The three hundred crores in cash had already been handed over to Mehul Modi by Khosla, for transfer to Pallavi. How was Mehul Modi going to convert the thousand-rupee notes into legal tender? There was a chance that he would just turn around and hand it back to him. And if he did, he wouldn’t pay Pallavi. How was he going to handle all that? A zillion thoughts crossed his mind and Aditya looked at the FM. ‘I need to make a few calls,’ he said, his voice hoarse.
‘Of course, of course,’ Pande exclaimed. ‘I knew you would say that.’ And he asked for Aditya’s phone to be brought in. Everyone had surrendered their phones prior to the Cabinet meeting. The phone was brought in by a security personnel within five minutes. Those were the longest five minutes of Aditya’s life.
‘As long as you don’t talk about what was discussed regarding the demonetization plan, it will be fine. You can call whoever you want to,’ the FM said.
Aditya dialled Pallavi’s number. It was switched off. He tried dialling Kangana’s number. It was switched off too. He dialled the maid’s number. It was picked up by a man. When Aditya asked him for the maid, the guy became abusive. Apparently the maid had not come back home for the last two days and had also left her phone behind at home, so no one could get in touch with her. Frustrated, he called Mehul. Mehul didn’t pick up either.
Aditya looked up at Danish Khosla. He was about to say something to him when a knock on the door disturbed them. They had been summoned.
As they were exiting the room, the FM turned to the Governor. ‘All you need to do is sit next to the PM and me and agree to everything we say.’
Aditya hesitated. He stood rooted to the ground. It was as if his feet had grown roots.
Siddharth Pande tapped him on his shoulder. ‘Shall we?’ he asked, pointing to the door in front.
‘Sir,’ said Aditya as he meekly followed the Finance Minister out of the room.
76
8 November 2016
DELHI
The PM’s address to the nation created a storm. The general public was happy. The feeling amongst them was that for the first time the rich, the hoarders, the creators of black money would be screwed, and this gave them a fair bit of joy. They realized that even though they would have to go through the hardships that demonetization would create, the fact that for once the rich would be on the same platform as them made their suffering worth every bit. The PM had become a kind of Robin Hood. A messiah. The move was turning out to be a master stroke.
Siddharth Pande was with the PM that morning, briefing him on the initial responses that were coming in from across the country.
After the briefing, the FM got up to leave. ‘I just have one question, sir,’ he said. ‘If I may.’
‘Go ahead. Shoot,’ the PM said.
‘Wasn’t it too big a risk to take? I mean, keeping the RBI Governor out of this? We got lucky that the Kabir Khan revelation came in time. Else we would not have had any leverage with that guy. He would have refused to toe our line. And we would have landed in an embarassing situation.’
‘Tell me something.’ The PM looked at the FM and smiled. ‘Who do you think Danish Khosla works for?’
The FM was shocked. His eyes widened and he shook his head. ‘That cannot be!’ he exclaimed, and then smiled. ‘How could I not have seen through that?’
‘Remember, my friend, if you need to play on people’s weaknesses and make them your strength, you need to make them vulnerable. Fan their weakness. Seduce them with money, power and everything else that appeals to them. That’s when their true character shows. Danish Khosla does that for me. The Reserve Bank of India would never have agreed to demonetization. Had you discussed the proposal wth the Governor beforehand, he would have thrown it back at you. The day Aditya and Khosla carried out the heist, I got to know of it. That’s the day I decided the game plan. And now that the RBI Governor was vulnerable, we just had to bring him in at the last minute. And what is three hundred crores when we are spending multiples of that to get the old currency out and new currency in? In any case, Le Da Spire is paying us the five thousand crores back through excess printed notes. So technically, we didn’t even lose the three hundred crores.’
The FM stood there shaking his head. ‘You are a genius, sir,’ was all he could say. ‘Now I understand what you had meant the night Carlo Pinotti left India, when you said, “Don’t tell the Governor!”
EPILOGUE
Aditya Kesavan remained a rubber-stamp RBI Governor for the remainder of his tenure. After the demonetization fiasco, he wanted to quit and return to his earlier role in academia. But that was not acceptable to the Finance Minister.
Aditya never heard from Pallavi again. He pined for for her and tried to meet her to figure out what had gone wrong and why she had deserted him at a time when he had put everything on the line for her. But that never happened. She successfully avoided him for the rest
of his life.
Danish Khosla got away scot free. He continues to thrive, on account of the patronage he enjoys.
Le Da Spire came roaring back in style. After a quickfire CBI investigation cleared them of any wrongdoing, the company was back in favour with the Indian government. Carlo Pinotti wanted to show his gratitude to the Indian government, which he did in more ways than one. The new two-thousand-rupee note was printed and supplied by Le Da Spire, and it did not take long for the stock markets to take note of this. Last heard, the company’s stock was up 17 percent.
The five thousand crores that the RBI had released for paying the ransom demanded by Hizbul Mujahideen for the release of the IC-814 passengers was somehow lost in the aftermath of demonetization. Since the amount was invalidated and Le Da Spire supplied the equivalent amount in excess ₹2,000 notes, the loss was never noticed. Last heard, the RBI was still inundated with the cash that continued to pour in, in the aftermath of demonetization. At last count, 99.4 per cent of the notes demonetized had already come back into the banking system.
Mehul Modi disappeared the day Danish Khosla paid him the three hundred crores in cash. He had also taken loans worth another eleven hundred crores from various banks, which he was unwilling to pay back. Last heard, he had taken citizenship in St Kitts and had settled down there with his Indian girlfriend, Kangana.
A few days after Sajid Mir was released in exchange for the hostages, the Indian Army, acting on specific intel, crossed the Line of Control and caried out a surgical strike on a Pakistani hideout, six miles into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Sajid Mir was killed in the strike, along with three of his trusted lieutenants, one of them his nephew.
Kabir Khan, on the Home Ministry’s recommendation, let go of the case that he and Victor were chasing. He was offered an out-of-turn promotion for cooperating with the government – a promotion he politely declined. Kabir Khan’s contention was that he had done what he had done in the larger interest of the nation, and not to protect the interest of a political party.
The government and the PM lasted their full five years. While the poor hailed the government for their bold measures towards curtailing black money and fake notes through demonetization, the inconvenienced middle class was up in arms. Despite that, the government won a second term. They offered Aditya Kesavan a second term as head of RBI, but he refused to take it on. One term at the helm had messed him enough for a lifetime.
The battle for one-upmanship between the RBI and the Finance Ministry continues. The bureaucrats of the ministry want the RBI to be subservient to them, whereas the RBI wants to stay autonomous. The pendulum swings wildly in this relationship, with the RBI trying to break free from the government stranglehold. Last heard, the balance of power was clearly tilted in the favour of the central government.
ST KITTS, 2017
The only noise that could be heard was that of the waves lashing repeatedly against the secluded beach even as the sun, half into the water, looked full, thanks to its reflection in the sea. Hundreds of birds crisscrossed the sky, silently making their way back home. Fa
r away, beyond the clouds, a few sequinned stars were beginning to make their appearance. Soon the sky would be full of hundreds of thousands of them. The vestiges of the sunlight lingered, as if left behind by mistake.
Somewhere on the beaches of St Kitts, a middle-aged man was lying on a hammock, sipping Carribean rum. The gentle breeze was heavenly and the man had almost dozed off to sleep.
‘Hey, come on inside. Time to get some dinner,’ said his wife as she walked up to him and gently kissed him on his lips.
‘One last drink, my love.’ Vicky raised his near-empty glass.
‘Vicky! You have been drinking since the afternoon. Time for you to take a break,’ Pallavi cajoled.
‘This is my break, Pallavi. All we need to do now is figure out a way spend a thousand crores in this lifetime.’ He smiled. ‘That stupid RBI Governor was so smitten by you that he didn’t realize when we walked away with a thousand crores.’
‘How is it a thousand?’ Pallavi asked. ‘See, this is proof enough that you are drunk. You are hallucinating. Come, let’s go,’ and she tugged at his hand.
‘Wait. Wait. Look. Let me prove to you that I am not drunk. Six hundred and change from Suyog, three hundred crores that Mehul sent us thanks to the heist money that Khosla sent him at Aditya’s behest, and another hundred-odd crores of bank loans. We are well past a thousand crores.’
Pallavi nodded her head. A smile lit her face up. ‘And we are in St Kitts, where no one can find us, and where the Indian government does not have an extradition treaty. You are a genius, baby,’ Pallavi said and tightened her arms around him.
‘You are the inspiration, my love,’ Vicky murmured, kissing her.
‘Let’s go in now. Mehul and Kangana will be coming soon for dinner.’
‘Kangana still remembers the look of lust in Aditya’s eyes when he saw you at the MyBestDeal.com launch party. What a scare she gave him!’ Vicky started laughing.
‘Such an evil man you are.’ She hugged him and Vicky took a deep breath, inhaling the frangrance of her freshly shampooed hair. ‘There is just one problem remaining, my love.’
‘And what is that, Vicky?’ Pallavi asked, frowning.
‘I just need to figure out a way to make your hair stop smelling of the Governor,’ he whispered into her ear as his hands moved to her neck, encircling it.
Pallavi squirmed as his grip tightened.
‘I am sorry, baby,’ Vicky muttered without loosening his grip. He grinned, his eyes narrowing. He further tightened his grip around her neck and Pallavi began to thrash her legs. After a few seconds of struggle, her body went limp. Vicky released his hold and let her body fall to the ground, still.
‘You see, darling, I just needed to make sure that no one, ever, tells the Governor.’
ABOUT THE BOOK
Somewhere on the India–Nepal border, a car full of passengers swerves off a highway and plunges into avalley, its trunk full of cash.
In the UK, a Bollywood starlet wins Big Survivor, the most popular reality TV show in the country.
In Panama, Central America, a whistleblower at a law firm brings down billionaires across the globe.
And in India, a new RBI Governor is appointed.
Aditya Kesavan is dynamic, charismatic and ambitious. And he’s been handed the reins of the RBI on a platter. His only job: to make sure he doesn’t rock the boat.
But, unknown to him, the wheels have begun to turn, as the country heads towards the biggest financial event in modern Indian history. And Governor Kesavan is about to carry out the most brazen act of his life – and, perhaps, his most foolish.
Will he be able to pull himself out of the mess he has got into or will he have to surrender to the manipulative forces behind the scenes?
Running desperately out of time, the Governor must set things right.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ravi Subramanian is the award-winning author of nine novels. His stories are set against the backdrop of the financial services industry. He has won the Economist Crossword Book Award for three years in a row, as well as the Golden Quill Readers’ Choice Award. Visit him at www.ravisubramanian.in
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First published in India by
HarperCollins Publishers in 2018
A-75, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India
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Copyright © Ravi Subramanian 2018
P-ISBN: 978-93-5302-462-8
Epub Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 978-93-5302-463-5
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Ravi Subramanian asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
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