Of this haut was hosted by the ages society in new york city. A little introduction to this wonderful friend of mine. Anita raghavan. I first met her back in 1995. I was then coming to new york and looking around for stories to do and i decided to do a story on indian journalists who were rising in the mainstream is this press. At that time when i was interviewing all the people who had reached the top position someone said to me hey you know, there is this reporter you must meet at the wall street journal. Her name is Anita Raghavan and he described her as that bright kid who is going places. At that time i was reporting on the securities industry and well, she did go places because i met her again just a couple of years ago when our paths crossed at forbes and i was London Bureau chief. Now this book i can assure you that anita is going to go further. Anita, lets start off. You have been wanting to write about the whole southeast and diaspora and why did you choose this particular case and what was so compelling to tell the story at this point . You know i was fascinated by the fact that this sri lankan streetfighter had managed to seduce some of the best and brightest in the indianamerican community. Roger gupta of the three time champion of mckenzie and his protege who had gone to some of the finest schools and india. The duke school in delhi and i wanted to know what was it that roche had managed to cast a spell over so many of indias finest. But dont you think that in a sense it was not the brightest moment for the community to be telling that story now . It wasnt but i think through the story you are able to tell the tale of the rise of the community because all the individuals that are involved in this case came post1965 after u. S. Immigration laws were relaxed and did fantastically well in a very short period of time. And so, you had a hold trajectory of the community, its highs and its lows. The other thing i just wanted to ask you and i have been meaning to ask you, the title. I just love the title. How did you hone in on that particular title . Well if i can start by saying we have many titles before this title. The first title which was my favorite was sons of the morning and came from a hymn that i loved when i was in boarding school because it captured this idea of the indians, the indianamerican league that got caught up in this case of the press not best and the brightest of india. I guess not everyone knew the hymn at the boarding school so that was quickly cast aside. And then we toyed with two kings, because raj and that wade was the king of wealth, you know and roger was a different sort of king, a king of thought. He was a strategist from mckenzie. He had a certain ability about him and i dont want to give away any trade secrets but i think hachette was selling another book with two kings as the title, so it was cast aside. Finally, we wanted to focus a bit on, on you know what was this book about, and i think we came to the idea, we came to the idea of the billionaires apprentice because you know raj at some point in his career wanted to have what raj roger radnet hat and it was the billions. I thought maybe you could read an excerpt from your book and thats the sets the stage iv a discussion. The passage im going to read from is from the beginning of the book and its raj gupta at the start of his life and it tells you a little bit about raj but it also tells you about his father who was a prominent who spent many many years in jail. At cousin told me when i was in calcutta interviewing in 2011 she said jail was like a house to him. So im going to start with that. Ever since he was born he was likened to his father. He was as handsome as his father with the same striking features that gave those men a distinguished air since they belong to a secret world that went beyond wealth into actual bloodline. In a society where skin color was the defining force a clear advantage that afforded them a natural superiority. Both were known for their generosity of spirit and over the course of their lives would win them steadfast loyal followers. The similarities ended. Unlike the sun he came of age in and occupy a country. Seemingly to live in deference to an imperial power. As a descendent of one of indias oldest bloodlines he was ironically one of the chosen ones. He would be tapped and trained to deny his indianness and perform like the faux englishman all in the service of her majesty the majesty the king. While he would receive proper british education like the other steamed members of his family gupta rejected intellectual servitude. On the morning of thursday november the fifth 1964 his eldest son and 15yearold raj gupta addressed himself carefully. Growing up in a closeknit indian family of four children, two girls and two boys the youngest born move to new delhi in the 1950s. He was accustomed to shouldering the responsibility. He and his older sister were always looking after their younger siblings by economic necessity his parents were two career couple long before was in vogue. Upon his release from prison he took up journalism as a means to support himself and his family. His rep was very ties to free india helped him rise. After indias independence you is dispatched to start the standard. The countrys first Prime Minister called him by his first name. So trusted was gupta that they would often seek his counsel on how to deal with the press. Born as a british subject through hard work and sacrifice he became the of modern india. He walked into the room of his uncles kolkata home to say farewell. Shrouded with heaps of roses and marigolds and frequent jasmine his father lay in a coffin as was customary body was washed and purified water interest in a white robe. When he arrived at the hospital the previous day he was told his father was dead and as he stood at the entrance to his fathers room he saw plastic bags still attached probably with air from his fathers last gasp. For a moment he thought the doctors had made a mistake. Years of struggle or taken their toll. He was dead of kidney failure. In the months leading up to his fathers death rajat accompanied his father on long walks and listening to stories. He learned his father had been intentionally exposed to tb in prison which ultimately caused the loss of one lung. These ragged star on his that came from his skin being split open over and over again after brutal interrogainterroga tion. In spite of it all the father he knew was kind and obliging to everyone. He would later recall, he never spoke ill of anybody and i would have thought he would have a lot of resentment built in to him but it wasnt true. This attitude was true of most of my fathers generation. They were quite extraordinary in terms of Simple Living and not thinking ill of other people. This morning in front of the house a crowd gathered. Neighbors friends and admirers descended like pogroms on a journey. Doortodoor doping men and their donkeys watched as the coffin was placed into a glass topped hers in front of the red brick house. In tribute the men mentioned their donkeys away from the mourners and solemnly cleared a path for the procession. At 9 00 a. M. For hers closely followed by cars carrying the immediate family departed. Is the wrong approach the top of the street he could make that is shrine. After a stop at the offices of his fathers employers he led the crowd to white town. On the other side of town the former jailer raised to capture one final glance at the man. He ran to the crematorium and then to the funeral parlor to no avail. On his last he found the destinatidestinati on. Clinching flowers he elbowed their crowd of Friends Family and admiring strangers and made his row along with the row of bodies stacked in line to be cremated. At last after pushing his way past his brother the former prison guard made it. His teenage son was completing the final death though in the silence that followed was able to place what was left of his lotus flowers at the feet of his fallen friend. Rajat gupta lifted the stretcher into the orange flames of calcuttas electric crematorium. Preying on the grain of hatred remains in the ashes. I tried to atone for my sin. He hadnt been unwashed in his status of the premature of death of one of indias unsung heroes. He he heard a tender voice of rajat gupta besieging a higher power. Who will show me the way of the world . Anita, you know if this is an incredible amount of rich detail and really it makes your hair stand on end. How difficult was it researching and reporting this book . What sort of reactions were you getting . Obviously the backdrop was this whole scandal. So you know you have been a very dogged reporter but writing a book of this scale and this depth, what was the experience like . It was very difficult because so many members of the community who have helped me on many stories before were quite reluctant to speak about this story because in a way that caused such a cast such a poor light on the community and i think the diaspora didnt want to draw attention to it. So, i really had to tackle sources and convince them that while this was a shadow on the community, it also in a sense reflected the vibrancy of the community in the United States today. The fact that we have prosecutors and people who mete out justice as part of you know, part of American Society is a sign of strength. When my parents came and when i grew up here in the 70s, indians were confined to being doctors and engineers and college professors. Today we have moviemakers. We have writers and of course prosecutors like sanjay. So much more diverse. That tried. Was that a help or a hindrance . What did it ring into the story . I think it was an advantage in this sense that i took some of the dynamics of the story, the communal differences and the difference between sri lanka and an indian or a hindu married to a muslim and two midway if you read the book, midway in the scandal started having marital problems and goes to another indian friends whom to pray. He is a hindu unlike a husband who is aimed muslim. So i think in understanding the cultural forces that played a big role in this story. It was also a challenge though because you know, one of the central protagonist of the book is of course rajat gupta and here was me, someone in the Community Writing a book that was going to shine a spotlight if you will on his missteps and how did you do that . How did you do that in a way that you know, doesnt open you up to accusations of you know, just taking down a hero. I was cognizant of that as i wrote the book. A large part of the book, rajat gupta comes across as a really contrite figure and very principled. Absolutely that position to the top ranks of mckinsey. What do you think is really gone into the subject . That is the question Everyone Wants to know. Why . I think you know there were a number of factors. You have to remember that rajat had built up his career in the hinterlands in a way. He had been in chicago and late in life, in the late 90s he comes to new york and he is thrust into this new world. It its a bit of a bright lights big city phenomenon. Henry kravitz and hank paulson and you know i think he in some way looked at his 30year career as a mckinsey salary men and said what do i have to show for it . And its very interesting, all of the dissent if you will happens after he steps down from the helm of mckinsey. He becomes closer to rajat raj some 11 in 2005 than in 2004 he gives this talk at columbia. I have watched a tape of the talk and you have the sense of a man really casting about trying to figure out what was he going to do. How was he going to achieve a new high and i think he was really struggling. So, that success at mackenzie was not enough. So he was far more ambitious. But you know i read the book and was up nights reading it. It was so gripping. Its like a novel. This great shakespearean tragedy but when i read it i got the sense that there is an underlying sympathy that you have for rajat gupta that may not have been the case in your interpretation of raj rajaratnma and his colleague but an underlying huge wave of sympathy for him. Is that correct . That is why wanted to redo the passage i did he cut his the picture of rajat we all saw over the last several years was a very stoic man. You know, he was a student and dignified statesman. When i went to calcutta to interview members of his family and luckily i went there before he was indicted. They spoke to me very openly and i said you know was rajat affected at all by his fathers death . Cgart ever talked about it. His first roommate at mackenzie told me that he didnt even know that rajat was an orphan and his cousin said to me, of course he was. He was wandering around in it, toasts date you know. He had hopped on a train from new delhi and come to calcutta when he had found out that his father was very ill and the moment he learned he had died he was when you meet, i mean you met almost 200 people in researching this book. [inaudible] im glad to know that. You are simply human. But you talk to 200 people and then you hear all these different voices, pros and cons. How do you sift through all that . How do you arrive at a true and fair picture that reflects reality . You must have gotten a lot of static as well. Yeah, certainly, there were certainly a core of people at mackenzie who also did not like rajat who thought he had taken a firm in the wrong direction, who argued that you couldve actually predicted what happened. I felt the crime if you will was so, had gotten such press and rajat had suffered so much as a result of the crime. I think his lawyer at the end of the trial said this is a great tragedy of epic proportions. And so to me, what was more interesting about this story was who was the man . Who was the human who ended up in this very bad place . Yeah because despite him being so highprofile and written about extensively i remember meeting rajat and several different occasions interviewing him and giving visiting him at his home and i thought oh my god, this is it carried this is what success means. He had the golden life. But there was always that sort of barrier. He always kept you know part of him which is very private. I think you were able to penetrate that through this book. Right. Did you find that difficult . Were people from his past you match his secretary. You used every source. Was that difficult for you . I think going to calcutta was very helpful in understanding rajat, because you know his cousins spoke very freely and they knew the young rajat who was rather a precocious child. I remember a story about how apparently on one family trip he got on the roof of the car and he wouldnt climb down. They had to ply him with sweets before you would come down. And you got the sense of a boy who was quite alive and then suddenly when he was 16 he loses his parents and his whole persona changes. I think that struck me. Going to this case now, moving fastforward, do you think that the whole economic meltdown of 2008 sort of made this, caused this whole case to escalate the way it did . s do you think that escalation was justified . A lot of south asians have asked me, do you think indians were targeted you know in this case . Why arent they capturing the real culprits of the financial crisis . You know, prosecutors are probably not too different from the rest of us in the way they do their job. If there is an easy case to bring and this was an easy case to bring one to head wiretaps of raj rajaratnma receiving inside information from various players. If you have an easy case to bring you will bring an easy case and trying to prosecute the creators of the mortgage fraud debacle is far harder. You know, you can probably bring cases against brokers who sold these shoddy mortgages but how do you tie these brokers to the heads of the investment banks . Its very difficult. There are too many layers to penetrate and i think it is the case with him. Do you think the sentence was too harsh for both of them . You know, i dont want to comment on the sentence but, because i dont feel its my role to but again, i think that a lot of people have remarked to me, dont you think rajat gupta got a severe sentence . I actually think rajat gupta was very lucky getting the sentence he did. If he was before another judge i think he would have got many more years because in a way the crime he committed was far more serious than the one that raj rajaratnma committed. He was a board member. He had a fiduciary responsibility to keep the secrets of the board in the boardroom. In a sense in europe back home people in power have the sense and almost expect immunity and this kind of thing would not have happened. Do you think that sense of entitlement is something that they bring here as well or are they well aware of the consequences . s this very latent behavior that comes across in your book, i mean why did they believe they could get away with this . Is it to do with that sort of indian ethos of power giving you immunity . I am not sure it has anything to do with the indian ethos because one of rajats bill clinton also thought he was untouchable. [laughter] so, you know i think its one of the attendant attributes of power. You have a sense of invincibility and i think rajat had gotten to that point in life. He really thought he was not going to be affected by this and here im thinking about of lot of reporting i did in the early months when rajat first found out he had a problem and his reaction to finding this out was not to be really concerned, and i think its because he didnt think it would come to much. I was wondering if you could read a little bit you know, and give us a flavor of that time when he was really at the peak of his career and . Okay. This as you said his plan rajat gupta is at the height of his power and just before actually he finds out he may have a problem. I wont get to that. It was tuesday november 24, 2009 and rajat gupta was headed to the white house for the first state dinner hosted by president barack obama and his wife michelle of the of the most glamorous couples and the kennedys. Six years have passed since gupta set down in the three term global managing director for consultinconsultin g giant kinsey. He sat on a handful of corporate lords Goldman SachsProctor Gamble and American Airlines to name a few. His wife anita had hoped his retirement from the the top job at mackenzie would slow him down but he was in the throes of building his own private Equity Company from scratch. Jetting from continent to continent living out of a suitcase he was as an intent on being a gamechanger in private equity and philanthropy as he had been during his storied career. The ostensible province of the evening was honored the indian Prime Minister of the evening, the event serve as a barometer for how far and fast immigrant groups have risen. In one generation Indian Americans involved in outsiders to polish prayers in all facets of