RAVI SUBRAMANIAN
IN THE NAME OF GOD
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
Author’s Note
Part 1
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Part 2
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Part 3
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Epilogue
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
IN THE NAME OF GOD
Ravi Subramanian, an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, has spent two decades working his way up the ladder of power in the amazingly exciting and adrenaline-pumping world of global banks in India. Four of Ravi’s eight bestselling titles have been award winners. In 2008, his debut novel, If God Was a Banker, won the Golden Quill Readers’ Choice Award. He won the Economist Crossword Book Award in 2012 for The Incredible Banker, the Crossword Book Award in 2013 for The Bankster and more recently in 2014 for his thriller Bankerupt.
He lives in Mumbai with his wife, Dharini, and daughter, Anusha. To know more about Ravi, visit www.ravisubramanian.in or email him at [email protected]. To connect with him, log on to Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorravisubramanian or tweet to @subramanianravi.
By the Same Author
FICTION
If God Was a Banker
Devil in Pinstripes
The Incredible Banker
The Bankster
Bankerupt
God Is a Gamer
The Bestseller She Wrote
NON-FICTION
I Bought the Monk’s Ferrari
To you, the reader,
for reading it and making it worthwhile for me to have written this
and
to my daughter, Anusha,
for this is the first book of mine that she has ever read.
Author’s Note
The book refers to real places and real titles of people who operate in these places and in the government and law-enforcement agencies. These have been used to lend an air of authenticity to the story, just as in a fictional story about the Pope or the prime minister of the nation or the President of the United States of America. The characters who occupy these positions in the book do not, and are not meant to, resemble the real-life incumbents in any manner. This story is entirely fictional and is not intended to be a depiction of the life of individuals who, in real life, occupy the exalted positions that their titles suggest. If, despite my best efforts, some similarities have crept in, I apologize. If you have this book in your hand, I recommend that you read it to enjoy what could be, rather than as a depiction of what is.
Part 1
1
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
He didn’t notice the body immediately.
Not even when he dipped the holy vessel into the Padma Teertha Kulam, the divine pond, to fill it up for the Devaprasnam. It was only as he was lifting the vessel, filled to the brim with water, that the right hand of the floating body scraped against it and he saw it break through the surface of the weed-infested tank. His voice deserted him; he stood stupefied. The vessel dropped from his hand and sank to the bottom of the pond with a gurgling noise.
‘Padmanabha! Padmanabha! Padmanabha!’ he chanted loudly as he ran up the steps to the pond and sprinted towards the temple gates. Whether he was upset at having touched a dead body early in the morning or it was the shock of having found said body floating in the temple pond, or both, was difficult to say.
2
DUBAI
A few months ago
It was a deafening sound. The kind that is heard when metal crashes into glass, bringing the whole thing down. The ground shook. It almost felt like an earthquake.
Visitors at Wafi Mall, the largest and possibly most exquisitely designed luxury mall in the area, stood astounded. No one could fathom what was going on.
Gate 1 of the mall was to the right of the central courtyard and a few minutes away from the main parking lot. The ground floor, accessible from Gate 1, was home to a variety of luxury gold and jewellery and accessory brands—Chopard, Cartier, Damas, Rolex, Omega, Breitling and a few local biggies were within shouting distance from the gate.
Moments later another piece of glass came crashing down amid the perceptible sound of cars rumbling close by.
At precisely 12.48 p.m.—no one knew the significance of the time, if there was one—two Audi A6s, one black and one white, had driven up to Gate 1. It was not uncommon for cars to drive up to the mall entrance. It was some distance from the main parking and the mall clientele, the rich and famous of Dubai, were not used to walking with their shopping bags. Ordinarily, the cars stopped on the carriageway built for them, waited for a couple of minutes, picked up their masters and drove out. But at 12.48 that day, the two Audis did not stop at the main gate. However, that was only half as strange as the manner in which they drove up to the gate: The black Audi was furiously approaching in reverse, followed closely by the white one, their bonnets almost kissing each other.
By the time the lone security guard at the gate could react, the black Audi had already crashed through the glass-and-metal door with a deafening noise. It drove further into the mall, right up to the main lobby on the ground floor, and screeched to a halt, the white car following suit. It almost seemed as if the black Audi was the pilot car, clearing the way for the second car. But why was it being driven in reverse? No one knew. No one cared. All that anyone in the mall was worried about was saving his or her o
wn life. What ensued was mass panic as scared shoppers started running helter-skelter.
Amidst the confusion, four masked men, all dressed in black, got out of the cars, while the drivers stayed back, keeping the engines running. Armed with Kalashnikovs, they fired indiscriminately in the air, sending the already panic-stricken crowd into a state of hysteria. Everyone assumed it was a terrorist attack. At the time, that’s what it seemed like. Nervously vigilant, the four men strode towards the aisle to the right of the entrance. It was narrow, short and housed only three shops: Cartier, D’Damas and Ajmal Jewellers. At any given point in time, the cumulative stock in all the three stores put together was worth over a hundred million dollars.
The leader of the group stopped in front of Ajmal Jewellers and gestured to the other three to take up their positions. It took just one bullet to neutralize the shop attendant who was furiously rolling down the safety grille. The men entered the store. Once they were in, they were cut off from the rest of the mall. All anyone could hear was the sound of shattering glass and indiscriminate gunfire.
In three minutes the men came out of the store and ran back to the two Audis. Each of them had a bag in one hand—clearly booty from Ajmal Jewellers. But as they were rushing, the last of the four tripped and fell. The bag slipped out of his hands and rolled ahead. The contents of the bag—jewellery and gemstones—spilled out on to the marble floor.
‘Damn!’ the leader swore. ‘Quick! Three more minutes and the cops will be here. We need to go!’ The fall had delayed them by forty-five seconds. They had to leave, else they would be sitting ducks for the Dubai Police. He continued towards the Audi even as his fallen team member recovered, and tried to gather the loot on the floor and put it back into the bag. He quickly got into the second Audi though he had not managed to collect everything that had fallen out of the bag.
Immediately the engines roared to life. The cars vroomed and this time, the white Audi reversed out of the shattered mall entrance followed closely by the black one. In no time, they had disappeared from sight.
The moment the cars left the mall, people rushed towards the jewellery showroom, a few stopping on the way to pick up the pieces of jewellery and curios that had fallen out of the robber’s bag.
Ajmal Jewellers was in a shambles. Glass from broken windows and display units was strewn all over. There was blood everywhere. Seven people had been shot—six store staff and a sole shopper.
All of them were dead.
3
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
1900 onwards
There is a history to why Kerala is called God’s Own Country.
In the 1750s Travancore was ruled by Maharaja Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma. A pious and god-fearing king, Anizham gave up his entire kingdom to Lord Anantha Padmanabha in a ceremony called Thripadidaanam, thereby making God the owner of the kingdom of Travancore. Thus Travancore came to be known as God’s Own Country, a legacy that Kerala has inherited.
After the Thripadidaanam ceremony, the prefix Padmanabhadasa—Dasa or Slave of Lord Padmanabha—was added to the king’s name. Whenever a male child was born into the royal family of Travancore, he was laid on the ottakal mandapam, the single granite stone slab abutting the sanctum sanctorum, in front of Lord Anantha Padmanabha in the Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram and holy water from the Padma Teertha Kulam, the temple pond, was sprinkled on him. Thereafter the child, possibly the future king, would be proclaimed as Sri Padmanabhadasa. Every king ruled Travancore and cared for its people and property on behalf of Lord Padmanabha.
Things changed around the time India attained independence in 1947. At that time, nearly a third of the subcontinent comprised princely states. Prior to Independence, the states were given an option to either accede to India or Pakistan or even stay independent. Since most of them were dependent on the government, they chose to accede to India. By 1949, all these kingdoms had merged with the nation and new states were created, as a result of which the kings lost all ruling rights. In return, the government announced a Privy Purse—an assured sum of money to be paid annually to the erstwhile king. The amount was determined by the economic importance of the state, the stature of the ruler, the relationship he enjoyed with the government and the longevity of the kingdom. The Privy Purse was abolished by the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government in 1971 in what came to be known as the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of India. Though the move was severely contested by the rulers, they couldn’t do much once the amendment was passed by both the houses of Parliament.
The south Indian kingdoms of Travancore and Cochin merged to become the new state of Thiru–Kochi. Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, the last ruling king of Travancore, who signed the instruments of accession to India, died in 1991. It was after his death that his younger brother Aswathi Thirunal Dharmaraja Varma took over as the titular king of Travancore. And by virtue of that he became the trustee managing the affairs of the Lord Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple. He was referred to as Padmanabhadasa, and at times even as Thampuran, ‘the lord’, or Thirumanassu, a Malayalam word for His Highness. Kowdiar Palace, a 150-room architectural marvel, built by his predecessor Chithira Thirunal, became the seat of the titular king.
4
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
A few years ago
Rajan’s mornings were normally peaceful. According to him, it was the best time of the day. Time to introspect. Time to plan. He loved the solitude that morning offered. On a typical day, an old hand-wound Favre Leuba alarm clock with a greenish dial and radium-coated hands would wake him up at half past four. The erstwhile king of Travancore had gifted the alarm clock to his father, a trustee of the Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple, in the mid-fifties. Rajan’s father had passed it on to him when he joined the Indian Civil Revenue, saying, ‘A successful man always starts his day well before the world gets up.’
Rajan had recently retired and moved back to his ancestral home in Thiruvananthapuram in the narrow lane to the east of the Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple. He didn’t have a family. He had never married. ‘Never felt the need to,’ he would say when asked. He now lived with his cousin who worked in a local school in the neighbourhood.
However, that day, uncharacteristically, Rajan was in an agitated frame of mind. His face red with anger, he was pacing up and down the poomukham, the portico of the house, impatiently. In his hand was a copy of the day’s edition of Kerala Kaumudi, the local Malayalam newspaper. A large wooden reclining chair with long rails on either side stood in the northeast corner of the portico. He sat down on the chair, put his leg up on the rails and held the newspaper aloft. He didn’t even have to turn the page. It was on the front page. The lead story. He read it once. Then a second time. Finally, he dumped the paper by the side of the chair and closed his eyes. His forehead showed signs of stress—or was it anger? He stayed like that for a long time till his cousin, Kamu, walked up to him and tapped his shoulder.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing. Nothing,’ he whispered, as he got up from the chair. He picked up his angavastram, the cloth that adorns the top half of the body of south Indian men, flipped it on his shoulder and walked out of the house. He didn’t even bother to wear his slippers. He wasn’t going too far. The temple was just a few hundred metres away.
‘Did you see this?’ Rajan demanded, tossing the paper on the table. There was anger in his voice, and fierce resolve in his eyes.
Gopi set his pen on the table, shut the register he had been writing in and looked up. He had a round face, and a bald head that was kept shining by regular application of coconut oil. A hairline moustache neatly divided his face in two, making him look stern even when he was not. He got up from his chair and walked around the table towards Rajan. ‘Kaapi?’ he asked calmly.
‘What?’ Rajan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Kaapi?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘Here my blood is boiling and all you are worried about is kaapi?’
The lo
ok of contentment on Gopi’s face did not waver. ‘Look, Rajan,’ he said calmly, ‘if it is not in your control, why lose sleep over it?’
‘What do you mean?’ Rajan stared at Gopi, his eyes red with anger. ‘Are you saying that I must keep quiet and let this go?’
Gopi smiled. ‘You know me better than that, Rajan,’ he said with a shake of his head. Putting his arm around the other man’s shoulders, he continued, ‘If something is not directly in your control, try to influence it . . . try to change it. But don’t let the consequences get to you. Anger invariably leads to mistakes. I suggest that you think calmly. Rather,’ he took a deep breath, ‘rather, think when you are calm.’
Rajan shrugged off Gopi’s arm and began pacing. ‘How could the Thampuran give such an interview? He is only the titular king. Just because the temple is under his control does not mean that he can do whatever he pleases!’
‘He is within his rights to. Who are you to dictate what he should and what he shouldn’t do?’
‘He owes it to the people, to the temple, to the employees of the temple who have served him with so much devotion,’ Rajan replied agitatedly. ‘Everything is not his! He can’t stake a claim to it. Everything belongs to the lord. And the lord is not for him alone. Padmanabha Swamy belongs to the people.’
‘Is he staking a claim to it? I don’t think the report says that.’
‘Well, read it. Again. But this time, read between the lines,’ Rajan instructed.
Gopi looked at the newspaper again. On the front page was an interview with Aswathi Thirunal Dharmaraja Varma, the king of Travancore. Accompanying the interview were two pictures—one of the king, standing firm and erect even in his old age, and the other of mounds of gold, diamonds, other precious stones and ornaments. Wealth which was allegedly locked up in the vaults of the Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple.
Gopi skipped the introduction and went straight to the Q&A.
You are one of the fittest kings in India. Even if one were to compare you to the other royal families in north India, you would be the fittest at 85. What is your secret?
In the Name of God Page 1
