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A LOVE STORY - Episode 10

Discussion in 'Saturdays with Varalotti' started by varalotti, Sep 14, 2008.

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A LOVE STORY

A Serial By Varalotti Rengasamy

Episode 10

“Marimuthu, my dear partner, let’s start discussing the next book. What do you think I should write on?”

Arun and Marimuthu had got up early in the morning. Mumbai has no winter. It has a warm season and a less warm season. It was the less warm season at that time. The weather was pleasant.

The sun was reluctantly rising from his sleep. Arun and Marimuthu were in an upbeat mood.

Arun was sitting before his laptop. Marimuthu was sitting on his bed and sipping his morning coffee.

Marimuthu had had a thrilling first flight experience. To see such pure happiness in such a good man was a feast to Arun’s eyes. Arun helped him with the seat belt and assisted him in making the right choice of food and soft drinks.

He also explained about the safety demonstration – something which the stewardess did as if she were a robot.

They were received by a leading book-seller of Mumbai and were driven to Hotel Kamath near the Airport. Naren had offered to put them up in luxury hotels like Taj or Centaur. But Arun insisted on staying in budget hotels. And Naren had put them up in the best budget hotel.
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varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

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Sep 14, 2008 #2

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Part 2!

Marimuthu placed his coffee cup on the table and started to talk.

“Arun Sir, You have now got all the fame. Let your work be a little autobiographical this time. Have you read Somerset Maugham’s books? I have read all of them. His work “Of Human Bondage”, which was almost his autobiography, was his magnum opus. Why don’t you try something like that?”

“I wanted to write a love story, Marimuthu.”

“That’s wonderful. Make it a great saga of your life. Talk about your life as a motherless boy. About how you grew up, your school life and your college life. When it comes to love, you can introduce some imaginary characters.”

‘I don’t have to’ Arun said to himself. ‘With Vidya still ruling over my heart, why should I go for imaginary characters? I will bring in Vidya in some other name.’

They were discussing the outline for a long time. Arun was taking down the various points to form the story line.

varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

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Part 3!

Around 8 AM Arun’s mobile rang.

“Good Morning, Arun. How was the journey?”

“Good Morning, Naren. The journey was fine. I was very happy seeing Marimuthu being thrilled by his first flight experience.”

“Great. What are you doing now?”

Arun told about the discussion he had with Marimuthu regarding his next book.

“I am happy, Arun. Marimuthu’s idea is great. Have you thought of a title?”

“I have, Naren. A LOVE STORY.”

“Great. I love the title. I am sure we have another best seller in our hands.”

“Thanks.”

“Arun, I have good news for you. Mr. Verma, a famous Bollywood Director wants to make Unrequited Love into a movie. What do you think, Arun?”

“I will go by your advice, Naren.”

“Thanks for the confidence. We’ll decide about it later. But first let’s get maximum mileage out of this request. I have asked Verma to organise a meeting for you with select Directors and Producers.

“I am cancelling your luncheon meeting the day after tomorrow at Taj. Instead you will have a luncheon at RK Studios. Verma has promised to bring about a dozen producers and directors. The Press is going to love it.”

“Thanks Naren. How are things with Dr.Kamla?”

“A fire brand accountant has come from <st1:city w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Bombay</st1lace></st1:city>. She is going to meet Kamla at her clinic later in the morning. The Singapore Office e-mailed her profile to me. She is hardly 27.

“She has got All India’s First Rank in her CA exams. She has been trained in Ernest and Young, <st1:state w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">New York</st1lace></st1:state> and now she is working for PWC. She is directly reporting to the Asia-Pacific Head of Forensic Accounting, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Singapore</st1lace></st1:country-region>.”

“Do I have enough money in my account to pay her fees?”

“They asked for an advance of Rs. 5 lakhs, which I have already wired. They have quoted a fee of about Rs. 20 lakhs. As we have put off the registration of Velachery Property you still have a lot of money in your account.”

“Thanks, Naren. Let not Kamla know about this arrangement. Just tell her that the Accountants Fee is Rs. 50, 000 and get the money from her. Otherwise she might smell the fish.”

“OK Arun. Have a nice time. My regards to Marimuthu.”

varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

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Part 4!

When Dr.Kamla entered her clinic on that day she had a visitor waiting for her. The visitor was sitting all alone and was talking to herself.

Kamla looked at the girl. She was tall, very fair and exceedingly slim. Her face glowed with extraordinary brilliance. Poor girl, thought, Kamla, afflicted with some mental disease at this age.

It was only when the girl pushed aside her free flowing hair did Kamla know the truth. A slim blue tooth device was clutching her ears.

She saw Kamla. She murmured something to herself and then aimed her mobile at Kamla’s face.

Kamla was not sure whether she should object or not.

She threw a questioning glance at Bhavani whose expression showed her utter helplessness.

Meanwhile the girl had finished with her mobile conversation and stood up to greet Kamla.

“Ma’am, I am Ritu. Ritu Khanna. From Forensic Accounting, PWC. I have been deputed to study your firm’s accounts and help you manage your creditors. Can we go in?”

“I’m Dr.Kamla. You are most welcome. Naren told me about your coming. I never thought you will be so early. Please come in.”
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Part 5!

Kamla wanted to spend time conversing with her. But she was in a hurry.

“We have a lot to do, Ma’am. We don’t have much time.”

She took out her PDA.

“Two things. Number one. I will be intruding into your privacy all the time. This was supposed to be a routine assignment till yesterday.

“But last night – I don’t know why - our <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Singapore</st1lace></st1:country-region> office upgraded this into a top priority assignment. You should have powerful connections at very high places.

“But to me this upgrade means that I will have to keep my boss sitting in Singapore on the loop. Actually my boss is directly in charge of this assignment. I am just an instrument.

“My boss wants me to send pictures of everything I see – the persons, the papers, the books everything. I will be sending them through my laptop..

“And that brings us to issue number two. My work station. I will set it up in the blank space near your secretary’s desk. You have only a 256Kbps broadband. I have already asked your Service Provider to upgrade it to 8 Mbps which will be done in an hour at the maximum.

“I have asked your Secretary to cancel all your appointments for the next 3 days. And one of these days, you need to come with me to see Dr.Rao’s wife. Otherwise I will be busy with my work; but will be barging in on you and your Secretary all the time. I want your understanding and your co-operation, Ma’am.”

Kamla was speechless.

In another two hours Kamla’s clinic was turned upside down. Ritu had summoned assistants from a local CA firm which had a networking arrangement with her firm.

Four people walked into the office with their laptops. They almost ripped the office apart and studied every paper that was there in the premises.

The firm’s chartered accountant – an elderly man who has been looking after the firm’s taxes – was summoned later in the afternoon. The papers in the files he brought along were scanned, copied and organised.
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Part 6!

Early morning next day they went to see Mrs. Rao. She was in her late fifties. She looked very aged and tired.

Kamla briefly explained the problem.

Kamla was shocked to know that the lady had to go to an old age home soon. Dr. Rao’s flat had already been acquired by the creditors. They had given a month’s notice to her to vacate the flat. She had no other relative and no other means to survive.

Her apartment looked reasonably prosperous. But when Kamla realised that her days in that house are numbered, her heart bled for her.

Mrs Rao’s position was far worse than hers. For her at least Kumar was there. With Kumar by her side even begging in the streets would be an enjoyable option. But who was there for Mrs. Rao? She was banished into a life long loneliness and this misery has added a stinging insult to the grievous injury.

Suddenly all this exercise looked trivial to her. Why should this innocent lady suffer for her husband’s greed?

‘Oh, God, please give me the power to help this lady.’

The great Lord sitting above, who acts deaf when we pray for our own welfare, springs into action the moment He hears our prayers for others. And while granting such prayers, the kind Lord ensures our well-being too.

Mrs. Rao let Ritu rummage her husband’s personal belongings. Ritu took off the hard disk from Dr.Rao’s personal computer.

The speed with which Ritu Khanna was working made Kamla dizzy. She was on the mobile all the time. She was reporting her every movement and got guidance and direction from her boss at <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Singapore</st1lace></st1:country-region>.

Kamla really admired her boss sitting at <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Singapore</st1lace></st1:country-region>. Someone capable of controlling this super-fast girl should be a real genius, she thought.

varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

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Part 7!

Arun was surrounded by some big names in Bollywood. All were producers and directors. Marimuthu was sitting by his side. All the English dailies in Mumbai and a few Marathi dailies were also represented

“What do you think of pirated vcds, Mr. Vidyabharathi?”

It was from the Film Section Editor of Hindustan Times.

They wanted an innocuous question to start the meeting. But Arun’s vehement response was anything but innocuous.

“I crave the indulgence of the Directors and Producers for being brutally frank. I think it’s a kind of nemesis working against you. I know how many writers have been cheated by the movie industry.

“My friend a budding writer from <st1:city w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Coimbatore</st1lace></st1:city> wrote a beautiful novel. Of course it did not sell much. Then a person working for a famous Director read the novel and without even telling the author they made that into a movie. Was it not piracy?

“You robbed a poor writer of his precious work. Had the producer just given him a paltry sum of Rs. 5000 and showed his name in the corner in the title card, the author would have been ecstatic. Instead they chose to steal the story from him and showed the Director as the author of the story.

“What you did to writers, technology is doing to you. I am against all kind of piracy – whether you steal from the writers or whether people steal from you – it’s still theft. But let’s use this opportunity to look into ourselves before complaining.”

The select audience was taken aback by Arun’s brutal remarks but knew very well that what he said was true. Now they looked at Arun with greater respect.

“Will you let us make your best-selling novel into a movie? As a writer what conditions will you impose? Will you insist that we should not change even a single line of the story?”

The question came from Verma. Arun had been talking to him before the meeting.

“Sir, I have left that to the able hands of my publisher. I don’t know what conditions I should impose. I don’t know much about film-making. But I can tell you one thing. Print medium and the visual medium are poles apart. People who read a book have better imaginative skills.

“When I talk about a character they will search their memory for a person who best fits that description. But in the movie you can’t leave anything to imagination. Which means you will have to play a very creative role in casting.

“As of now you first get the actors’ call-sheets and then go scouting for the story. You should reverse this order. You should first select a story and then go scouting for the actors.

“If you fail to do that you’ll end up getting the classic comment, “the book was great but the movie sucks.”

“I’ll let you change the story to suit to the visual medium. But I won’t let you damage the basic structure of the story.”

As Arun was answering question after question from the Press and from the filmy personalities, the big weights in the world’s most powerful entertainment industry made a mental note of the young, handsome writer.

‘This guy is sure to go places.’

varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

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Part 8!

Ritu Khanna and her team had been working virtually round the clock for three days.

On the evening of the third day Ritu sought a long meeting with Kamla.

“We have completed our work, Ma’am. My boss now has all the information and has devised a beautiful strategy which I am going to discuss with you.

“Have you heard of the saying, “Sweet are the uses of adversity”? In your case it is to some extent true. Some share broker owed money to Dr.Rao. He could not pay that and instead gave his housing plot to Dr.Rao.

“That happened three years ago. At that time the value of the plot was much less than the amount due. Today it’s worth a crore of Rupees. And Dr.Rao has registered the plot in the name of the firm thanks to the advice given by your chartered accountant.”

Kamla did not know whether to laugh or cry.

“Now to the strategy, Ma’am. My boss says that this is the same strategy which Portia adopted in the play Merchant of Venice, by Shakespeare. No, no, no, I am not Portia. My boss is. I am just a mouthpiece of my learned boss.

Please listen. Every word I utter is very important. This is the list of your creditors. You call every one of them for a meeting the day after tomorrow. Once they are assembled you will have to tell them…”

Kamla’s eyes widened as she listened to the deceptively simple yet a profound strategy. She saluted the intelligence of Ritu’s boss
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Part 9!

All the twenty two creditors of the firm were there. It was around Four in the afternoon on a hot Sunday.

The partition between Dr.Rao’s consulting room and the veranda had been removed to make that space into a meeting hall.

Ritu Khanna and her assistants were working from early morning. They had planted a lot of tiny cameras and sound-recording devices in the room. All these devices were connected by Blue Tooth adapters to Ritu’s laptop which was connected to the net.

Her boss could watch the proceedings on a real time basis and could eavesdrop on every word that was spoken in the meeting. The gadgets were sensitive enough to capture even a sigh let out by anybody in the room and relay it instantaneously to Ritu’s boss sitting at Singapore.

Ritu now had a head phone on her to receive instructions from her boss.

Plum cake, hot vada with chutney and steaming filter coffee were served to all the creditors.

Kamla and Ritu Khanna sat at the centre table. The caterers moved away with their ware. Ritu’s boss asked her to begin.

Ritu signalled Kamla who started addressing the creditors.

“Gentlemen, I have earned name and fame in my chosen field. But when it comes to money, finance and accounts, I am as ignorant as a ten year old. Dr.Rao was my husband’s classmate and our family friend.

“Our trust in him was absolute. It never struck me or my husband that we should check the accounts maintained by him.”

Kamla let out a long sigh.

“If Dr.Rao had borrowed for our firm- for buying furniture or for interior decoration of this building - then it is my duty to repay. He borrowed money for his own private gambling in the share market. How can you hold us responsible for that?”

“But, Madam, we have promissory notes signed by Dr. Rao on behalf of the firm.”

“I don’t deny that, Gentleman. This is not a court of law. I am not here to argue with you. I am here to plead for mercy. I am not denying my liability. We have discovered a valuable property of the firm worth Rs. 1 crore. Please accept that and discharge me and my husband from all the liabilities. We will forever be indebted to you.”

“Excellent, Ritu. I have fallen in love with this lady. She has passion in whatever she does. Now let’s see their reaction. Remember Ritu, this is almost their last chance to escape. If they refuse the good lady’s offer and try to hurt her, they had it. I will go out of the way to destroy them all.”

Ritu heard her boss. It was not a human voice.

It was that of the Lord giving reassurance to his devotee Prahalada that no harm could happen to him. It was a lion’s roar.

Ritu shivered.

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Part 10!

Some of the creditors were moved by the request. They made some calculations in their mind. The property would cover about 15% of their dues. If they proceeded against Kamla and Kumar they might cover another 30% of their dues. Of course there would be expenses like court fees, lawyers fees and the waiting time. Why not accept the property and be done with that?

But one creditor thought otherwise and his words tempted others.

“I have talked to the best lawyer in the town. We have an open and shut case. Why should we leave Rs. 2 crores just like that? It’s not a small sum of money. Let’s be united. Let’s be firm in our stand.”

Others nodded approval. The creditor who spoke first repeated like a parrot the words his lawyer had taught him.

“We do hereby refuse to accept your offer.”

Greed was a temptation they could not resist. Ritu’s boss had factored that in the strategy. Being in Forensic Accounting did not mean just playing with the figures; it was an ultimate game involving the human minds, especially the worst types.

Ritu’s boss knew that there was only one thing that was even more powerful than greed. Fear. The boss did not want to unleash that weapon without first giving the creditors a chance to escape.

Ritu’s boss was like Lord Krishna who waited till Sishubalan committed a hundred sins. But unlike the Great Lord the patience of Ritu’s boss did not extend to a hundred; it went only up to two.

Ritu could hear her boss hiss on the phone.

“Let the lady request them again. But remember this is the last time.”

Ritu signaled to Kamla.

“Gentlemen, even if you make us sell all our belongings, even if you make us come to the street, still your liabilities will not be fully met. Instead of 15% you’ll get 45% of your dues.

“It won’t make much difference to you. But to us, Gentlemen, two people in the evening of our lives, it would mean a life of penury. I request you to please spare us from the misery and dishonour.”

“There’s no need to be so courteous to those crooks. But I love the way she put it across. Well, that’s it. Don’t let the lady talk any further. From now on you take over. You remember your words, right?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“What’s their reaction?”

“We do hereby refuse to accept your offer.”

Hiranya doubted the existence of God and hit the pillar with his mace. All hell broke loose.

The creditor repeated the words his lawyer had taught him. Ritu’s boss heard them.

“Fire.”

The boss’ command was crisp.

[FONT=&quot]All the eyes were now on Ritu Khanna[/FONT]

varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

varalotti, Sep 14, 2008

#10

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