We all have secrets— some, we keep from others. And some, others keep from us. Even as we are protective about the former and take all measures to keep these forever, we feel cheated when we come to learn about the latter. We feel let down by our own people. Worse is to digest the feeling we didn’t even know that we didn’t know this secret.
Such a moment came for the Street last week. The secret was a Swiss Bank account holder named Mr X. The secret lay buried in two lines of several hundred pages of a foreign court judgment.
Mr X finds himself at the centre of a cross-border illegal trading scheme that involved at least one big corporate group, possibly more, an international bank, two national regulators and several scapegoats.
Indian and foreign regulators apparently know who the man behind the Mr X mask is, but do not want to reveal his identity. Needless to say, several theories have started floating around.
The world is a sucker for men wearing masks. It gets drawn to these men by the curiosity to see behind those masks. The delay/ difficulty in doing so add to their aura. Comparisons are made. Celebrities, neighbours and enemies are checked for any possible similarity. Some people even get close to unveiling the mask. But, every passing day spawns a new rumour about the identity that they all get confused. At least, this is what every Spiderman, Superman and Batman movie has taught me so far. In fact, in some of these, only people about to die get to see the man behind the mask. Only other lucky people are the romantic interests. Mr X story has begun to follow this familar pattern.
According to some media reports, only two local regulators who accompanied Mr X know who he is. And, both are out of their respective posts and, therefore, the top bosses do not know anything ‘X’tra, the reports said. Do they really ‘don’t know’ or they want to avoid the embarrassment of revealing the worst kept secret?
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What I have gathered from the Street is that neither did Mr X travel abroad, nor did the foreigners come here. They used something primitive, cheaper—the telephone. The foreign sleuths interviewed Mr X on a telephone, as he sat at the local regulator’s riverside office.
Then, what about the two people who went abroad? The travel from the Mithi river’s banks to the of Thames did happen, but there was no Mr X on that journey.
As regulators become secret keepers rather than being myth busters, taxmen become tyrants and the economy stops defying gravity, as it once used to, India is fast losing its dream destination tag. Despite efforts by the government to bring in new investments, new investors through new routes, this is not the India of five years ago. According to some hedge fund managers, India today is an abbreviation of ‘I’m Not Doing It Anymore’. I don’t think many people know it yet.So, be discreet when you are sharing this. Another secret – I stole the opening line of this Street Food from the amazing trailer of The Amazing Spiderman. Don’t tell anybody.