Bankerupt (Ravi Subramanian)

by Ravi Subramanian

  Without waiting for anyone from the panel to answer, Richard went on to elaborate on all the research that he had done and the impact that each of those had had on the university, academia and society at large. ‘I have received fabulous peer reviews for each of these. All of them have been rated very highly.’ He had come prepared.

  ‘Richard,’ the dean began. ‘We have seen the quality of research work done by you. We have also analysed the grants that you have been able to mobilize for research purposes and looked at the various committees that you serve on. On purely the classroom academic front, you are amongst the best non-tenured assistant professors that we have. But we cannot approve a tenure position for you. The main reasons being your unproven grant-raising capabilities and your inclination to let your political leanings impact your research work. Since this is your second and consequently last attempt, you will not be granted tenure at MIT.’

  ‘What?’ Richard was shocked

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? Do you have anything to say to this committee before we call it a day, Mr Avendon?’ The dean’s tone bordered on ridicule. It was clear. He was being punished for having been a part of the Staring Down the Barrel saga. Richard looked at Cardoza from the corner of his eye. He seemed to be disagreeing with the group.

  ‘We need to discuss this, dean,’ Cardoza started off, only to be interrupted harshly. ‘Well, on a pure committee vote, it is three to one, Michael,’ the dean thundered.

  ‘So much for anonymity of votes,’ Cardoza responded sarcastically. ‘This discussion is not supposed to happen in front of the candidate. And the decision, after due consultation among the members, has to be communicated to the candidate at a later stage. And in the case of Mr Avendon, there are enough positives to call for a debate.’

  ‘Thank you, Michael.’ The dean was in no mood to listen. He turned and looked at Richard. ‘Do you have anything to say, Mr Avendon?’

  ‘Yes, I have lots to say. For years you have ignored my achievements. Looks like tenure is all about conformity to your stupid process as opposed to achievement. My research can at worst be called original, and not playing to the gallery of old, obese professors on the verge of retirement. Unfortunately, you value collegiality over originality. I have done few research projects but the ones I have done are pure quality. Ones that make a difference to society. To the United States of America. I should have learned my lesson earlier that there is no place for useful and profound research unless it is fashionable.’

  ‘You are getting worked up, Mr Avendon.’ The dean had a smirk on his face. He was enjoying every bit of this flare-up. It was a proxy war that he was fighting with Deahl through Avendon.

  ‘Oh yeah? Worked up? I should have got worked up a few years back. You fat sloppy son of a bitch.’ Richard was getting really hostile now. He had no fear. In any case, it was the end of the road for him at MIT.

  Cardoza sensed it and got up from his seat. He tried to pacify Richard, who was now beginning to sweat profusely as though he was on some sort of drug. ‘Richard. Calm down. Easy. Easy.’ But it was of no avail. This was not going the way he wanted it to. Realizing that this could get out of hand, Cardoza hurriedly walked outside.

  He dialled Cirisha’s number, the first number on his speed dial. ‘Cirisha, are you on campus?’ he asked the moment she answered.

  ‘Yes, Michael.’

  ‘Can you please ask the chief of MIT Police to rush some backup to the admin block? I think Richard Avendon is getting out of hand.’

  ‘Right away. I hope it’s not serious.’

  ‘I don’t think so. But he is screaming his guts out, calling people names, swearing at everyone in the room. I just stepped out to call for help. Please do this right away. I’ll talk to you later.’ And he walked back towards the room.

  Within moments, the sound of gunfire reverberated through the admin block. By the time the MIT Police reached the spot, Richard had shot everyone in the room dead, before shooting himself in the head with the last bullet. Cardoza was hit on his shoulder by the penultimate bullet in Richard’s 0.22 calibre revolver and was wheeled away to the campus hospital.

  35

  First quarter of 2008

  Coimbatore

  The first three months of 2008 were defining ones for the emu farming business.

  While the second half of 2007 was marked by rapid growth, it was not without its impact. The paper emu scheme launched by Narayanan was easy to replicate. This led to the mushrooming of small-time players and, consequently, to a phenomenal increase in the number of emus around Coimbatore. The supply of emu eggs increased, as did the supply of emu meat.

  The demand didn’t keep pace with the supply. Soon there was excess supply. And that meant a fall in prices. Initially, the drop was negligible, but soon enough, the prices crashed. Revenue realization on the birds dropped. Smaller emu farmers were suddenly finding it difficult to feed the birds, or even pay the initial lot of customers who were now coming back with full-grown emus, demanding payment in return. Monthly payouts to the customers who had subscribed to the paper emu schemes began to suffer. Initially, it was a one-off issue with a few small-timers. But within a matter of months it grew into an epidemic.

  In April 2008, for the first time, cheques issued by Narayanan to the participants in his emu farming scheme bounced. Ten thousand customer cheques were returned because the bank refused to honour them.

  The monthly payout that he had to make to his paper emu customers was in excess of ten crore rupees. Narayanan had a working capital limit, and many times in the past he had been allowed to exceed it because of the credibility he enjoyed with the bank. But April was the beginning of a new financial year. New rules, new policies. Emu farming had suddenly, over the last three or four months, become a bad word in banking circles. A number of small farms had gone bust, leaving banks to hold the baby. This did not go down well with the management and there was a clampdown on banking facilities for emu farms.

  In the first week of April, over four hundred people gathered outside his corporate office and started shouting slogans and demanding payments. Thankfully, he had a better reputation than most others in the trade and hence the number of people was relatively low. Faced with no other choice, he called his RM managing the Geneva account. Two million dollars were pulled out from GB2 in Geneva and used to pay off the investors for April. It didn’t take much for him to realize that with the emu meat price collapsing, no takers for emu eggs and a sluggish investor interest, he was staring at a long dark period. The crisis had been managed for one month. He had to figure out a long-term solution. This could not go on for long.

  36

  April 2008

  Boston

  ‘It is with utmost grief that we condole the death of our favourite dean, Henry Liddell. As someone who has led MIT to a number of significant achievements, the dean was one of the greatest academicians and finest human beings that I have ever met. I feel sad for his family,’ Lucier said with tears welling up in his eyes. The world knew that it was an act. Addressing a press conference was not easy in modern-day America.

  ‘But sir,’ a reporter butted in, ‘don’t you think that the life of three honoured academicians and one promising faculty member has been cut short by the Second Amendment? The same amendment that the NRA has been opposing for years now.’

  ‘No. This assessment is incorrect,’ responded Lucier. ‘If Mr Richard Avendon wanted to harm the committee members, he would have come prepared even if guns were not available. If not guns, it would have been something else.’

  ‘But guns make it easy to kill from a distance. You don’t need to be close to the person being harmed. Had he carried something else, maybe, just maybe, the members could have overpowered him.’

  ‘The suggestion is ridiculous. Have you considered the fact that narcotic drugs like heroin are banned in the United States? Where do druggies get them from? Even if you ban guns, there will be criminal elements who will make a business out of supplying ille
gal weapons. Had Mr Avendon been denied access to a legal weapon, he would have been able to acquire it in the same manner that criminals do today. From the mafia. The end result would have been the same.’

  The shooting of the dean and the three academicians had become the talk of the nation. It brought the Liberals and the Democrats together.

  The chief of MIT Police, who had initially been called in when the gunshots had been fired, did the preliminary investigation. It was an open-and-shut case. Richard had a history of emotional outbursts. His desperation to get the tenure was not a secret. He had worked himself up into believing that he wouldn’t get past the committee this time and had come prepared. He had brought his own handgun. And had shot everyone from close quarters, before killing himself.

  The day after the incident, Cardoza was a devastated man. Cirisha and Aditya were at the hospital to meet him. ‘Thank God that Richard was not carrying an assault rifle. Else you would not have been in our midst today,’ Cirisha said with tears in her eyes.

  ‘This is what the Second Amendment does to us, Cirisha. It’s sad. Really tragic. Does James realize that he has a responsibility to society? Does he even care?’ Cardoza was getting worked up.

  ‘Richard was obsessed with getting his tenure, Michael. He called me in Mumbai last week. He was worried that you would obstruct his path to a promotion.’

  ‘You know, Cirisha, my last words to the dean were that we should have another discussion on Richard’s tenure and then decide. I even wrote to the dean a few days ago that the time is not conducive for this committee meeting and that we should put it off by a few weeks. He didn’t agree. And when he didn’t, I wrote to him that we must make sure that we do not let the James issue cloud our mind and that we must promote him. Unfortunately, once the dean made up his mind, he never listened to anyone.’

  Cirisha noticed that Aditya, who was by her side, was getting bored. She got up to leave. A copy of Staring Down the Barrel was lying on Cardoza’s table. ‘If you don’t mind, can I borrow it from you?’

  ‘Sure. Be my guest.’

  ‘When will you be back at work, Michael?’

  ‘Thankfully, the bullet just scraped my shoulder. It’s just a superficial injury. My arm will need to rest for two weeks, but I should be out of here and at work in two days.’ He looked at Aditya and said, ‘How are you liking it here, my friend? I am sure with you around Cirisha will be happier and less worried.’ And he smiled. Aditya just patted his arm and smiled in return. His mind was somewhere else. He had to meet Shivinder, who was also in Boston on a Snuggles Global CEO meet.

  37

  April 2008

  Boston

  The Snuggles Global CEO conference was in full flow. The India presentation had just got over and Shivinder had received a standing ovation. After all, India was the number one country in terms of growth for Snuggles across the globe. Next was the presentation by the Latin American team, the last for the day. While their presentation was in progress, a short and hefty African American discreetly walked into the large ballroom of the Hilton Plaza, went straight up to the global CEO and whispered something into his ear. The CEO got up with a pained look on his face, looked at the congregation and said loudly, ‘You guys carry on. I will be back soon.’ He then followed the man out of the room.

  In the next twenty minutes, Shivinder was called out. He was ushered into a room where four people were already present: the Asia-Pacific head of Snuggles, the legal head, the global CEO and a fourth man he had never met.

  ‘Hello, Mr Singh. I am Nick Rand.’ The fourth man seemed to have read his mind.

  ‘Have we met before, Mr Rand?’

  ‘No. We haven’t.’ Nick was curt. The expressions on the faces of the others were quite cold, making Shivinder wonder what was going on.

  ‘You actually thought no one would find out, Mr Singh?’ Nick began to speak.

  ‘Find what out, Mr Rand?’

  ‘Fraudulent sales figures, padded up receivables, increased profitability and valuations. I don’t know where to begin.’ And he paused before getting up from his chair. ‘It all started last year, Mr Singh, with a lady complaining to Snuggles Inc. through her American associate about child labour at a factory manufacturing Snuggles shoes and leather accessories.’

  ‘So, did you find children working at any Snuggles manufacturing unit? I don’t think we have underage labour anywhere, Mr Rand. We follow strict procedures at all our manufacturing sites.’

  ‘Hold on! Hold on!’ Nick hurried to put all speculation to rest. ‘I have just begun.’ And he started pacing up and down the room, as if he were narrating a film script to a group of producers. ‘The complaint came to us through a professor at MIT who wrote to us on behalf of the complainant. The professor had done a fair bit of research for us in the past.’

  ‘So? What is this all about?’

  ‘The address where child labour was being used, as indicated by the complainant, did not match with any of our manufacturing facilities.’

  ‘It could be a unit manufacturing fakes. We have them all over the world, don’t we?’

  Nick nodded his head. He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to the left. ‘Possible. We would have assumed the same and intimated you had the images accompanying the complaint not been shocking.’

  ‘What image?’

  ‘Of the label stitched on to the tongue of the shoe. A label which indicates the size, place of manufacture, price, etc. But most importantly, a label which has a code.’ Shivinder knew that at Snuggles, every label had a unique code to indicate the model, serial number and the place and month of manufacture. ‘Strangely, the label in the image which was sent to us had that code too.’

  ‘Why would that be strange?’ Shivinder was being difficult. Aggression, he thought, would get him out of a difficult situation. ‘These days fakes look identical to the real shoes.’

  ‘Because, Mr Singh, I am yet to come across a fake which has a genuine code on the label. The worst we have seen thus far is that all the fakes manufactured at a given facility have the same code. They just pick up a label and replicate it across shoes and models. But in this case, the four images sent to us had different numbers—that too codes which matched the shoe models. Which meant there was a high probability of the labels being genuine. They had been generated using the same algorithm that we use in our factories.’

  Shivinder raised his eyebrows and ridiculed Nick. ‘What are you trying to say, Mr Rand?’

  Nick was not intimidated by Shivinder’s approach. He was used to such reactions. ‘Just out of curiosity we ran the codes through our database. And guess what? Shoes with these codes had already been sold through a certain franchisee in Mumbai.’

  ‘Maybe someone got hold of the numbers and generated the labels. If you want I can check it out and come back to you. This breach is easy to plug. Wish you had told me earlier.’

  ‘That won’t be required once you have heard us out, Mr Singh.’

  ‘Nick was in India for a few months, Mr Singh.’ The regional manager Asia-Pacific spoke for the first time. Unknown to Shivinder, or for that matter anyone else from his insider team, Nick had spent six months in India in an undercover operation, trying to dig deep into the Snuggles scandal.

  Nick continued, ‘I went to the factory located deep inside a slum. A four-storeyed building. Big facility. Over two hundred and fifty workers. Forty-five of them children. As in forty-five I could count as being visibly underage.’

  ‘You just said that it was not listed amongst our manufacturing sites. So I don’t know. I’ll have to check.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Singh. But you know about the facility.’

  ‘The presupposition is ridiculous.’ Shivinder was losing his cool now.

  ‘You might want to see this.’ Nick handed over the order copy, signed by Deven Khatri, to Shivinder. ‘I picked up a copy when I was there.’ Shivinder didn’t have an answer and was beginning to look defeated. Taking a deep breath, he looked up. In
a voice filled with sorrow, he said, ‘I hope you are aware, Deven Khatri disappeared a year ago. A missing person complaint has been registered with the Mumbai Police, who have been unable to trace him.’

  ‘Yes, we are aware. We are really sorry about that. He has signed this purchase order.’

  ‘I just wish what you are saying is not true. Deven seemed like such a nice guy. Committed to the organization and to me.’

  ‘We are sure about the latter. A bit doubtful about the former, though. Moving on,’ Nick continued, ‘we went to the store from where shoes with these numbers had already been sold. This is the one on Linking Road, in Bandra, Mumbai.’

  ‘Yes, we have a showroom there.’

  ‘We visited that store. The retailer proudly told us that he had another store—half a mile from where we were. He took us there and showed off his store. A new one, opened in the last twelve months. And guess what?’ He paused and added, ‘There is no record of the new store in our central systems.’

  ‘Oh, is that so? I am sure it’s a mistake which can be corrected.’

  ‘It’s not a mistake, Mr Singh. The code on the tongue of each shoe at the second franchisee we went to matches a shoe which has already been sold elsewhere. This store is not connected to our global system. No one at Snuggles knows of this except your confidants in India. And this is not the only such store.’

  ‘Are you insinuating that we run a fraudulent set-up?’

  ‘Your game is up, Mr Singh. You took advantage of your knowledge of our internal systems. You knew that the only time the code is used after a product is sold is if it comes back for warranty. And in case it did come back, you managed it at your end, so that it never blew up into a service issue.’