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dog

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set up a two-member committee to assess the corporate governance
practices of the company. This committee, constituted on 22 January 2022,
had engaged the services of the law firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas &
Co. on 23 January. In turn, they had engaged the services of the accounting
firm Alvarez & Marsal. In fact, the engagement of Alvarez & Marsal was
being brought up before the board for the very first time on 25 January.
To my utter shock, I was further being told that Alvarez & Marsal had
already come up with some alleged preliminary findings. What’s more, on
the basis of these findings, none of which I was privy to, the board’s
proposal was to put me on a compulsory leave of absence and strip me of
my powers as MD.
Some days later, I would go on to learn from media reports (no less) that
the interim report of Alvarez & Marsal was dated as early as 24 January
2022. In which case, I was to believe that they had issued the report within
one day of appointment and even before their official engagement by the
board. In my entire career, I had never seen an instance of a lawyer or an
accounting firm being appointed in a day—yahaan toh inhone kaam bhi
khatm kar diya ek din mein; they’d even released a report in a day.
Even in my stunned state—as I felt severely let down, with a blatant
conspiracy brewing against me—I asked for an opportunity to present my
views before agenda item number 5 would be taken up by the board and I
would be asked to drop off. I raised objections about the need for and
composition of the review committee, and said that it did not comply with
the shareholders’ agreement and the articles of association of the company.
I also pointed out that the corporate governance review covered the entire
company and not only me; so by that logic, everyone should be on leave. If
I was being singled out, was there any complaint against me? At whose
behest was the law firm appointed?
My questions were met with deafening silence at the other end. Then I
heard the chairman, Rajnish Kumar, saying, ‘You may drop off from the
call now, as we need to put the proposal to vote.’ I would find out later that
the proposal was passed unanimously, of course.
All of this, interestingly, when I did not have any communication from
the board accusing me of any wrongdoing and when the so-called review
was meant to be a review of ‘corporate governance policies, practices &
codes of the Company’.
26 January 2022
Yet another email—an outcome of the 25 January meeting!
This time, I was instructed to go on compulsory leave till 31 March 2022
and not to come to office or interact with the press, employees or
shareholders, business partners, customers, vendors or any other person
associated with the company, pending the governance report. For good
measure, I was also instructed to return my laptop.
Just like that, from being celebrated as the most successful new-age
founder of a unicorn, one who believed in speaking his mind, one who got
start-ups and entrepreneurship into mainstream conversation through Shark
Tank India, one who had earned millions of dollars for his investors and
employees, I had been rendered persona non grata. While the building of
the company had taken over forty-two painstaking months, the ouster was
done in a matter of hours, in a pre-planned move.
The press—or rather, the tabloids operating in India in the garb of
business news outlets—was once again having a field day, operating with
no qualms or integrity, publishing ‘news’ fed to them for rewards.
‘BharatPe likely to fire co-founder Ashneer Grover amid fraud concerns,’
reported a leading business daily as early as 30 January, quoting
‘undisclosed people familiar with the development’.
If this were an episode from Shark Tank India, I would probably have
been tempted to say, ‘Ye sab doglapan hai,’ a phrase that captured the
imagination of young, emphatic India. Now, maybe I should just say,
‘Picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost.’
1
Malviya Nagar: Where It All Began
‘Ladka toh refugee hai.’
I couldn’t believe my ears. After all I, a Delhi-born boy to Delhi-born
parents, was being referred to as a refugee formally, for the first time in my
adult life; that too, by none other than my would-be in-laws. This was in
2003, a full fifty-six years after my grandparents had landed in Delhi, from
Multan district in Pakistan, after Partition. No marks for guessing that it
was meant not as a statement of fact but as a reminder of aukaat for a
service-class Punjabi who had won the heart of their most beloved Baniya
‘Jain’ daughter, who came from a business family. It’s another matter that
this rather persistent refugee went on to attend the most premier educational
institutes, landed a plum job and eventually won the family’s heart and their
daughter’s hand.
The original refugees in question, namely my paternal grandparents, were
allotted a 200-guz plot in Malviya Nagar, a refugee colony, when they
landed in Delhi with their siblings and children in tow. It was on this plot
that six independent floors, of 100 guz each, were built. Out of these, house
number 90/20, popularly known as ‘Nabbe Bees’, was to later become my
home address for the longest time.
As a child, I remember pestering my grandmother to tell me stories of
their lives back in Multan. I loved to see the twinkle in her eye as she
reminisced about the past and spoke at length about their fields or khet, as
she referred to them. The one story that she would always tell me was about
how, if the entire khet had to be covered on foot, one would need to leave
early in the morning, and even then one would only be back the next day. In
turn, I would egg her on with, ‘Haan haan, aap toh fasal bote hue jaate the
aur kat-te hue aate the (Of course, you would sow the seeds on your way
up and harvest the produce on your way back).’ Growing up, the story
stayed with me as a great reminder of the fact that even when that 200-guz
house replaced the large expanse of their fields, it did little to dampen their
spirits. In fact, they never recounted the horror of Partition—just fond
memories of the past life.
The Tale of the Pandavas
Any account of the life of my grandparents wouldn’t be complete without