Devil in Pinstripes by Ravi Subramanian Read Free Book Online

was so frustrating.
    The mail was heavy. The image which Martin had sent was large and hence was taking time to open. Aditya waited with bated breath trying to figure out what was going on. Just when he was about to lose his last ounce of patience, the mail finally opened. It opened with such a bang that it hit Aditya extremely hard. He did not know how to react.
    ‘Fucking shit!’ he mumbled to himself. It is strange but true – mumbling obscenities act as momentary stress-busters.
    In front of him was the image of the front page of that day’s edition of the
Wall Street Journal
(WSJ). The front page lead story covered almost half the page and surprisingly, it was on India. The headline screamed in front of him. It read:
    ‘NYB FLEECES POOR PEOPLE IN INDIA TO FILL ITS OWN COFFERS – a story of fraud, abuse of power and disrespect of the legal system.’
    Written by Khalid Bilal, a staff correspondent of the
Wall Street Journal
, the article was vitriolic. It was a frontal attack on the India NYB management.
    Melinda walked in with the article. With a frown on his face, a look that focussed only on the screen of the laptop and a hand that was suddenly held up, Melinda understood what he meant. It was a clear ‘do not disturb’ sign. Smart that she was, she quietly walked towards the table where Amit was sitting, gently placed the folder on the table, turned and walked back. From where he was sitting, Amit could read the article very clearly. When he saw the headline, he became curious and began reading through the entire article carefully.
    ‘I am reading it Martin. Hold on,’ and Aditya continued reading on his screen. Amit too was midway through the article.
    The article was about a bank customer in Delhi, called Naveen Gulati, who had apparently taken a car loan from NYB for buying an Opel Astra. When the customer didn’t pay the instalments on time and regular visits by the bank agents didn’t bear any results, the bank handed over the collection to musclemen. These men had forced their way into the residential apartment where Naveen stayed. They waited there for the Opel Astra to be brought in. And when it did come in, they stopped the car, beat up the driver and the occupants, which included a lady, forcibly took possession of the car and drove away in it. According to the WSJ it would qualify as a criminal offence in USA, good enough for the banking license to be revoked.
    The story did not end there. As luck would have it, the repossessed Opel Astra turned out to be that of some man called Naveed Bilal and not Naveen Gulati. Both of them lived in the same apartment complex and had a steel grey coloured Opel Astra. And this Naveed, turned out to be the first cousin of Khalid, who was the WSJ staff correspondent.
    ‘What a bastard, this Khalid fellow!’ exclaimed Aditya on the phone after finishing reading the entire article.
    ‘You have no right to complain Aditya. It’s an India screw up. Tedd is fuming. We are announcing our annual results this afternoon. More than the results, I can bet my ass, this issue is going to dominate the investor meet. Tedd wants to know what you have to say.’
    The discussion with Martin was a long and difficult one. Martin clearly communicated to Aditya that Tedd was disgusted with this issue. It only complicated things further that the issue was first reported in the
Wall Street Journal
and hence the India Management had no clue about what was going on. Aditya tried telling Martin that he would investigate and get back. However, Martin had only one point of view – ‘Aditya, Tedd needs to see some action quickly. He wants some accountability to be fixed and heads to roll. Nothing short of this would be acceptable to the NYB board. Please do whatever you want to do within the next few hours. We want to kill this issue when it comes up in the investor meeting. Tedd doesn’t like being embarrassed. Please remember.’ With that, he hung up.
    Aditya was clearly taken in by