25. AH! THE SWEET TASTE OF REVENGE

 STRESS, SUCCESS AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN

The Highs and Lows of A Woman’s Journey in the Corporate World

CARE: This is Chapter 25 of my book Stress, Success and Everything In-Between. These are individual anecdotes but to understand the professional journey in totality, I would recommend reading the book right from Chapter 01 onwards. 

Many years after my transfer from the IIT Branch, I had accompanied my husband to a party. The gathering comprised the elite of the society - senior bureaucrats, industrialists, entrepreneurs and technocrats, all clinking glasses and rubbing shoulders with each other. As we moved through the gathering, we joined a group where a young man was busy boasting his extraordinary talent and high moral conduct. 

When the host introduced us and the young man learned of my professional background of working in a bank, he did not wait for a minute before launching a tirade against the Bank in general. He played the lead role of the arrogant customer, and others in the group nodded in agreement, making me uncomfortable all along. He continued to boast about his achievements despite non-cooperation from his bank and would not stop criticising them. 

All this while, I was feeling miserable but my brain was in overdrive. Earlier, I was never good at recognising faces but a few years in the banking industry had already turned me into a human database of faces, names and account numbers. Although I had left the IIT Delhi branch a decade ago, his face looked familiar. I was trying to recall where I had met him before but my memory was playing hide-and-seek with me. Desperate to end the agony I was suffering due to his unwarranted criticism, I asked him straightaway, "Where did you do your studies from?"

With an arrogant smile, he declared, "I am a graduate of IIT, Delhi. I was the first to…...."

"Chemical Engineering? 1975 batch?" I suddenly interjected.

He was taken aback. "Yes, that is right, but how do you know?"

“A banker never forgets his account-holders. I was the Savings Bank Incharge when you were a student and had an account there. Remember? You had once come there with your father.” I got my chance to make a tongue-in-cheek statement.

His face went off-colour and he stammered, "Uh, eh ... Excuse me, please! I will fill up my glass and come back..." Saying so, he vanished from the scene.

This young man had a tainted past. As a student, he had stolen a cheque leaf from the chequebook of his roommate, forged his signature and collected cash from the Teller counter. Hours after he had left the Bank with cash, Khurmi at the Savings Bank counter, while posting the cheque in the ledger, caught the mismatch in account number and signature. He immediately raised an alarm.

We could have reported the matter to the IIT authorities. But we acted discreetly, partly because the career of a young student would be ruined and mainly because we wanted to recover the cash taken away by him fraudulently. Nobody in the branch wanted to report a fraud. Looking at his account opening form, we found the phone number of his father, who worked as Chief Engineer in PWD in Delhi  Govt. 

I rang up his father and asked him to reach the Bank with his son immediately. He came but initially tried to intimidate us. He looked stern, spoke curtly, and flaunted his status. But we stood our ground, threatened to report the matter to the Dean of IIT, recovered our money and spared the expulsion of his son from the IIT, in exchange for a written apology from him.

Taking the alibi of refilling his glass, the young man had already  vanished from the party, leaving me amused. Later, I wondered whether he had his dinner that night. If he did not, well, I have no regrets. I am sure he learnt his lesson that one should not mess with a banker, at least publicly.

 

I felt that the revenge acted as the best sweet dish for me after a dinner of undue bitter criticism in public.  

(To be continued...)

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