23
‘Ready?’ Bala jollied me with coffee in the morning. Yes, Mr Balakrishnan, branch
head of customer services, brought me coffee in a mug. Too bad he didn’t carry it
in a tray.
‘Doesn’t take much preparation to present yourself as stupid,’ I said and took
the coffee. I noticed the mug had become wet at the bottom. Bala picked up a
tissue from my desk for me. I could get used to this, I thought.
We met in the conference room two hours later. Bala loaded up the
presentation. True to character, he had removed my name from the title slide.
Like all banking presentations in every department of every bank in India, it
started with the 1991 liberalisation and how it presents tremendous opportunity
for India.
‘As you can see, the IT space has seen tremendous volatility in the last three
months,’ Bala said, pointing to a graph that only went down.
Our country head, Anil Mathur, had come on the first flight to Chennai. His day
had started bad as he couldn’t get a business class seat last minute and had to
rub shoulders with the common people. His grumpy expression continued to
worsen during the presentation.
Anil was forty years old and seen as a young turk on his way up. Citi thrived
on and loved the start system. People introduced him as ‘This is Anil, MD. He is a
star performer.’
Again, there is nothing starry to do in a bank anyway. It is another thing Citi
invented to reduce the dullness of our job. However, when Anil entered the room,
some Chennai bankers’ eyes lit up, much like the auto driver who saw Rajni’s
poster.
‘And that in short, has led to the circumstances we are in today,’ Bala said as
he ended his hour-long speech. I couldn’t believe he tagged his talk this short.
Anil didn’t respond. He looked around the room. Chennai trainees avoid eye
contact anyway, especially when it comes to authority. He looked at Bala and
Bala looked at me. I nodded; I’d be the suicide mission today.
Anil’s cell-phone rang. He took it out of his pocket. His secretary had called
from Mumbai.