Bankerupt (Ravi Subramanian) Read Online Free PDF Page B

his drink.
    ‘See, dude. It’s not as complicated as you make it out to be,’ said Aditya and proceeded to outline the entire plan. By the time he was done, Shivinder’s eyes were wide open. The effect of four Laphroaigs disappeared in a jiffy. He could never have thought of this plan. ‘Is it safe to do this?’
    ‘Shivinder, every company that we have dealt with does things to beef up valuations. What I am proposing is nothing compared to what others do.’
    Shivinder walked up to the bar, pulled out a vintage 21-year-old Glenlivet bottle and smiled at Aditya. ‘We must open a bottle for this momentous occasion.’ And he poured out two large pegs.
    It took them three months to put the plan into motion.
    ‘The CFO is on our side now.’ It was early February, and Shivinder and Aditya were having a mid-afternoon snack in the former’s office. ‘The billing and invoicing clerk is in place and so is the logistics manager. They are all guys who have worked with me for over a decade. I can trust them.’ After digging into the samosa, Shivinder asked Aditya, ‘Would you want to meet the CFO? Just to make sure that he is a guy we can back.’
    Aditya thought for a moment. ‘OK. Call him in.’ After a pause, he added, ‘One day you are going to get me into trouble.’
    Within the next few minutes, a middle-aged man of medium build, about five foot seven, walked into the room. Most of the hair on his head had disappeared and his round Gandhian spectacles gave him a very down-to-earth, sober look. ‘Meet Deven Khatri. Our new CFO,’ announced Shivinder. ‘He joined us two weeks ago.’
    ‘Hello Deven. Good to see you.’ Aditya welcomed him into the room. ‘Shivinder has some really nice things to say about you.’ The handshake was warm and firm. He took an instantaneous liking to the guy.
    ‘Deven has been briefed, Aditya.’
    Aditya looked at Deven. The latter didn’t look too comfortable. The shifting of weight from one leg to the other was an indication. Was it a good idea to go ahead with their plan with a shaky and uncertain CFO?



7
February 2005
    MIT, Boston
    A spine-chilling cold had gripped the East Coast. There was a blanket of snow on the MIT campus. Everything looked and felt gloomy.
    Cirisha was too busy to be bothered; she was in the final phase of her research project. Set in Vuyyuru, a small town thirty miles from the eastern coast of Andhra Pradesh, it was aimed at measuring the impact of the availability of credit on the choice of crops grown by farmers. She had spent months working with farmers in a belt that grew rice. A shift to sugarcane cultivation would mean more returns. However, it required more seed investment, a reason that prompted most of them to continue with rice cultivation. As part of the research, Cirisha had tied up with sugar manufacturers to offer financial assistance to farmers with a back-to-back captive arrangement for sugarcane purchase. The idea was to see whether farmers would shift to sugarcane if monies were easily available in their ecosystem.
    She glanced out of her window. The sun was about to set. A few students were walking past the Academic Block towards the car park on their way to the dorm. To get there, one had to cross the car park and walk for half a mile. Straining her neck, she looked up. It was beginning to get dark. More snow had been forecast for later that night. She had better get going, else she would not be able to reach the parking lot without getting soaked. From the stiffened posture of people scurrying on the path below, she could make out that it was beginning to get really chilly.
    A knock on the door distracted her. Even as she shifted her glance hurriedly towards the door, her brain registered something strange. Hadn’t the person standing beneath the street light, pretending to talk on the phone, been waiting there for the last two hours? Was he a student? Another member of the faculty? Who was he? More importantly, what was he doing