The Double Life of Ramalinga Raju - a review

Flying can be hazardous to mental health these days, unless you have a book or two to help you cope. Well, despite being well stocked up on a recent trip, I bought this one at Mumbai airport.

Ramalinga Raju beckoned , "Pick me up, pick up!" Pick up and read all about the bad-bad things I have done in life.

Well, quite like Raju's life, the book too does not live up to its promises. Agreed, nine months is a short time to put together and release a book but one does expect to learn *something* new?

"The Double Life of Ramalinga Raju", unfortunately, is like a 180 page long newsreport. With neither the brevity nor the breathless immediacy of 'news'.

Starting from the infamous "confession" the book takes you 'back' - but very superficially. There is a chapter on the crucial board meeting of Dec 16, one titled 'A Scheme is Hatched' - on the sub prime crisis and its effect on Raju's ill empire.

In between there is some mention of Raju's early days, his family, a faint whiff of his personality. But too soon, we are back to Maytas, Hyderabad metro project - the exoskeleton of the scam. What's missing is the pounding of the heart, the taste of fear, the rush of blood!

Author Kingshuk Nag thanks dozens of people connected with Satyam and the Rajus for 'sharing their insights' but very few of these insights shine through. And none are actually attributed to anyone.

While I don't expect a 'jeena isi ka naam hai' with Raju's primary school friends being asked to comment on him, surely some former confidantes could have been persuaded to talk?

Among them D V S Raju (a cousin who was instrumental in setting up Satyam between 1987 and 1992) and Srini Raju (brother in law, who helped run Satyam till the year 2000. Also the fesity Income Tax dy commissioner who almost derailed Raju with her queries back in 2002... wonder what *she* has to say!

At the end of this quick read, I gazed at the puffy clouds around the aircraft window and thought to myself...

a) Ramalinga Raju , you did all this for land, land and more land. But tell me, tu lekar kahaan jayega?. Kingshuk Nag makes just this point by referring to Tolstoy's classic short story "How much land does a man need?"

The answer is:"A man needs only six feet of land to cover him from head to toe..." Unfortunately this country is full of Rajus, who never quite understand that!

b) Raju was the proverbial dork who wanted to be Mr Popular. Quoting from page 76.

"It was partly a deep inferiority complex that made Raju embark on this unholy path... Raju knew that he could neither match Narayana Murthy nor Azim Premji, as Satyam procured mucht of its business by quoting cheaper rates... But Andhraites had made him into an icon and he had to live up to this image".

Raju had to show 'as good' quarterly results as an Infosys or a Wipro - hence he fudged. The company actually waited till Infy released its figures and then decided what numbers to show!

c) Lastly, blind love for his sons was another fatal flaw. Again, common with Indian politicians, actors and businessmen. No known cure for this affliction!

To sum up, 'The Double Life of Ramalinga Raju' will sell decent numbers but does satiate the thirst to get inside the mind of this smooth criminal. Perhaps someday we'll have a 'David Frost' to do unto Raju a full and final confession.

I think, like Nixon, he would probably justify his actions and say, "Karna padta hai - sab karte hain". Only to rue the fact that he was the unlucky one who got caught.

'The Double Life of Ramalinga Raju' by Kingshuk Nag
Rs 250, Harper Collins

Stuck to Satyam?

You can check in but you can never leave... That was Hotel California but the situation is somewhat similar at Satyam right now.

Firstly, there are few openings elsewhere. Secondly, as far as freshers go, the company has taken a Rs 2 lakh bond from each trainee. Apparently it works like this: you keep a fixed deposit of Rs 2 lakhs with State Bank. If you leave before completing two years you forfeit that FD to Satyam.

Asking employees for a bond is an IT industry practice. However Satyam is the only one which asks for so much money upfront and for a period of 2 years. TCS and Wipro too have a bond but for Rs 50,000 and Rs 75,000 respectively.

Says one recent engineering graduate working with a consulting firm: "Other IT majors have SLAs .. so if they train you in some niche skill they have SLA for large amount".

He explains, an SLA is a Service Level Agreement. Although it would be more appropriate to refer to it as a bond. A legal document on 'court paper' signed by your company and you. "So when settlements happen while leaving.. they get this amount if you leave job early."

How exactly can one 'enforce' this? Well, the company can refuse to give you the experience letter or NOC required to join the next place unless you pay up.

This guy, let's call him Engineer X, had an SLA of Rs 1 lakh for 1 year. Now that period is over and he can move on freely (if he wishes to). Until he gets trained in some other skill and is under SLA again for some time.

I don't know if SLA bonds work efficiently but certainly keeping cold hard cash does! The fact that I have to literally PAY 2 lakhs (or at least lock it in for 2 years) raises several issues in my mind:

* I need money to get a job. They promise to give it back to me but it still sounds very un-capitalist.

* Would every fresh engineer have this money to spare. If not, does the bank provide a loan for this purpose?

A job at Satyam for a fresher would pay between Rs 2.4 lakhs-3.5 p.a. Engineer X adds,"Satyam many a times offered jobs to top 10 students in many colleges..!!" Obviously not the IITs or other big brand name colleges but still.

So where is this money? If we estimate around 10,000 freshers joined the company in the last two years (and that is a conservative estimate) the amount collected as bond would be Rs 200 crores.

Given that Satyam managed to manipulate its bank FDs in all kinds of interesting ways one has to wonder whether this money is safe! Hopefully the new auditors will get to the bottom of this one.

As for the bond itself - kya yeh Fevicol ka hai jo kabhi tootata nahin? Under the changed circumstances it should be revoked. When things fall apart, why should freshers hold?

The party ends?

ET reports: This may literally be a bolt from Big Blue! IBM is learnt to have delivered the pink slip to a sizeable chunk of its entry-level trainee programmers (ELTPs) across major offices in India.

Most of these ELTPs, who were engineering graduates, had put in nearly a year and were working in numerous technology practice groups under IBM India’s global delivery business.

Wonder whether this news is sending a chill down the spines of engineering students about to graduate. I've also heard of TCS showing the door to trainees who failed to clear the test after the training period.

IT companies are still recruiting in large numbers from engineering campuses. In the top end colleges like NITs they don't even have interviews, just a written test to clear. A significant number of people who join are doing so because:
a) I need one job in hand... but will keep looking for something better
b) Need a place to park for 2 years as I prepare for CAT/ GRE
c) No interest in core branch, would rather join software where work is white-collar and jahaan foreign jaane ka chance hai.

Which is all fine but now these folks will have to make more efforts to better acquaint themselves with coding and what not. Because companies are getting more stringent on the performance criteria.

What's intriguing is that companies get stringent only when times get slightly tough. With software margins being affected by the strengthening rupee, they are looking for ways to shave costs. In any time, good or bad, it's hardly advisable to keep people who don't meet your standards after training. But when there's a boom, you just sigh 'shortage of talent' and look the other way.

As far as students go, I think this is a positive thing. At least a few will think twice before taking jobs they don't want in the first place. And if they do join they will have a little less attitude and possibly learn more in whatever time they spend in IT.

As techie MS Vivek Chaitanya commented on the Jobokplease blog:

Due to competition, companies are campus recruiting students in 3rd year, 2nd sem itself. This is inducing recklessness in the students and slowing down their studies for in their final year. So there is no guarantee that the potential of the student at the time of campus recruitment is same as the potential once he finally comes out of his/her studies.

What say you, engineering junta?