RAJAT  GUPTA

Mind Without Fear by Rajat Gupta ;Published by Juggernaut Books;Pages 342 ; Price Rs. 699/-

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From “Heights of Glory” to “Depths of Despair” accurately sums up former McKinsey Managing Director Rajat Gupta who spent two years in prison on charges of insider trading ,The book under review ---his memoir, “Mind Without Fear”, is not to seek redemption or show how he was not guilty, but simply to tell his side of the story.

Gupta was convicted of a securities fraud in 2012 as part of an insider trading ring by Raj Rajaratnam, a hedge fund manager.

Gupta said there is “no grand strategy” behind this book, which simply seeks to tell his side of the story as he did not testify at his trial.“Two-thirds of the book is about my life and my own life philosophy.”  Rarely has somebody of Gupta’s stature been packed off to purgatory in full glare of the world’s media.

Gupta’s book deals with several items. Betrayal  by close friends and institutions, particularly  McKinsey & Co., the global consulting giant that he  headed and nurtered. His  colleagues twisted the knife where it hurt the most, and  McKinsey,  dumped him with no qualms.

 America which  took in a near penniless orphan, and bestowed upon him fame, honour and riches, mocked him and threw him into jail. Also clear is  Gupta’s disenchantment with American courts: according to him they are  biased.

 Gupta’s rise is interesting. He was an offspring of  educated, middle-class parents, orphaned at 19 with the burden of siblings to care for. He got  admission to IIT  and Harvard Business School.Then  marriage, birth of four daughters, rising to the top of McKinsey, addressing the United Nations, hobnobbing with the likes of Bill Gates and Bill Clinton, an agonising trial, conviction, ignominy, making friends with fellow cons, being summarily thrown into solitary confinement, religion in solitary confinement, release and then…?

 Gupta is the first Indian to have broken through the glass ceiling of America’s notoriously insular and colour-conscious boardrooms—later followed by Indra Nooyi, Sundar Pichai or Satya Nadella,  . He was hailed as a God in the business world. And then he fell like a sack of potatoes.

 Gupta says that in all his life as a consultant, others followed his advice. Given that was his training, when his lawyers told him not to testify, despite his personal misgivings, he didn’t. And perhaps sealed his fate.

Gupta’s cardinal sin was  doing business with Raj Rajaratnam, and the tips that were supposedly passed on. Partnering with Rajaratnam, known on Wall Street as a man of reckless ways and sharp practices was Original Sin. Rajaratnam donated generously to the Indian School of Business and that drew Gupta to him.

And what of the insider trading? Gupta is clear there was never any insider trading. To be sure, there is no evidence yet that he made any personal gains from any of his ‘tips’ to Rajaratnam. So, is it possible that the US justice system unfairly punished him? Does that make him more sinned against than sinning?

Gupta’s life is a parable for humanity’s virtues and vices.

 Gupta stood convicted after his appeals were rejected twice. He  packs his story with all the ingredients of a Hindi movie —emotion, drama, values, charity, family bonding, personal achievements, altruistic pursuits, et al.

Legally speaking, Gupta’s biggest defence is that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s wiretap on Galleon Fund owner Raj Rajaratnam did not find him passing on the tip and there was no money trail leading to him. Hence, the evidence against him was only circumstantial.
The case against Gupta dates back to 2012 when he was on the board of Goldman Sachs, retired from McKinsey but still attached as a consultant. On the fateful day, it was divulged at a board meeting of the bank that Warren Buffet would be investing $5 billion in the investment bank. Exactly 16 seconds after the board meeting ended, a call from Gupta’s phone was made to Rajaratnam, who then bought shares of the bank, got several times richer on the trade, and was quoted to have said, “I have heard something good is going to happen to Goldman” before he bought the shares.

Rajaratnam was convicted for insider trading charges.Gupta’s defence is that he does not remember whether he was able to speak with Rajaratnam  on that fateful day or was only able to get through to his secretary. Anyway, his story is that he was pursuing Rajaratnam for a long time to recover $10 million of his money that he had invested in a fund with him, having found that while Rajaratnam had withdrawn his money from the fund, he had not paid Gupta his share. Gupta’s regret is that he did not testify in court on the advice of his lawyers, who felt that cross-examination would have proved harmful. One of his explanations for writing the book is to tell the story that he could not narrate in court. Moreover, apart from reiterating the absence of wiretap of his conversation and no money trail, there’s nothing else for Gupta to write about regarding the case. Even the arguments put forward by him are weak.

Gupta has also come down harshly on Preet Bharara, then attorney for the southern district of New York, who prosecuted him. He alleges that in the post-Lehman crisis, Bharara was under pressure, and failing to prosecute any banker, found an easy scapegoat in Gupta.

After serving two years in prison on insider trading charges, Rajat Gupta maintains he is a man at peace. Mr Gupta remains proud of his work in management consulting, seeing it as distinct from the wheeling-and-dealing of Wall Street.

  “My side of the story has never been told,” he writes. “Never in my life had I refused to answer when someone asked me a direct question, no matter what the consequences. I conceded to my lawyers’ insistence that this was the best course of action, but it made no sense to me. In hindsight, I think I made a mistake. I should have told my story.”

  “In my early childhood, I was a bit of a spoiled kid, you know. In my early teens I became much more responsible because my father became very sick. Then I spent a fair amount of time with my father,” he says. He would visit him in the hospital, walk on the grounds with him and discuss Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken.

In prison, he decided he would be guided by his father’s example.      “I was determined to emerge a better and stronger person — physically, mentally and spiritually. My prison uniform would become my dhoti, and I would wear it with pride.”

He read the Gita and Tagore (the book’s title is from a Tagore poem). He listened to music, which, his old friends hold, is one of his long-standing interests. The head of an MNC once related to a journalist how he had requested Gupta, then his senior in school, to tutor him after class. Gupta had said he wouldn’t take any money from him, but would tutor him on one condition. “Only if you first learn a song from me,” he’d stipulated, and then gone on to teach him the Salil-Lata classic O Sajana.

Gupta, half-Bengali-and-half-Punjabi, also gives an eminently readable insight into a top executive’s life. He writes about his friendship with former US President Bill Clinton, whom he repeatedly defeated at Scrabble, and from whom he learnt a card game called “Oh Hell”. He mentions a corporate party where he was gifted an elephant.

What did he do with it? “Oh, it was rented.”

A very interesting tale of a convicted crook !.

P.P.Ramachandran.

 28/07/2019.