If God Was A Banker Read Free Page A

day; if only Swami's father were around, how he would have swelled with pride.
    Like Sundeep, NYB was Swami's first job too. He had made it by the whisker. When NYB came out with the first list of five hires from IIM-A, Swami's name was not there. He was sixth in the merit list at his institute and NYB was hiring only five. However, a batch mate of his, Sandeep Runwal, who was third on the merit list, decided to join his father's booming construction business, and opted out of campus placements. This piece of good luck made a huge difference to Swami's life. Swami, who was sixth on the merit list, made it as a reserve candidate. It meant a lot to him.
    Once he got out of the institute, Swami had no money. While at IIM-A, he survived on scholarship, and his family survived on the money he had saved earlier. His sister took tuitions and earned some money to supplement their mother's income. Life was not easy in those two years. But all along he knew that there was light at the end of the tunnel.
    'Once I finish my MBA, you Amma, and Ambujam, my dear sister, will live a life of luxury,' he had told his mother when he joined IIM. All that was about to come true. Their lives were going to change on joining NYB.
    There was a two-months gap between the time Swami finished his MBA at IIM-A and the day he was to join NYB. Swami had spent these two months doing odd jobs. He saved enough to buy himself a good set of clothes. After all, he was joining a foreign bank.
    Foreign banks in those days were a designer's paradise. Pinstripe suits, jackets and exotic ties were in vogue. The dress code prescribed in the appointment letter was 'business formals.' Business formals in banking parlance meant suits or jackets. He couldn't afford one. So he borrowed a jacket from a friend who was eighty pounds heavier than him. That explained the oversized jacket that Sundeep saw Swami wearing on the day they joined NYB.

 
7
    S undeep and Swami got up together and walked into the bank at 8.45 a.m. This time, the guard didn't stop them.
    Day one of the induction began with Aditya Rao addressing the gathering. Aditya had a reputation of being a tough boss. A banker with a reputation to protect. A person who was heavily focused on the task at hand, and for whom career was everything.
    New York International Bank had hired thirty-eight new recruits from the premier MBA campuses that year. They had actually hired forty new recruits, but two of them didn't join NYB on the appointed day. All of them were ushered into a conference room that could barely accommodate twenty-five people.
    'Good morning, everyone,' Aditya's voice rang in everyone's ears. 'New York International Bank welcomes you all to hell.' For a minute there was stunned silence in the classroom. As if Osama had walked into George Bush's meeting in the Oval Room at the White House. Aditya deliberately paused for a minute before he spoke his next line.
    'Yes gentlemen, all of you have entered hell,' he roared. 'For the next twelve months, as we set out on a journey to launch consumer banking in this country, life will be hell for us. We are going to start a war. And in war, there is no family and there are no friends. In war, there is only the enemy and the mission. We cannot rest until we win,' he roared.
    Swaminathan was sitting in the first row, listening intently. He was overawed by the tone and the energy in the message. Sundeep was his usual overconfident self, sitting the farthest from the firing line. While Aditya Rao continued elaborating his vision for the bank, Sundeep gently tapped the shoulder of the PYT (pretty young thing) sitting in a row ahead of him. She was Sundeep's batch mate from IIM, Bangalore. Kalpana was her name.
    'Kalpana, I think Aditya is kidding.'
    'What?'
    'With you around, how can this place be hell,' Sundeep whispered in her ears.
    'Very funny,' was all that Kalpana could say to this. Sundeep had always flirted with her through the two years at campus, but that