The Bankster (Ravi Subramanian) (15 page)

‘Raymond,’ she began. ‘I saw the report you sent to Vikram’s team.’

‘The Bandra branch one.’

‘Yes, Raymond. The same one.’

‘They tried to cheat us, Juliana. We have a problem there. They have responded to the audit queries and have accepted their wrongdoing. We will now be circulating their responses to the core team.’

‘I have seen it, Raymond.’ This statement shocked Raymond. He had not sent it to her. How had she managed to get it?

‘You’ve seen it? But I didn’t send their responses to you.’

Juliana didn’t bother to answer. ‘I want you to retract the report.’

‘What? Sorry. . .what, Juliana? You want me to withdraw the report?’

‘You heard me,’ Juliana nodded.

‘But why? The branch team has accepted everything they did. They have agreed to the report.’

‘Raymond. Do I have to explain every decision of mine? Do I have to tell you that external parties see audit reports like these?’ Seeing the blank look on Raymond’s face, she elaborated. ‘RBI, the board, etc see these reports and can use it to castigate the bank. You have to be careful of what to put in an audit report and what to take up outside the formal audit report. In this report, particularly, I noticed you have been extremely ruthless and harsh on the branch and even on certain youngsters who are just kick-starting their careers. This is not good. I don’t want brashness in my team. Make sure that, henceforth, these reports are more constructive in nature.’

Clearly this was not the Juliana he knew. This demeanour, the stance she was taking was quite strange. In the past, she always pushed him to highlight any issues he might have found in the formal audit report. It was abnormal, to say the least.

‘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

28
^th
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 antenna 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

29
^th
January 2012