Srikanth Perath

I never thought I would start my first posting in my blog on such disappointing occurrences. I always wanted to start this blog on a happy note. But life, as it is ought to be, chose the other way.

Imagining Satyam without Raju as the CEO is like imagining my blog without me as the moderator. Weird! But now a sad reality. I want to pen the happenings of the day (Jan 7th 2009) which every Satyamite cannot forget throughout his/her whole life. The day every employee of this company went dumb struck.
The evening before, everything was as usual. Being a positive thinker, I did not sense any mayhem. I went to bed conscious of picking my parents from Secundrabad station next morning. “8:30 would be the time”. That was my thought about wake up plans. Next morning dad called up, leaving my mobile ringing loud and violent, “We arrived at the station”, he declared. Estimating how many minutes I overslept, I looked at the time on the phone. “7:20”, my phone revealed the mystery. Trust me, of my 22 year old travel experience and 8 years of its own existence, I never dared to dream ‘Simhapuri express’ to be on time. This is how the day started. But it was only a hint of the shock I was just about to receive later in the day.
I was heading for the office as the sun shone bright. As always I was dodging through the traffic, laughing, joking and escaping the Hyd city traffic police all the way. I was conscious of my mobile ringing occasionally throughout the journey (Usually, I don’t pick the calls while driving). I stopped at another location of my office halfway for some work. I could see many of my colleagues gathering all over the place. They looked very tensed and impatient. Suddenly someone called me and I came to know that the chairman has resigned. Thud..! Shocked…!!! Very curious to know about the situation, I finished my work there and rushed towards my location. Even as I reach my work station I can see the resignation letter of the CEO on all the computer desktops. Don’t know where the hell does this letter came to them. Also here, I saw more number of curious groups analyzing the resignation letter (like it was directly addressed to them). Without breaking the tradition I duly opened my mail box and opened the letter. Thud..!! Bang..!!! I was set aback. As I read, the letter stated that the balance sheet has inflated (non-existent) cash, understated liabilities, overstated debtors. In short, the balance sheet shows something far from reality. He quoted handling this gap was like ‘riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten’. The chairman had admitted truth and completely took the liability. I read news coming in calling the chair person ‘a fraud’. I couldn’t easily digest that fact. I considered him the hero of the company all through. Suddenly, people started to address him as ‘a fraud’. I couldn’t particularly able to digest that word. Unlike most of the colleagues, I wanted to discuss this privately with some selected colleagues who could tell me what has actually happened, without spreading useless rumors. So four of us started to analyze the situation. None of us (we four) was actually panicking. Within a few minutes, I can see myself among a crowd who centered my manger asking through the happenings. I can clearly see some people worried about the company, their future and the future of our Chairman. People was more worried about the media vilianizing our chairman.

….. To be continued.