Calcutta

Calling
[4860 words]
1. Surprise invitation

Freddie Kingsley turned into Beckenham’s Kelsey Park, raising his pace as he

ran across the bridge and around the far side of the lake. He loved the quiet of

the park in the early morning, with the only sound coming from his trainers

padding on the path, and the occasional call from the birds as they darted in

search of food. Completing the circuit, he strode through the gate and headed

home, finishing his run at an easy pace, head high, enjoying the breeze that

blew through his dark brown hair.

When he had showered and breakfasted, he headed for his study and opened

his emails, quickly disposing of the stream of spam, when his eye caught one

that had almost gone into the Deleted box. Calcutta calling in the Subject line.

It took him a moment to place the sender, Arup Mazumdar, whom he had met

a few times in London. He remembered Arup as charming company, keen on

Cricket, a collector of academic qualifications and contacts. A born networker

who had made a bit of an impact in London, then returned to India. And now,

here he was, renewing contact with Freddie.

Hi there, he read, I promised to keep in touch, and I’m sorry it has taken

this long. How are things with you?

I have been very busy with the family firm since my return, and we have

been very successful with our expansion plans. And that’s the reason I

am writing to you now, as well as wanting to renew contact with you.

 As I recall, you are a writer of renown, gifted with words and a master of

persuasion in writing. We have a need for your skills. There is a project

coming up very soon, and we need a skilled writer of English to make it a

success. Writers in India are just not good enough.

Please write to me with your availability and your fees. We will pay for

you to fly to Calcutta, business class, and put you up in a good hotel for

a week or so, depending on how long it takes you to complete the job.

But I believe a week will be long enough.

I am looking forward to your positive reply.

Arup (Mazumdar)

P.S. Don’t forget to apply for a visa and notify me as soon as you get it.

Freddie printed out the email and sat staring at it for some time, wondering

what Arup had in mind. What the hell, he thought, why not give it a go? He

typed a reply, telling Arup he would see about a visa and let him know.

He opened up the official India Visa website and read through the 11-stage

application process paying careful attention to the detailed instructions. He

knew how frustrating it would be to turn up at India House and be told he’d

have to go through the whole process again because he had answered one

the of the questions incorrectly.

As a wordsmith himself he was amused to read: We request you to please

leave your popup blockers turned off for the duration of this activity. “We

request you to please leave...” Probably written by an Indian, he said to

himself.
He then searched online for flights to Calcutta, just to get an idea of the

journey time and cost. He discovered that Calcutta was not a valid

destination, and had to change it to Kolkata. He saw that the flight, with one

stop at Dubai, would take a day and a night, whether he started in the

morning or at night, and inevitably the advertised prices were not available.

Even when he accepted the default dates and times, the prices were all

higher than the figures shown in the initial Google results.

He decided to leave travel arrangements to Arup, but in any case to wait until

after he had received a written assignment from Arup. Printing out his

completed visa application form, he diarised a visit to India House as

instructed by email. The process turned out to be much easier than he

expected, and he was granted a multi-entry visa. It would be useful in case

the task required him to go back and forth more than once.
2. Getting there

Freddie wrote to Arup to say he had his visa, and asked for a confirmation of

the assignment, and of the travel arrangements. Under the guise of flexibility,

Arup tried to evade the administrative details by leaving it to Freddie to book

his own flights. His description of the brief was also a bit vague, but Freddie

put that down to the cultural difference. At the very least, he reasoned with

himself, he’d get a trip to Calcutta, all expenses paid.

In reply, Freddie sent him a copy of his standard contract which stated: “It

shall be the client’s responsibility to book the flights, business class, and to

arrange for the tickets to be delivered not less than seven days in advance.”

There were two other important clauses in the contract:

“The agreed fee shall be paid when making the booking” and,

“In the event of cancellation with less than one week’s notice, there will be no

entitlement to any refund.”

In his covering email, Freddie quoted his fee for one week’s work, together

with his daily rate in case the task took longer, and an indication of the cost of

a business class return ticket to Calcutta, flying Emirates via Dubai.

A day later Arup wrote to say that he had deposited the week’s fee plus the

cost of the flight in Freddie’s bank account, adding that it would be simpler if

Freddie booked his own flight. Freddie calculated that, in Indian currency, the
total amounted to well above half a million rupees, or 50 lakhs, and it made

him wonder about the nature of the assignment.

He caught the 9:45 flight from Gatwick, which was more convenient for him

than Heathrow. The Emirates cabin crew were polite and efficient in a

leisurely way, which suited Freddie’s mood. He watched a film, had an

excellent meal, more Continental than Middle Eastern, and was surprised to

be offered alcohol, which he declined.

Plugging in his laptop, he did some writing, just to expand on the notes he had

prepared for the Calcutta job and remind himself of the thinking he wanted to

have front-of-mind when he got there. Then he pressed the control on his

flatbed seat, and stretched out to catch up on his sleep.

Arriving in Dubai at 8:30 p.m. local time, he was not yet ready for his evening

meal, but decided to go into the town, as his connecting flight wasn’t until 2 in

the morning. “I’m a seasoned traveller,” he told himself, “yet I’m feeling

anxious. Can’t imagine why.” Then he smiled at his own use of the cliché,

seasoned traveller. Why are travellers seasoned?

Two men in khaki lounged at the gate, chatting in a casual way. Freddie

showed the security guards his passport and asked if it was all right to leave

the airport. Barely glancing at his document, they waved him through.

He caught a taxi to the Intercontinental Hotel, where he knew he’d have a

choice of restaurant. There wasn’t time to go exploring, so he settled on the

Terra Firma Steakhouse because it overlooked the Dubai Creek and Festival
Marina. Freddie had long had an arm’s length love affair with boats, and

hoped one day to own his own yacht.

As the shops were closed at that hour, he took a taxi back to the airport,

where he waited in the VIP Lounge until his flight to Calcutta was called.

Walking past the queue of Economy class passengers, he noticed how tired

and resigned most of them looked, as he strode through the fast track gate for

business and first class passengers. In the middle of the night the terminal

and its transient population had an unwashed air, and the background noise

had a cold, hard echo unlike the warm fuzziness of the daytime when there

are always thousands milling about.

The flight from Dubai to Calcutta wasn’t long enough to sleep, so Freddie sat

with his thoughts, and wondered what to expect when he met up with Arup

again. He read through the notes he had made, including some background

stuff on Arup’s company, which he had Googled on the internet. There

seemed to be an unexplained change of direction in the company’s core

business. Freddie decided he would have to ask Arup about that.

The aircraft landed at breakfast time on the shorter runway, after the pilot

expertly avoided the 119-year old mosque just off the runway’s northern end.

As he came off the plane, Freddie noticed that the day was already hot and

humid, and was glad he was lightly dressed. Inside the terminal building there

were large numbers of people not doing very much, and Freddie began to feel

even more uneasy about being there. It was his first visit to India, and he felt

vulnerable. Would he manage to cope with the culture and the language?
It took an age for his luggage to arrive on the carousel and while he waited he

pondered on the airport’s change of name. Originally called Dum Dum, it was

now the Netaji Subash Chandra Bose International Airport, a name that

required two lines on street signs.

Eventually he was able to wheel his case out to the taxi rank, resisting the

offers of porters to carry his luggage. Climbing into the back seat, he told the

driver, “Park Hotel, please”. The driver tilted up his chin to ask for a repeat,

and understood “Park Hotel” without the “please”. The cab rolled away from

the rank, to join the prevailing cacophony of Calcutta in its waking hours.

Freddie remembered to open his mobile phone and select his preferred

network.

Checking in at the hotel, Freddie was handed a note asking him to call Arup

on arrival. Using the lobby phone, he said, “I’ve just arrived. Checking in.”

“Good,” said Arup, sounding more Indian than when he was in London, “I am

coming over.”

“Hey, give me a chance,” protested Freddie. “I’ll need to freshen up and get

something to eat.”

“OK, OK,” said Arup, “Is it OK if I come over in one hour? Will that give you

enough time for getting freshed up? Don’t worry about getting something to

eat. I’ll take you somewhere.”

One hour later, Freddie returned to the lobby to find Arup waiting there for

him, smart in crisp white shirt and pale grey trousers. Arup was about five

eight, with thick, shiny black hair. Freddie was pleasantly surprised at his
punctuality, but the reason for that became obvious as the morning wore on.

First, however, Freddie had to be fed, and Arup gave his driver instructions to

collect them later, leading Freddie into Park Street, where several lanes of

traffic thundered past.

Waiting for a break in the torrent of yellow taxis and private cars, Arup

marched into the middle of the road, holding up his hand like a policeman to

halt the traffic while he led Freddie to the other side. Freddie laughed at

Arup’s self-assurance, and quietly sang to himself:

You remember young Peter O'Loughlin, of course,

Well, now he is here at the head of the force

I met him today, I was crossing the Strand

And he stopped the whole street with one wave of his hand

Arup looked puzzled, but led the way around the corner to the Bengal Club,

where he was a member, and where they could get food at any time of the

day.

They had barely settled at a table, when Arup said, “Then? So glad you were

able to come. I have much to tell you, but all I will say for now is, we have little

time. We must get a move on.”

“But Arup ...”

“I know, I know. Eat first, then we will talk at the office.”

3. At the office

There was an atmosphere of controlled confusion in Arup’s office overlooking

the New Market, less than a mile away. The moment he walked through the

door several people wanted his attention, but Arup waved them away and led

Freddie into his private office, shutting the door after them.

“You don’t mind, I’ll get to the point,” he said, “but first, I must tell you that

whatever I am saying to you now is absolutely, strictly, positively, 100 per cent

confidential. I am going to reveal to you all our business figures and

everything, so my lawyer is saying you must sign a non-disclosure

confidentiality agreement. Is that OK with you?”

“Of course,” said Freddie. “Where do I sign?”

“Wait, let me call him in.” Picking up his phone he asked his PA to send in Mr

Das, who came in with some papers. He had marked where Freddie should

sign, here, here and here, which Freddie did with a flourish, and Mr Das,

bowed briefly, then scuttled out through the door.

When he had gone, Freddie sat forward in his chair and asked, “So what’s

this all about, then, Arup? And why the secrecy and high drama?”

“No, no. No drama, nothing like that, really” said Arup with a self-deprecating

spread of his hands. Suddenly the tension had vanished from his manner.

“We are expanding fast. We are thinking of buying a share in another

company, and at the same time we are looking for investment funds from the

West. That is where you are coming in.”

“Tell me more.”

“Well, we are wanting to attract foreign investment to enable us to expand by

acquisition. That means we must be addressing the international market in

fluent, top-notch English. Every bloody copywriter in India writes like an

Indian, they write same like they speak, and that is putting us at a

disadvantage.”

“So why don’t others employ top-notch English writers?”

“Two reasons. Number one, they are too stingy. I mean, why pay an English

writer half a million when you can get an Indian writer for fifty thousand? Other

reason is that many Indians believe they are just as good as the bloody

English, pardon me for saying that. In fact, only reason I am coming to you in

first place is that I am knowing you from way back.” Arup’s English had

reverted to the Indian construction.

“So what exactly is my brief?”

Arup placed two small piles of brochures and Annual Reports on the table in

front of Freddie. “This is English stuff, and this pile is Indian stuff. You should

see the difference. Now what I want you to write is a document that is more

than Annual Report. You can start with a write up like Annual Report, and

then expand it so that we are seen as a successful company on the way up,

so that foreign investors will want to put their money into us.”
“Do you mean you want investors to consider investing in your business or

buying a share in it?”

“Yes. But more than that. Just be starting with that and then I’m telling you

more.”

Freddie started to feel uncomfortable. He didn’t feel he had got the brief right,

because clearly Arup wasn’t telling him the full story. However, he made some

notes and asked for certain specific information about the company’s

performance over the past year, and for each of the previous five years.

He asked for an explanation of the company’s drift from its core business of

import and export, which had grown moderately for the past thirty years. He

could see that the past two years showed a drift into unrelated businesses.

Stifling a yawn and blinking his eyes rapidly, Freddie said, “Arup, I’m going

back to the hotel to get some rest now, and I’ll get started in the morning. How

far is it from the hotel to this office? Could I walk it?”

“Why do you want to walk? I can send the driver.”

“Thanks, but I’d prefer to walk, otherwise I’ll be waiting for your driver.”

Arup looked unhappy, but compromised by suggesting, “Let me send the

driver tomorrow morning, and he can show you the way if you want to walk

next day. But now I am asking driver to take you back.”

4. The Project

Because of the time difference, Freddie fell into bed at the hotel in the

afternoon, by his body clock, and rose early. He switched on his laptop and

surfed the internet, making notes of the points he wanted to raise, based on

information he had gleaned from the documents Arup had given him. He had

a long list of questions.

Breakfast over, he sat in the lobby until the driver arrived to take him to the

office.

“Do you speak English?” he asked.

“Little bit,” replied the man, although he was reasonably fluent. He just did not

want to be caught out, especially with Freddie’s unfamiliar English accent. “I

am taking you to office by walking road,” he added, with the typical sideways

tilt of his head that also signifies “OK” in that part of the world. Freddie looked

out of the side window, making mental notes to help him when he walked that

route.

Once he was alone with Arup, Freddie asked, “Tell me about your mobile

phone business and why you sold the company.”

Arup had a prepared answer. “We were diversifying. Import/export was doing

well, but it doesn’t change much. We were cash rich and decided that we

would ride wave of technology. Already big players like Vodafone had opened

up the market, and the government was making licences available. I mean,
have you any idea how many people there are in India? They all want mobile

phones, even poor people and village people. The potential was huge. And

we did well.”

“But then you sold the company.”

Arup gave a self-satisfied smile. “You know, we got out in time. Government

revoked thousands of licences. But we were out by then.”

“When did you get out?”

“Recently. This is our plan. Sell the telephone company, buy some airline

shares, get foreign investor, buy more airline shares.”

“How did you know when to sell? Did you know the licences were going to be

revoked?”

“Freddie, how can a simple businessman like me know what government is

planning? We just wanted to ride another boom time, so we sold the

telephone company and bought airline shares.”

Freddie wasn’t convinced that Arup did not have inside information about the

telephone licences, but realised that he wouldn’t get a straight answer. In any

case, why would Arup admit as much to him, especially as it wasn’t relevant

to the current project.

Freddie had the feeling that Arup’s responses were on a ‘need to know’ basis,

and that there were things left unsaid. He made a conscious effort to switch

out of the British mentality of expecting direct answers to direct questions, and

accept that even an Indian like Arup, who had lived in Britain, would prefer to
present his information in a way that reflected well on himself. He decided to

back off and accept whatever he was told.

Arup explained that he had bought 15 per cent of the national carrier, but

wanted to attract foreign investment to enable him to buy a further 10 per cent

stake. He admitted that, if he found the right investor, he might consider

selling his current 15 per cent stake, at a handsome profit.

“What about the take-over rules? Now that you have 15 per cent of the

company, don’t you have to make a bid for the airline?”

There was that self satisfied smile again. “Government has changed the rules.

Used to be we had to make a bid when we got 15 per cent. Now we do not

have to bid until we have 25 per cent.”

“And if you get the foreign investor to enable you to buy another 10 per cent,

you will have to make a bid for the airline then, won’t you? Can you afford it?”

“That is why we need foreign investor.”

A camouflaged take-over. Arup’s game was becoming clearer to Freddie. He

decided to get started on the company’s history and past trading, the easy

part of the assignment that set the scene. The trickier parts he would work on

at his hotel, where they had a business centre. Arup agreed.

 5. Assignment completed

Four days later, Freddie had finished his assignment, and it had been

approved by Arup’s board of directors. He could have finished it in three, but

he found that life in Calcutta does not move at London’s pace, and he just had

to go with the flow.

He had the text neatly printed, together with a copy on a memory stick. In

addition, he had sketched out a design, making up a dummy with plain paper,

hand writing the headlines and indicating where the text and pictures might

sit. He liked to visualise the finished brochure, because it helped to clarify the

message of the text he wrote. He found that designers often treated text as

shapes, and did not take account of its meaning.

Freddie wanted to leave and return to London, job done. But Arup said, “Why

such a hurry? Any case, you must see printer’s proofs and sign them off. Stay

two more days, see Calcutta, then you can go home.”

Freddie spent the time looking around Calcutta, taking in the Victoria

Memorial and New Market. Arup took him to the Tollygunge Club, a popular

Country Club just twenty minutes away from the Park Hotel, with its 18-hole

golf course and elegant Palladian style club house. Freddie decided he would

like to stay there on his next visit to Calcutta.

When the printer’s proofs were presented for signature, Arup left him to deal

with them, as he had a meeting out of the office. He asked Freddie to return

the next morning to tie up any loose ends, and dashed out. Freddie checked
the proofs and had to restrain the urge to comment on the rather pedestrian

layout that the designer had created, focusing his attention on the text alone.

He spotted a few typos and marked them in the margins, then initialled each

sheet in turn.

The next morning, just as he returned to his room after breakfast, there was a

knock on the door. Opening it wide, he saw two khaki-clad Indian policemen

and an Englishman standing there. The senior policeman introduced himself

as Inspector Bose of the West Bengal CID and “This is Mr David Anderson

from the UK High Commission. May we come in?”

Freddie waved them in, and asked, “What’s all this about?”

“Mr Kingsley, can you confirm that you have been doing some work with Mazu

Enterprises these past few days?”

“I can. What about it?”

“Can you tell me the nature of that work?”

“Certainly,” said Freddie. “But can you tell me why you are asking? And Mr

Anderson, why are you here?”

Anderson and Bose looked at each other, and Inspector Bose waved

Anderson ahead, so he said, “The Inspector is considering bringing a serious

charge against you, and as you are a UK citizen, you are entitled to have the

High Commissioner’s representative present. I am that representative.”

“Serious charges, eh? What am I supposed to have done, Inspector Bose?”

“Mazu Enterprises, and their Managing Director, Mr Arup Mazumdar, in

particular, are charged with conspiring to breach the Indian take-over rules,

and other matters, with the help of foreign parties. You are one of those

foreign parties. We think you are the originator of the conspiracy.”

Freddie looked astonished and said, “That’s the most incredible thing I have

ever heard. I absolutely deny any involvement in any such conspiracy.

Gentlemen, please take a seat and tell me more.”

 6. Conspiracy charges

Freddie placed the room’s two upright chairs facing his bed and invited

Inspector Bose and David Anderson to sit on them, while he sat on the edge

of his bed. The police constable stood by the door, and Inspector Bose

opened his briefcase, taking out a few sheets of paper.

“These are the printer’s proofs of a brochure that I believe you are writing. Are

these your initials, FK?”

“Yes they are, and yes I did write that brochure.”

“We arrested Mr Mazumdar this morning, and he is telling us that the project

was your idea ...”

“Hang on,” Freddie interrupted, “what project? I still don’t understand what I’m

supposed to have done wrong. Writing a Prospectus is surely not illegal?”

Inspector Bose paused, looking thoughtfully at Freddie, as though making up

his mind about the evidence he had already collected. He decided to explain.

“Since you wrote this brochure or prospectus, you must know something

about the business activities of Mazu Enterprises. You know they have bought

a 15 per cent share in our national airline. And I assume you know that they

did so on behalf of a foreign airline.”

“No I did not know that,” countered Freddie. “But even if I did, what’s wrong

with that?”
“First of all, no foreign airline is allowed to buy shares in our national carrier.

Secondly, we know that Mazu Enterprises are planning to buy a further 10 per

cent or more, also on behalf of the foreign airline. This prospectus is bogus, it

is just a sham, a pretence that they are seeking foreign investment. They

already have the money.”

Freddie understood. “So they are simply fronting a secret takeover. Once they

have 25 per cent of your national airline, they will have to make a bid for the

whole airline, and then hand it over to the foreign airline. But what does that

have to do with me? I just wrote the prospectus according to a brief given to

me by Arup Mazumdar.”

Anderson was looking anxious, and suggested that no more should be said

until Freddie had a lawyer present, but Freddie wasn’t ready for that as yet.

“Inspector Bose, nothing in that Prospectus is illegal. It simply promotes Mazu

Enterprises as a company with a healthy track record in business, and a good

prospect for foreign capital investment. It contains no hint of illegal activity.

Where is your evidence of such a conspiracy?”

Bose reached into his briefcase and extracted another document. “Is this the

contract you signed with Mazu Enterprises?” It was the document that Arup

and Das had waved at him on his first day in Calcutta. The so-called non-

disclosure agreement. Freddie smiled.

“What’s the relevance of that document?”

The contract was a description of the writing Freddie was to undertake,

confidentially, for Mazu Enterprises, and the terms – all standard stuff. But
Bose pointed to a clause on the second page which recommended the use of

such a prospectus as part of a marketing effort to attract foreign interest while,

at the same time, allowing them to transfer some or all of their shareholdings

in Indian companies. It was a vague form of wording that covered the illegal

sale of their airline shares to a foreign airline, but couched in terms that

suggested it would be a clever marketing strategy.

The recommendation was expressed as though coming from the person

signing the contract. And that person would be Freddie Kingsley. Arup had

taken care to cover his own back, even at the expense of his ‘friend’ Freddie,

whose command of top notch English he had been willing to pay so well to

secure.

“I see the point you are making, Inspector Bose,“ he said, once he had read

the offending clause, but that was not a recommendation made by me.”

“It’s your signature on the bottom, isn’t it?”

“Before I say anything else, Mr Bose,” said Freddie, “can you confirm that

your legal system is similar to Britain’s, and is based on evidence?”

“Of course. Did we not inherit the system from our former colonial masters?”

Freddie stood up and walked over to his jacket, hanging in the wardrobe.

From the inside pocket he pulled out his passport and handed it to the

policeman. “Please check my signature.”

Bose placed the open passport alongside the contract and saw immediately

that the signatures did not match, although the letters F and K were prominent
on both. He stared at them for fully one minute, realising that he did not have

a case after all.

“But I have a statement from Mr Das that you did, in fact, sign this document.”

“Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?” replied Freddie disdainfully. “Perhaps

you could now add ‘forgery’ to the list of charges.”

Inspector Bose was silent for a full minute, while he ran through the options in

his mind. Finally, he rose, shook hands with Freddie without saying another

word, and left the room. When Inspector Bose and his constable had

departed, Anderson turned to Freddie and said, “You deliberately wrote a

false signature, didn’t you?”

“Did I?” said Freddie with a smile. “Well, what would you have done?”

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