He had expected chants of “Rango, Rango,” reverberate the auditorium. Sarang Gore walked up to the dais to receive the distinguished alumnus award. But all he heard, instead, was pin-drop, eerie silence. Their reunion had less than ten people, all in their fifties, from the class of thirty. Sarang Gore was the most successful alumnus by far that the institute had produced.

Sarang had got a call from his long-lost friend Atul Choudhary a month back. It was with an invitation to grace the occasion.

“I am aware that a person like you, Rango, will not have time for such functions. But as a fellow alumnus I am requesting only two hours of your time,” Chow, as they called Choudhary, had requested.

Rango hadn’t kept in touch with anyone since he left college thirty years back. Rango didn’t stay in touch with people who didn’t serve his business interests. He had earlier stayed in touch when he worked in the corporate sector for fifteen years. But all he had got was frustration, despite a fast track career. The ambitious Sarang Gore had started his engineering company fifteen years back. His growth since then had been meteoric, to say the least. He was in a different orbit now. Staying in touch with the past was impossible. It was also unnecessary. In some cases, it was even risky and dangerous.

In any case, he thought most of his classmates were dull, middle-class, contented people. He believed they had nothing much to look forward to. He thought that a wretched, normal existence was their destiny. His mind had only disdain for such pathetic people with a contented mindset. He believed such a mindset didn’t lead to any achievements in life. In all honesty, he felt he didn’t have much in common with them, and he didn’t have much to do with them.

“I will tell my assistant to find a slot. She will get back to you,” he told Chow, not saying no outright. Over the years, he had learnt how to say no without saying it on the face. He used to be blunt when younger, but not anymore. He had realised that no one likes a cutthroat, loudmouth achiever. No one is ready to listen to his stories of how he bribes buyers and kills competition. No one likes him talking about suppressing employees and flaunting wealth. Though he continued living his life in the same manner, he had stopped talking about it.

After a few days, Chow had called back.

“Sir, I would request your august presence again,” he had said, with a changed tone this time. “The function would be incomplete without you,” he added. This time it sounded more like how Rango liked it. Give me respect, something inside him called out all the time, and respect is what he demanded. He was a respectable man. He was an achiever par excellence. He deserved the royal treatment like a king after thirty years of superlative achievements, he felt. He had earned it, dammit.

“Ok Chow. Only because of you, I will come. I will ask my assistant to make adjustments in my schedule,” Rango said.

He had learnt to navigate the world of these stupid middle-class people now. It was a useful skill after he had managed to master the world of business. They were two different worlds, he knew. Money and influence is all that mattered in the world of business. Respect and integrity is what mattered in the world of middle class, good for nothing people. Rango had left one world to set up house in the other. Now he had learnt to straddle both.

“Thank you, Sir. We have a special felicitation planned only for you at the reunion,” Chow informed Rango. “You are the pride of not only the batch. You are the most accomplished alumni produced by the institute, Sir.. So we have a special award only for you, constituted for the first time in the history of the institute.”

That was music to Rango’s ears. It seemed like things were now falling in place to his liking. No point in taking these kind of awards if others get them too. Rango knew he was one of a kind. So if this is a special award only for me then I should consider it, he thought.

This distinguished alumnus special award was, even so, another trophy though. He knew it didn’t matter much for his business. It didn’t mean anything to Rango. But deep within, he felt it might add some brownie points to his improving image. He had been trying to soften his ruthless image over the past few years.

“Ok fine. I will make it,” Sarang Gore confirmed. “But keep it to under two hours.”

He had plans of taking his company public soon. So, he had started attending such decent, goody-goody, useless functions. He needed a soft image as an acceptable leader of a growing company. Attending such events seemed to work.

If he cut a moderate cheque for some stupid cause to commemorate the occasion, it worked even better. He had donated to flood victims and orphanages with that goal.

***

Before landing for the brief reunion event, he had already instructed his PR team. They were to send some media persons to this, otherwise, useless event. No one would have covered it, if not for Sarang Gore’s attendance. He also instructed them that he wanted to read words like humble, down to earth in the local media tomorrow. And not to forget philanthropic. Throw some nice change and everyone talked good about you. It was a price worth paying, Rango had discovered. And what could be more noble than a donation to repay the debts of the alma mater at a reunion?

“I would like to make an announcement,” Chow said from the dais. Rango took his seat and Chow continued. “Our esteemed alumnus – successful industrialist Sarang Gore, has donated one million dollars. The institute is grateful for this noble gesture.”

With folded hands, Rango stood up in a show of humility in front of the cameras. There were only a couple of them there though, while Rango had expected more. He noted it and decided within to take his PR team to task once he gets back. Why wasn’t there more media?

“This is my small contribution to an institution that has given me so much. I can never hope to repay my debts in full,” he said to the two journalists after the felicitation.

In reality, it was actually true that he hardly repaid his debts in full. His business raised large loans from small cooperative banks for executing government contracts. He bagged these contracts by bribing politicians. These politicians sat on the boards of those cooperative banks. It was much easier to bribe the bankers too, than to pay the loans back. And if someone filed a legal case, it was easy to bribe the judges.

It was a modus operandi that he had championed in his early years. He had mastered it now in the decade and a half of running his own company. It worked very well. So much so that his defaults now hurt the bank more than him. Those timid bankers approached him again for more loans so that he repays the earlier one. He was a shrewd man who knew that the size of the loan determined if the borrower or the lender was in trouble.

He knew that the worlds was full of such idiots, you only had to find the right one. It was not restricted to bankers. He had found such idiots, who had no idea how the world of business runs, at every step. He had found them in people working with him as vendors. The large number of employees working for him were avid examples of such idiots. There were many idiots working against him as competitors too. Sarang Gore had found, utilised, and disposed of many such idiots.

One of those idiots was the main organiser of this reunion. He had understood Rango’s methods as part of his job. He was his old classmate Atul Choudhary or Chow. He was a banker. Or let’s say, a former banker. Before he lost his job disgraced, purportedly, by his board. But, for all practical purposes, the person behind it was Sarang Gore.

Around ten years back, unknown to Rango, Chow had granted a loan to Sarang Gore’s company. It was for executing a government contract he had bagged. He wasn’t quite aware of Rango’s methods and intentions then. He had done his diligence but trusted his batchmate. It had been a downward spiral since then. His efforts for recovery had failed miserably. Sarang Gore had not even given Chow and his team a single appointment.

Chow decided to file a legal case against Gore’s company on behalf of his bank. That’s when he got instructions from his board to grant further loans and withdraw the case. Chow had rejected both these requests and that was the start of his troubles.

Chow rejected the board’s requests. The bank’s board instituted an enquiry to determine how a loan was given to Rango’s company. That too, without adequate due diligence and why it was not recovered. The tables had turned. Chow was the scapegoat. The enquiry found him guilty of wrongful lending. It accused Chow of using coercive tactics for recovery. The enquiry committee and the court convicted Chow. He lost his job and received a sentence of seven years in prison.

Sarang Gore hadn’t even turned back and seen what happened. He had no inkling of who he had trampled upon. Elephants can’t keep track of all the ants they step on, Rango always believed in his march to glory.

Rango’s company got another loan from the same lender, eventually. His company also won the case. Rango’s photographs with visionary political leaders became larger.

Rango now found Chow glaring at him from the dais. Rango became uncomfortable and turned his attention to others on the dais. When Rango looked beyond Chow, he saw a few more idiots that seemed familiar. He looked closer.

Next to Chow on the dais was Malpani. He had been Rango’s business competitor almost a decade back. Rango had beaten him in six project tenders by bribing the buyers. After that he didn’t know what happened to Malpani. Rango had presumed he had gone out of business. Rango remembered bragging about how he had stifled his foremost competitor. He attributed his wins to smart strategy and timely tactics. Some institute even asked him to share best practices on pursuing market leadership. He had not heard about Malpani again. But what was Malpani doing here next to Chow, Rango asked himself. He was not an alumnus as far as Rango knew, or was he?

On the seat next to Malpani, he saw the familiar face of Sudhir Lele. Lele had been his CEO, though Rango called him his chief servant. Rango had high hopes from him when he had hired him. He felt this man had ambition. He thought this man had guts and the gumption to do whatever it takes and will turn out to be a good ally. But alas, he turned out to be a damp squib.

Rango realised in a couple of years that Lele was a bloated employee in businessman clothes. He gave excuses of integrity for not reaching business targets. When it mattered, Lele chickened out.

Rango had, a few years ago, made up his mind to bag some important contracts. He had finalised funding arrangements with the local corporators. He had decided to compensate them with political donations. Lele had, then, questioned it and shown his feet of clay. Rango had fired him in a fit of anger threatening that he will make sure Lele has no future in the industry. God knows what happened to Lele after that.

Why was Lele sitting here with Chow and Malpani? What was he doing here, Rango wondered? He definitely wasn’t an alumnus, or was he? Rango, for a moment, wondered if Lele had joined Malpani. Was he trying to revive his bankrupt business? He made a mental note of it to work on later.

Rango turned his attention elsewhere. He peeped into the audience but saw no one. He looked again at the audience. Was there really no one there? Why waste my time when there’s no audience? Rango got irate.

Then from the corner of his eye, he noticed Kamlesh Bhai seated there. Kamlesh Rathod was a supplier to Rango in his early days. The idiot had stupid, small dreams like buying a small house and a car. He had no risk-taking ability.

He refused to add capacity to his small unit by taking a simple bank loan that Rango wanted him to. The raw material that Kamlesh supplied was critical. Rango remembered starving him of payments. So much so, that he finally begged of Rango to buy him out, which Rango did at a dirt-cheap price. Kamlesh had walked out and Rango never looked back at him again.

Till today when he saw him again. What was he doing at the reunion Rango wondered? Kamlesh was an uneducated villager who had a small workshop. He definitely wasn’t an alumnus, or was he?

Rango wanted to give Chow a piece of his mind for calling all these irrelevant, useless idiots. They had nothing to do with the institute here. What a bloody waste of time? he cursed himself. Even the journalists, he now remembered, were some stupid Page 3 types. He had reprimanded them many years back for meddling in his company affairs. This was a big let-down.

He looked at the dais again. He saw Chow smiling at him. Next to Chow, Malpani had a faint expression of satisfaction. And next to Malpani, Sudhir Lele was laughing his way to glory. In the audience, Kamlesh broke into a chuckle. The journalists had stopped clicking and were giggling.

Rango didn’t want to spend any more time here with these idiots. He decided to get out of there in a hurry.

But he was unable to move from his chair. It seemed like he was stuck there. No amount of effort seemed to help.

This reunion was a mistake, he told himself. I need to make a move, he decided. He looked at Chow, Malpani, Lele and Kamlesh again. Even they didn’t move.

Chow had died unable to bear his disgrace after spending five years in prison. Malpani had gone bankrupt, before he committed suicide three years back. Sudhir Lele had jumped off his 27th floor residential apartment a year after Rango fired him. Kamlesh had gone back to his village with his family and died after living in poverty for seven years.

This was a different kind of reunion. It was a reunion from which Rango had no escape.

***

Ranjit Kulkarni‘s work has appeared in Literary Yard, Indian Periodical, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Potato Soup Journal, Setu Journal and a collection of short stories is expected by the end of 2021. More details about his work can be accessed at https://www.ranjitkulkarni.com.