It was unusually late that day. Mrs Anita Bhat started worrying. “Why hasn’t he reached home yet, it’s pretty dark outside?”
Her husband Kunal was quite punctual as far as returning home from the office was concerned. He didn’t mind going to office couple of hours earlier than the normal start time. But he must come home in time.
Feeling disappointed, Anita returned to the dining room. Her parents were visiting her. Presently they sat around the dining table.
“He hasn’t still reached home. Seems to have got stuck in the office or in the traffic. But at least he could have telephoned. I think we should start the dinner,” Anita declared to her parents.
Her father proposed, “Why not wait for another ten minutes? Did you try ringing him?”
“I did. But he isn’t taking my call.”
“Perhaps he might have switched it off and didn’t realize it.”
…………
In the office Kunal Bhat had shut off his desktop computer at his usual pack up time. As he was about to walk toward the parking lot, his cell rang. His CEO spoke, “Hey Kunal, good thing I caught you in time. You will have to hang around a bit. I have something very important for you. I will call you soon.”
Kunal Bhat was one of the senior managers in the corporate office of the company. His company Global Chemicals was about to start the construction of its latest unit in Bhavanipur, a small town near the capital city of the country. Global Chemical’s corporate office also operated from the capital. Kunal Bhat was one of the five key managers responsible for the construction and commissioning of the new Bhavanipur plant.
Kunal waited in his cabin. He wasn’t quite happy about the wait. His punctuality in returning home was getting disturbed. From his cabin he started staring at the CEO’s office (situated diagonally opposite his) as if his boss would call him sooner if he kept staring at the boss’s cabin. But that was not to happen.
Then he found one of his colleagues briskly walking toward the CEO’s cabin. After about fifteen minutes his colleague came out, head bent in a pensive mood. When he came out he was holding a large sized briefcase.
Kunal saw this kind of activity being repeated by his other three colleagues too. One by one each one of them had gone inside the boss’s cabin and came out with the identical large sized brief case. Kunal talked to himself, “This whole thing seems a bit extraordinary to me.”
And while he was thoroughly absorbed in his thoughts his cell buzzed. He heard the boss say, “Kunal, you can walk in now.” To this he responded, “I will be with you in a minute.”
He entered the CEO’s office. His CEO also happened to be the chairman of the company’s board of directors. As Kunal entered he saw that the company’s chief internal auditor Rustomji was also present there. He noticed a large sized brief case in the auditor’s lap. It was identical to the briefcases he had earlier seen with his four colleagues.
“Sit down, Kunal. Won’t take more than ten minutes,” the CEO announced.
He then looked at the auditor and gestured. The auditor placed the briefcase on the table in front of Kunal.
The CEO spoke with Kunal in a hushed voice, “This briefcase contains money in cash currency. Don’t ask me how much. But it’s lots of money and you will be its custodian for a night. You also need to keep the whole matter strictly secret.”
At this stage Kunal looked at Rustomji, the chief internal auditor. Kunal debated in his own mind how could it be a secret when one more person was sharing the room and seeing this transaction live.
The CEO guessed Kunal’s worries. He said, “Don’t worry. I fully depend on our chief internal auditor for all such secret matters of the company. Rustomji personally handles enormous amounts of this kind of money for our company. So rest assured about the secrecy part.”
“OK, sir,” Kunal managed to whisper sheepishly.
“Now, let me tell you what you are supposed to do with this briefcase. Carry it with you and place it in a secure corner of your home. You have to safeguard it just for a night. Tomorrow early morning a person will meet you. He will open an envelope and show you the password written on the paper taken out of it.”
The CEO gestured at the chief internal auditor again. This time the auditor handed a sealed envelop to Kunal.
The CEO then continued his instructions, “Keep this sealed envelope with you. Don’t open it now. Open it in front of the visitor tomorrow. The paper inside contains a password that exactly matches with the password the visitor will show you. Make sure that the two passwords match perfectly well. After making sure, handover the briefcase to him. Do not get into any dialogue with him. You job ends there. Then forget about this entire episode. Its confidentiality and secrecy are of utmost importance for your own sake. It might put you into some problem if you share it with anyone else. Now you can go. Yes, one more thing, handover the two papers with the passwords to Rustomji tomorrow as soon as you walk in.”
He came out of the boss’s office all nervous and with head bent. He had seen the same kind of posture of his other four colleagues just a few minutes earlier. His brain became numb. He couldn’t think anything. He did not even realize that he should let his wife know that he would be reaching home late.
…………
At home, the ten minutes wait was almost over. Anita and her parents started the dinner. Around this time Anita heard the click of the latched door at the main entrance of the house.
She got up from her seat and spoke out excitedly, “Finally Kunal seems to have come. Now I’m going to take him to task for coming late without even letting me know.”
Her mother held her back. “Sit down, Anita. Relax. There must be some definite reason. Let him settle down. And yes, ready his plate.”
Kunal walked in with the briefcase held close to his bosom. Presently he settled on his chair. Anita walked to him and requested, “Let me deposit the briefcase in the study. A new briefcase?”
Kunal was a bit slow in his response. He however managed to speak, “No Anita. It’s from the office. No, don’t bother to take it to the study right now. I will do it after the dinner.”
Anita sensed something amiss in Kunal’s behavior and voice. But she did not probe.
Her father broke the silence. “Kunal, are you aware that our Prime Minister is addressing a big rally in the town where you are erecting your new plant? Any participation of your company in the rally? The rally is quite significant since the next general election is around the corner.”
“Yes, I am aware of tomorrow’s Bhavanipur rally. I am not sure of our company’s participation in it. My CEO or other directors may or may not attend. But I’m definitely not going there.”
Dinner over, Kunal walked toward the study with the briefcase. Anita followed. As they entered the study, Kunal locked the room from inside. He abruptly spoke, “Anita, sit down. I have something very important to share with you. It has been disturbing me for last an hour or so.”
“Tell me about it. It will ease out your burden,” Anita said while putting her hand on Kunal’s shoulder.
“What I’m going to tell you must remain with you a secret. You see this briefcase; it contains lots of cash currency. This will be with us only for tonight. Tomorrow early morning I will hand it over to a person I have never met earlier.”
“But how are you sure it contains lots of money. Did you check it up?”
“My CEO gave it to me and told me so.”
“No, Kunal that’s not correct. We must be sure that it has money and nothing else. We might get into big trouble if you find tomorrow morning that it does not have the enormous amount of money your boss told you about.”
“You are right, Anita.” Kunal then opened the briefcase. Kunal and Anita got a shock of their life. They hadn’t seen so much money at one place in their entire lifetime so far. Simultaneously they were scared too.
Anita warned Kunal, “In the past few weeks lots of thefts have taken place in our neighborhood. I am really scared. How are we going to save it from any theft?”
Kunal understood Anita’s point. He kept looking at her as if he wanted a solution.
Anita did propose a solution. She said, “I’m going to request my parents to stay back. We will let them know about this money. All the four of us will keep awake the whole night playing cards game. We will have chai (tea) and pakoras to go with it. It will be fun. You know that my parents love freaking out like this once in a while.”
Kunal and Anita roped in Anita’s parents into their secret. When Anita’s parents saw the money, they were shocked too. They felt Anita’s plan to save the money from any possibility of theft was quite in order.
…………
Next day in the office….
As directed by his boss Kunal straightway went to Rutomji’s office. Rutomji, Kunal and his other four colleagues connected with the Bhavanipur project were of the same hierarchical rank. Therefore Kunal always found it in order to walk into Rustomji’s cabin without any prior notice or appointment or other formalities.
To his surprise, his four colleagues were already sitting with Rustomji. He found them handing over the pairs of papers with the passwords on each one of them. He immediately came to the conclusion that the CEO had asked them to carry out the task of transferring the moneybags just the way he was asked.
He pulled a chair and sat down. All of them looked at each other. As Kunal was in the process of handing over the papers with the passwords to Rustomji, one of them insisted, “Rustomji, it won’t be fair until you tell us all about it. Why were we made to do something so strange? And where is the boss? I had been to his cabin this morning to seek clarification on this despite his snubbing yesterday. Yesterday he shut me up by saying that certain things should be left unexplained. So tell us.”
“OK. I will tell you guys everything because the boss is not around today. He has gone to Bhavanipur to have a brief meeting with the Prime Minister before the Prime Minister’s rally there. He has to have the Prime Minister’s blessings for starting our business at Bhavanipur.”
Kunal interrupted. “Yes, why not seek the Prime Minister’s blessings? After all the ruling party has favored us by allotting the land for our plant at Bhavanipur for a song. Our company must return the favors.”
To this Rustomji added, “Only seeking blessings is not enough in such cases. You need to dole out huge sums of money to the ruling party and the concerned politicians. Also you need to contribute toward the fund required to distribute the money to the crowd hired as an audience in the rally.”
“You mean the audience is hired? I thought it was a hearsay.”
“Yes, hired. It is one hundred percent truth. In every political rally the crowd assembles only because the political party arranging the rally pays them. Greater the crowd, grander becomes the image and power of the leader addressing it. And for attracting large numbers of people you have to distribute large sums of incentive money. The unknown person to whom you transferred the money in the big briefcases was none other than the contractor appointed to hire buses, hire men and women for the audience, pay them the incentive money, transport them in the buses to the venue of the rally and deposit them as a dummy audience. Our company is repaying the favors showered by the ruling government till date.”
“Unbelievable,” quipped all the five managers sitting in front of Rustomji.
“Now for god’s sake do not tell the boss that I told you all.”
“But how do you account for this money that the company gives to the ruling party and also to the politicians in their personal kitty?”
“What we give is unaccounted money. We do not keep any account of such money, nor we pay any kind of taxes on it. It is pure black money.”
“But how do you generate this kind of money in the company and who all know about it?”
“Now don’t ask me further. The company has its own ways to generate the black money. Very few people including me know about it entirely though. But one thing is sure- the black money is required for buying the governments and the politicians and having an upper hand over them. It is also required to bag the sales orders for the company and for many more similar things- the kickback money. Now please go away. I have told you enough.”
Kunal and the other four managers got up from their seats and walked out of Rustomji’s office thinking pensively about many aspects of the corporate and political character.
More Management Anecdotes (Management Case Studies)
Read the following books. All of these are available online from all the Amazon sites (Amazon marketplaces)
1. Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)
2. Sensitive Stories of Corporate World Volume 2 (Management Case Studies) (Volume 2)
3. Sensitive Stories of Corporate world (Volumes 1 & 2 Combined) (Management Case Studies)
Excellent Bestselling Books for Your Personal, Professional and Organizational Library
All the books listed below are available online from all the Amazon sites (Amazon marketplaces):
Management, Business, Self-help and Personality Development Books
1. HSoftware (Human Software) (The Only Key to Higher Effectiveness)
2. Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)
3. Sensitive Stories of Corporate World Volume 2 (Management Case Studies) (Volume 2)
4. Sensitive Stories of Corporate world (Volumes 1 & 2 Combined) (Management Case Studies)
5. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers
6. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers (Volume 2)
7. Classic Team Building Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers
8. 101 Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers
9. Stress? No Way!! (Handbook on Stress Management)
10. HSoftware (Shyam Bhatawdekar’s Effectiveness Model)
11. Competency Management (Competency Matrix and Competencies)
12. Soft Skills You Can’t Do Without (Goal Setting, Time Management, Assertiveness and Anger Management)
13. Essentials of Work Study (Method Study and Work Measurement)
14. Essentials of Time Management (Taking Control of Your Life)
15. Essentials of 5S Housekeeping
16. Essentials of Quality Circles
17. Essentials of Goal Setting
18. Essentials of Anger Management
19. Essentials of Assertive Behavior
20. Essentials of Performance Management & Performance Appraisal
21. Essentials of Effective Communication
22. Health Essentials (Health Is Wealth)
23. The Romance of Intimacy (How to Enhance Intimacy in a Relationship?)
Novels, Stories, Biographies and Travelogues
24. The Peace Crusaders (Novel: how the peace crusaders established permanent peace on a war strewn planet?)
25. Love Knows No Bounds (Novel: a refreshingly different love story. Also available with the title “Good People”)
26. Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories
27. Stories Children Will Love (Volume 1: Bhanu-Shanu-Kaju-Biju and Dholu Ram Gadbad Singh)
28. My Father (Biography)
29. Travelogue: Scandinavia, Russia
30. Travelogue: Europe
31. सीमाओं के परे: एक अलग प्रेम कहानी (Hindi version of the novel “Love Knows No Bounds”)
