnight star. There was a swagger in his walk. An arrogance in his approach. He had publicly defied the higher-ups in the university and they couldn’t do anything about it.

  One evening in the last week of March, Richard went to meet Cirisha. Her cabin was locked. He looked around. The entire floor was dark, save the far end where Cardoza’s room was located. He walked towards it, only to see Louisa typing away furiously. She looked up and saw Richard.

  ‘Hey Richard, what brings you here? You are on the wrong floor.’ She raised her finger and pointed upstairs. That was the floor where Deahl and his team had their workspace.

  Richard smiled. ‘How are you? I came to meet Cirisha.’ It was more of a question.

  ‘She is in India, sweetheart.’

  ‘Isn’t she back yet? She had told me that she would be back in office today.’

  ‘Change of plans. Should be back on the 30th.’ She smiled back at him and noticed that he was sweating profusely. ‘Is everything OK, Richard? You are sweating badly!’ It was not particularly hot in there.

  ‘A fencing tournament is on. I’m coming straight from there. Try getting into that gear and jump around a few times. It really gets your body temperature racing.’

  That night he called Cirisha in India. It was early morning and she was awake and working, responding to a few emails …

  ‘So 2nd April it is. Wow! I’m so happy for you. You will rock it, Richard! Have faith.’

  ‘I know. I qualify on all parameters. That I did even last time around, but things didn’t work out. This time I am worried that this Staring Down the Barrel controversy will turn the entire faculty against me. After all, I was assisting James in this.’

  ‘Look, Richard. Can you wish it away? You can’t. A few in the faculty will be jealous of James’s success and fame. Some of them will be genuinely irritated because of what James did. But you shouldn’t worry about what everyone thinks. There are four people who will make your tenure decision. The dean, Michael and two others on the committee. The dean will vote against. Michael will play straight. That’s the way I have known him. Others, I don’t know.’ And then she paused, hoping for a reaction. ‘Richard, you can’t go into this discussion assuming that they are all against you. It’s a matter of life and death for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Richard, ‘life and death,’ and hung up. It was quite abrupt. She went into the kitchen, got herself a cup of hot water, picked up a sachet of green tea and walked back to her laptop. On the way, she heard a chime, indicating that she had received a new email. By the time she reached her laptop there was another chime. She settled down at her desk and opened her inbox. There were two emails from Richard. She opened the first one. It was a response to the email that she had sent Richard long ago, giving him details of Snuggles’s Dharavi factory. She could see the entire text of her previous mail below Richard’s response. But it was Richard’s reply that surprised her. It had three cryptic-sounding words. She couldn’t make head or tail of it.

  She was confused. What could it be? A strange mail, that too on top of and in reply to her earlier mail on Snuggles. Very unlike Richard. In this confused state, she clicked open the next mail.

  And she smiled.

  The second mail just had one additional line and was sent as a response to the first mail: ‘Sent by mistake.’

  ‘Mad fellow,’ she said to herself and smiled again. She knew his mind was stressed.

  Cirisha looked at her phone. It was only six-thirty in the morning. She walked back into the bedroom. Aditya was still sleeping. She remembered the day she had landed in India. Aditya had come to pick her up as usual. He had hugged her and sobbed like a child. Aditya had always been an achiever. An ambitious corporate executive for whom winning was everything. That ambition was also probably the reason why he was sacked. Terminated for having invested GB2’s money in a local start-up for personal gratification. From what she could gather, GB2 had invested two million dollars in a Mumbai-based start-up at Aditya’s behest. In return, the company had given a 5 per cent stake at no cost to Aditya. Everything had been hunky-dory till the time that another private equity honcho had squealed to Kevin Moore at a dinner the previous evening. Moore had then called up the head of HR, who in turn contacted the promoters of the company in question and confronted them with the information, which they couldn’t deny. Why would they, especially after they had got their money?

  Armed with this confession, they had cornered Aditya, who could not say anything in his defence. He was summarily dismissed. The CEO’s parting words had been, ‘Integrity is a very potent skill. Try to build it in your repertoire.’

  When Cirisha had heard this, she was filled with disgust. How could Aditya do something like that? Was money all-important? What about dignity? Self-esteem? How could she have gone so wrong in assessing an individual? For a moment, she had even considered leaving him. But she was not one to give up on things easily. She had to make it work. That night Aditya begged for forgiveness. She relented. He promised never to tread down that path again.

  ‘Come with me to Boston. We will figure out what to do. In any case we have enough to live comfortably. Let’s get away from this place and from people who don’t matter.’

  Left with no choice, a guilt-filled Aditya agreed.

  Thankfully for Aditya, he had managed to hide from her the fact that Narayanan had been the frontman for the deal and that the entire stake had been routed through him. Had she even got a whiff of it, she would surely have walked out on him and Narayanan.

  34

  April 2008

  Boston

  Aditya and Cirisha landed in Boston on 30th March to chart a new beginning. Cirisha resumed work on the 2nd of April, the day Richard was scheduled to have his tenure interview. Cirisha had called him the previous evening. They had chatted for a long time. She even wished him luck. His big day was stressing him out. ‘You must relax, Richard. Behave like a forty-year-old man!’ she tried to cheer him up. He had turned forty in January that year. Despite her best efforts at calming him down, he was very edgy. He even apologized a few times for having sent her the emails erroneously. Cirisha had completely forgotten about them.

  On the morning of 2nd April, dressed smartly in a freshly laundered suit, Richard walked into the war zone—a carefully chosen room, normally used as a classroom. It was quite early in the day. Session had not yet started so no one was around.

  Cardoza saw him first and ushered him into the chair meant for him. It faced the panel that was seated on a slightly elevated podium in front of him. Richard quietly walked up to the c
hair, nodded in acknowledgement at the panel and sat down. The reaction thus far had been cold.

  Quietly, Richard surveyed the room. The door was to his right, the seats normally occupied by the students were behind him and the classroom writing board was right in front. Between the board and him were the men who would play God that day—Cardoza was the first in the panel, closest to the door. Seated to his right was the dean, Henry Liddell, further away from the main door, to the right of the dean were a Brazilian, Sandy Gustavo, the head of the research and grants team, and Frederick Lobo, the head of the FEC.

  The discussion began. It centred on Richard’s academic credentials. Lobo put on record the feedback that the FEC had received from the students. Richard was quite a popular faculty. So no problems there. Teaching record was a 4/5. The peer evaluation report was put up for discussion. In all, four peers had submitted their reports. So far so good.

  That’s when Liddell began to question Richard on the research. ‘Richard, the last time around there were accusations of your having solicited your peers for co-authoring research papers to which you hadn’t contributed at all.’

  ‘Those allegations were unproven.’

  ‘Seriously suspicious. But not proven. That’s what the report of the previous FEC states because no one came forward. Even those who had initially complained backed off. Probably someone coerced them into doing so.’ He looked at Lobo, who was nodding his head. ‘Who are we to say? In any case, we cannot go by that report.’

  ‘OK. So we ignore that.’ The dean was surprisingly magnanimous.

  ‘Richard, the committee has unanimously taken a view to ignore your contribution to the book, Staring Down the Barrel, despite the author giving you due credit. The university has decided not to recognize it as a valid research paper,’ Cardoza said. He looked at the others in the team and added, ‘What does the committee feel about the other research papers submitted by Mr Avendon? Even if we ignore this latest work of research, he still has enough published papers to be considered, right?’