Bankerupt (Ravi Subramanian) by Ravi Subramanian

back in a week, maximum two.’
    ‘What kind of life are we leading, Cirisha? Either you are getting over your jet lag, or you are preparing to leave. Even when you are here, you are travelling to interior Andhra Pradesh or some other godforsaken place. Is this the life we signed up for when we got married? We have been married for close to five years now and we live like nomads. I have been to the airport to pick you up more times than we have been to a movie together. We have not even thought about when we are going to start a family. We are not getting any younger. We are just living our lives independently, Cirisha. And somewhere our paths overlap, so we end up being together. This worries me.’
    The party for Nalin’s farewell and Aditya’s promotion was just a manifestation of a deep-rooted problem that had crept into their relationship. In such situations, Cirisha knew, it was best to keep quiet. And let Aditya vent his frustrations. There was no point rationalizing. She tightened her hug. Aditya hugged her back. ‘I am sorry, my baby. Really sorry,’ Cirisha mumbled, her voice barely audible through the folds of his Tommy Hilfiger shirt.



15
August 2005
    Boston
    Law enforcement on campus was the responsibility of MIT Police. The chief of MIT Police and his team took care of routine issues. Even though they functioned largely independently, at the highest level they reported to the Boston Police Department.
    A homicide team from the Boston Police Department working with the chief of MIT for well over sixty days had checked out all potential suspects. They met with the president of MIT, the dean, members of Siddiqui’s team, the various departments and people whom Siddiqui interacted with on a regular basis, like Deahl and Cardoza. Outside the university, they investigated Siddiqui’s girlfriend, her immediate family, his ex-wife and every conceivable suspect. Everyone had a foolproof alibi.
    The cops finally put it down to an isolated incident of robbery on a lonely stretch of road, which had gone horribly wrong.
    Three months later, Siddiqui’s death was forgotten. No one was interested in holding the baby. The institute was happy pushing it away and laying the blame on an external party, the ex-wife and girlfriend were not pursuing it as they were worried they’d get embroiled in a legal tangle. Ahmed Siddiqui, a man who fought the battle for many individuals and organizations, died a very lonely death.



16
October 2005
    Mumbai–Coimbatore
    ‘Dad, can you please check if you have received a credit of roughly two crore rupees in your GB2 account? An amount of four hundred thousand dollars was supposed to have come in today.’
    Narayanan called Aditya back in fifteen minutes. ‘Yes, Aditya. Credited. They’ve deducted fifty-two dollars as service charge. Remitted by Snuggles Inc.’
    ‘Great. Thanks, Dad. We’ll figure out what to do with the money later. I just wanted to know if the money has come. We are signing tomorrow.’
    On a pleasant Friday afternoon, Snuggles Inc., a global footwear giant, announced that it was buying Step Up Shoes. Aditya was the one who had convinced Snuggles about the relevance of Step Up Shoes to their plan to set up a shoe manufacturing and retailing base in India. Apart from the fees that GB2 made in seeing this transaction through, Aditya negotiated a four-hundred-thousand-dollar payout from Snuggles as lobbying fees for helping them jumpstart their business. Nalin’s moving to Boston had definitely helped close the deal with the Boston-headquartered Snuggles.
    As per the terms of negotiation, control of Step Up Shoes was to pass to Snuggles Inc. Anyone who had spent more than two years in the company would not be laid off at least for a period of three years. Shivinder would be retained as CEO with a 5 per cent stake in the company, provided he stayed with the company for the next five years. There was an obvious performance clause linked to it.
    It was a win–win