Hari Nadkarni was sweating by the time he reached home. Obesity, cholesterol, diabetes and other age-related problems had started slowly but surely creeping into the life of this college lecturer, making his 50-year-old frame look a lot older.

He was tired. It was a long day at work. The credit card company too had called. His payments were overdue. They had threatened legal action. There was little he could do. He sighed as he looked down at his feet. One more pebble had entered his shoe through the crack in the sole. “Not again,” he muttered to himself as he knocked on the door. He couldn’t even buy himself a new pair of shoes, how could he have paid his card dues?

“Look who is here,” said Nikita as she opened the door, a spring in her step. He hadn’t seen her so animated and cheerful in a while. A blank look was all that he gave her in return. “Mad woman,” he muttered to himself as he stepped inside wondering what, rather who, caused this change in a normally melancholic Nikita, and he walked towards the sparsely furnished living room.

A man sat in the living room with his back to the door. Hari couldn’t see his face and hence couldn’t make out who he was. His two daughters huddled around the visitor and were busy giggling away. Who was this guy? And why was his own family going gaga over the visitor? From where he was, the stranger looked familiar. Well, he had to be familiar, else his wife and daughters would not be going berserk over him.

Five years ago…

The Nadkarnis were a small, happy family — Hari, Nikita, two daughters and a son Gautam. The latter was a reasonably bright student and the Nadkarnis were proud of him. An aspiring engineer, Gautam was in Class XII and dreamt of getting into one of the IITs. Hari spent a fortune on his tuitions, preparing him for the entrance examination. It was tough on Hari, but he hoped all this would bear fruit one day.

But on the day of reckoning, Gautam didn’t make the cutoff. A devastated Hari realised that irrespective of how good you are in absolute terms, success often depends on how good you are in comparison to others. Gautam had lost out in this comparison. Forget the IITs, Gautam would now struggle to make it to any of the decent engineering colleges.

Gautam was shattered. He had been a merit student all his life and had hoped to get into one of the premier institutes. This was a big blow to his self-esteem — his first big failure in life. Arts or commerce was not an option. The capitation fee in a private engineering college was ₹18 lakh, which was way beyond Hari’s means.

Worried about her son’s future, Nikita recommended that they mortgage their house and raise the funds necessary to pay the capitation fees. Her logic was simple: if Gautam managed to get a good job, it would only help the family. He would help them pay back the debt. Though Hari was not in favour of this, he succumbed to her persistence and Gautam’s endless tears.

The local branch of Greater Boston Global Bank approved the loan after reams of paperwork. After that it was only a matter of days before the entire admission saga ended. The Chairman of Spandana College of Engineering was met and a capitation fee of ₹17 lakh was negotiated and Gautam’s admission confirmed. Back home that night, when he handed over the letter to Gautam, Hari made no bones about the fact that he was not at all happy about it. His wry expression made Gautam cringe. “I would never have mortgaged this house but for your mother’s insistence. Now make sure you don’t fail in your engineering exams. It is up to you now.”

Gautam was hurt. A joyous occasion had turned into a traumatic one thanks to his father’s harsh words. Had he made his parents do something which was not necessary? Had he made them stretch their commitments to breaking point? Gautam was wracked with guilt. He began to withdraw into a shell. Every time Hari taunted him, it would pain him even more. The chasm between father and son widened without the former even realising the damage that his approach was causing. By the time Gautam entered college he was completely disillusioned with the turn of events. In college, Gautam couldn’t focus. His studies took a backseat. Whenever he sat down with his books, Hari’s sullen face and constant ridicule flashed before his eyes. When one is not mentally strong, it is easy for evil designs to make their way in.

There were enough evil forces in college to lay their tentacles into him. He quickly got sucked into the quagmire of drugs and sleaze. One of his friends introduced him to Silk Road — a website which was accessible through anonymous TOR protocol and where payments were made through anonymous Bitcoins.

A couple of rich friends came handy. They helped him with the first lot of Bitcoins. A loan. And Gautam ordered from Silk Road. In eight days, an envelope landed unnoticed in the Nadkarni household. It was a mail from the US, addressed to Gautam. He found it on the dining table and hurriedly took it to his room.

Once inside, he latched his door, opened the packet carefully and emptied the contents on his table. There were a few fliers. Decoy papers. Meant to distract. He opened the neck of the envelope and looked in. Deep inside was a 2 x 3 inch packet with a white powder inside. He looked at it and smiled. He had been waiting for it. Opening the packet, he inhaled the aroma, it was amazing. His friends were right. Drugs shipped through Silk Road were indeed of a high quality. No more stepping out of home after dark, no more meeting drug dealers in the alley. He could now buy drugs from Silk Road not only for himself, but also to sell them in the local market. He was the drug dealer now. He could make enough to repay his rich friends — who had lent him the Bitcoins to buy off Silk Road. He had stumbled onto a great business model. He was going to become rich.

Slowly, his business started flourishing. In order to avoid questions on the envelopes from the US, he used a friend’s address. A friend who was staying alone. No one knew this side to Gautam. His nightly trips away from home became more frequent and his lies more complex.

One night, Gautam didn’t return. At first, Hari was confident that Gautam would come back. Maybe he had slept over at his friend’s house after a night of study. However when 24 hours passed and there was no sign of Gautam, he started panicking. He checked with all of Gautam’s friends and even went to Gautam’s college to find him. There was absolutely no trace of his son. A missing person report was lodged with the police, but to no avail. It was a different matter that the cops did nothing to find him, since Hari had no money to grease their palms with.

Days turned into weeks, and then months, but Gautam didn’t return. Instead in six months a courier arrived.

Dear Mr Nadkarni

This is to inform you that your son Mr Nadkarni Gautam has not been attending college for the past six months. As per policy, if anyone is absent for over a month without permission, his name is struck off the college rolls. Now that Mr G Nadkarni has been absent for six months, we are forced to strike his name off the rolls.

Regards

Spandana College of Engineering

First it was his son. And now the capitation fees was gone as well. All of it had been paid in cash. There was no record of the transaction and no way to claim a refund.

The next few years...

Paying the instalment on the mortgage month after month was an uphill task for the Nadkarnis. Hari took extra classes, moonlighted for some private tuition institutes, even considered selling off the house — but the slump in the real estate market forced them to drop that idea. Over the next two years, Nikita even pawned her jewellery to raise money for the EMIs. They struggled, but they managed to pay their loan instalments on time. This was their primary objective.

In March 2010, RBI raised the repo rates, driving mortgage rates up. For the next year and a half, the RBI increased rates every quarter to stem inflation, and Hari kept struggling to cope with the rising instalments. Finally, one day he could no longer pay the instalments. The one individual who was responsible for the entire fiasco had disappeared. Gautam never returned in those five years to even check on how they were. Was their son even alive?

Greater Boston Global Bank eventually classified the loan as an NPA (non-performing asset) in due course and kept the pressure on Hari to pay up. Hari was helpless.

Today...

“Baba, you are back!” exclaimed one of his daughters, which made the person sitting in the room turn around and look at Hari.

One look at him and Hari was shaken. Tears started flowing from his eyes, even as his lips curled upwards into a rare smile. “Where were you all these days?” the pain in his voice was evident. The quiver in his voice concealed his excitement. And with that he extended his hands towards the visitor, wanting to take him in his embrace.

The visitor didn’t share the same emotion. He stood there, as if his feet were rooted to the ground. Ignoring Hari’s extended hand, the visitor fidgeted with the pocket of his coat and pulled out an envelope and handed it over to Hari.

“What is this?” Hari asked

“It’s a letter for you,” the stranger said.

Hari pulled out a folded A4-size paper and squinted, trying to read what was written.

His head started spinning the moment his gaze fell on the first line in the letter. He looked at the visitor. A look of despair soon flooded him. Was the visitor a messiah? That’s what he had initially thought. Or was he the devil’s advocate?

He looked up. Anger made his eyes red. Frustration made tears well up in his eyes. The visitor walked up to him. He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a visiting card. He handed over the card to him, which Hari unconsciously accepted, and walked out of the room, out of the door, into the dark of the night, leaving behind a stunned and silent family of four.

Nikita walked up and put an arm around Hari to calm his shivering body. The letter slipped from Hari’s hand and fell to the floor. Nikita bent down and picked it up. Hari placed his hand on hers, trying to stop her from reading it. However she shook it off, and began reading the letter. She was shocked; it was a legal notice, from Greater Boston Global Bank, asking them to clear their dues in 15 days to avoid eviction proceedings. They were about to be thrown out of their own house. The visiting card slipped from Hari’s hands and landed on the floor. She looked down at it, tears in her eyes. All that she could see printed on the visiting card was:

Gautam Nadkarni,

Debt Recovery Manager – Mortgage Loans

Greater Boston Global Bank

(Ravi Subramanian is the author of God is a Gamer and other thrillers)

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