Satyam or Mythyam

There is a new development in this story every day and hence I thought it’s time to write a little more on the issue. I got an email joke on the subject and thought to put the contents here.

Three world famous magicians were in the bar drinking and boasting about their achievements. The first one said," During my latest show, I made three women from the audience disappear, it was so convincing that their relatives started panicking, no one could find the trick." The second one said, " Hey, that is nothing, during one of my open air shows I made the Municipality building disappear and the entire town was searching for it." The third one sighed and said," Both of you are so local, I went to Paris and made the Eiffel Tower disappear for a full one hour, it was live on the TV, entire France was searching for the building & no one had a clue." Just then an Indian walked into the bar and the three magicians suddenly turned quiet, gave each other fugitive glances and started to slip towards the door. A Bartender watching this got curious and asked one of the magicians, "Hey what happened? Who is that guy?" One of the magicians whispered, " He is the World's greatest magician, he has done the biggest disappearing trick of all times, we are all mere amateurs compared to what he has done. His name is Ramalinga Raju. He has made USD 1.5 billion disappear from his company's balance sheet in front of everyone's eyes, and the entire world is still looking for it."

Well I seriously thing this is no more a joke. There are lot of serious thinking us as a general public need to do. If we go by the face value of Raju’s confession then of 3% margin is also a reality. Someone might argue that Satyam used to quote quite lower in the market to get the orders hence this could be the truth. If I go further with this logic what I believe all the top fortune 500 companies have been splitting there work between two or three top Indian companies. In this case there can be few outcomes a. All the top companies made the same kind of profits. This thought sends the shiver down my spine as that also means that all the other companies are in same position as Satyam. 2. The fortune 500 companies were bad negotiator to get a best deal out of Satyam. 3. Satyam had more costs to execute those orders. In this case again the doubt could be cast on other software companies too.
Now I am able to understand the reason for a strong statement made by other IT company’s captains about Satyam and Mr. Raju. The other day I was seeing a TV program discussing on the Satyam issue and one of the panellists said that till September Satyam had the money in the banks and for so the TDS certificates have been issued to them. For sure there is much more then what Raju mentions in his confession. The issue gets murkier day by day. See the irony Maytas is just the opposite of s-a-t-y-a-m and the opposite of Satyam in real term is "Mythyam" , what else. This morning my mother read out a local newspaper giving details of plates of rice, No. of idly and chapatti Raju has in a day, for sure this is to serve the appetite for the target audience of that publication but I am sure Raju had a great appetite for greed , that he did dig his own grave eventually. Raju would have got away with all this, if the real estate prices would have not fallen. The last trick is he is just trying to take all the blame to himself and safe guard everybody and everything that he horded. To my relief today’s newspapers announced that there has been transfer of funds from Satyam accounts by Raju. I also do pray that this remains as a big black aberration for Indian It story.

By the time I finished writing this I got another mail from one of my friends, this email story making rounds among Satyam employees. I did choose to publish it here as it’s truly inspiring for an employee or member of a company/community in adverse time. Please read it below.

I am deputed at a client location and came across a very interesting conversation in cafeteria yesterday. One of my co-worker, also deputed with the same client through some lesser known two room company, mustered guts to ask me sarcastically in front of entire team, So, Satyam is gone! What are you guys planning to do now? In normal circumstances, I have a habit to not to reply to lose talks, but in front of entire team.... I thought I need to fix this guy's thought process. I asked him, as my military training has imbibed in me the habit to fight till last breadth, Who says Satyam is gone when I am very much alive here and committed to create value on behalf of my company?. He shot back, Hello Mr., your chairman has resigned, you guys are facing financial turbulence and you still have a face to say that Satyam is not gone! At this juncture, I thought of replying to this guy in his own language. I asked him, Tell me, what will you do and where will you go if our country India was not there? He was not prepared for this level of thought and asked back, What a stupid question, How can India be gone, it is a country? I asked him back., Country! What makes a country? Land? Economy? Our Prime Minister? Our President? Our Geography? Or the PEOPLE? If our PM resigns, will you say India is gone? If our economy faces a slowdown, will you say India is gone?
But yes, if the people of a country are lost for any reason, we will say that country has no meaning. Who cares of vast land of Antarctica today which has just one permanent resident, Father Georgy? Which country does it belongs to? Why does not it has any government? Why does not it has any economy? Or, how many countries were there when humans used to hunt for food in pre-historic times? Countries, Wealth, Infrastructures and booming economies are nothing but creations of efforts of PEOPLE, and they do not have any existence on their own. And the final blow was, When one man can create Satyam as an organization of 53,000 people, why not 53,000 committed people can rebuild one SATYAM? By now, I saw my point was well placed and he stood up and shook hands with me and murmured, Yaar, when I used to hear from my roommate who work in Satyam that EVERY SATYAMITE IS A LEADER, I used to laugh it off. Now, I know why! "

Satya(m) (Truth) shall prevail

And hopefully so, Just sitting in A sports lounge in BIAL international airport in Bangalore .I do have a liberty of watching news in two different screens in two different channel . It is past 9:30 and luckily I do not have my wife to worry about complaining. Among news the great Satyam news gets flashed almost alternatively in each screen, I am on my way to Singapore and I am sure to face a volley of question on this issue. Please be rest assured I am in no way going to give up on brand India. I am surely empowered by the news now to face this threadbare. I write again o Satyam as i did have a offline complaint that i did not touch enough on the subject in my earlier blog and rightfully so.

Today India’s top Banker, It Specialist and a regulator took over as Govt nominees to the board of Satyam. Prime minister had statement to make and most importantly this has resulted in 25 percentage point increase in the otherwise badly battered Satyam stock. Surely these guys mean business.

What went wrong? TO be fare to Raju who is branded Shree 420 what he did is what most business does. Probably he over did it. The single biggest reason is the lust and greed which surpassed Raju more than manageable propositions. Let me but a disclaimer that I am no economic analyst. But I am so confident that Mytas is all or mostly on Satyam money. Probably the gaps are almost the same amount siphoned into Mytas. He wanted to correct it by doing this post dated but by that time the share holders in a IT company were not interested to acquire a already sagging real estate business. I am sure there are a ton of other resources available everywhere doing this analysis on what went wrong. Well I am also sure that all the measure were undertaken to siphon the money including increasing the number count of employees, if the news Items are to be believed. Hence for sure he is in jail, falling from grace is just equivalent to the capital punishment or more but our dear Raju Bhai has surely secured his family which enough funds swashed. There has to be more then what the confession statement states.

To me personally the pain is neck is gone; well almost as I just tried to double check it. I am happy that I see a definitive steps being taken to revive the company, employees sticking to the company, former NASCOM chief who is in board now says that being hopeful to revive the company is a understatement and also happy that I did not invest ever in this company. More than anything it gives me enough points to defend Satyam (Sorry read India) abroad. I know some of you be saying that’s mean of me. For now just wish be good luck.

Satyam Jhutham Badsundaram (Truth,Untruth and the Ugly)

Somebody rode the tiger without knowing how to get down without been eaten up . Surely enough he knew that he is riding the tiger in the first place , secondly also knowing that the tiger does not allow you to get down without being a morsel to it, thirdly you try to make or rather you made the entire world fool while doing your good enough bid to dismount from the tiger taming it. The biggest Satya emerges is that you can make some people fool all the time, all the people some time but not all the people all the time. I am also reminded of a saying by one of the best invester in the world “When tides are low you know who is swimming naked”

I had a busy day yesterday. Office internet was down because of maintenance work and I reached home quite late to do the custom of viewing the news in the TV as I thought the world could not have changed in these few hours and off course I did not want to annoy my wife who was any way fast reaching the boiling point. Morning 6:00 I was bang in the GYM to straighten the calorie count which I had grossly abused the earlier day. My first encounter was with a friend and regular in the GYM who after customary exchanges asked me if he can keep the Satyam stock or sell it. I had no clue why he asked me this question but my reply was that I would not be in position to advice. Since empowered by the person’s confidence in me I started my gyan session to add to this fiasco just before coming to GYM I read two weeks old article on Satyam, so you could very well imagine what I would have been sounding as. After some time more friends came pouring in while I was trying to flex my triceps with the instructor putting his bit on the counts my friends broke the actual news. My reaction would have come later but the first thing happened was the shooting pain in the left neck. As I write this still the pain and stiffness prevails in my neck as if symbolic to the pain everybody around must be having.

I never invested in Satyam so apart from the literal pain in the neck I am fine personally. But today the Indian in me is a very sad person. Satyam being one of the top four IT Company in India could be compared to a pillar of IT revolution in India. Today one pillar has most surely fallen. I do not want to elaborate as it increases the stiffness in my neck and it still pains in the neck. For me this is the most Badsundaram (ugly) part of it.