Book Review

By

Randeep Wadehra

Climbing the pyramid to recovery

The comeback: a story of bankruptcy and survival by Suhas Mantri
Harper Vintage. Pages: 183. Price: Rs. 225/-

Mismanagement and unfavourable business environment can play havoc with a corporate entity’s prospects. In fact, its very existence can be jeopardized. This can result in not just loss of assets worth crores but can cause untold misery to various stakeholders and their families. At a time like this the corporate honcho’s role and responsibilities become vital. He has to make sure that a viable rescue act is executed either to save the sinking business entity or at least the interests of the most vulnerable among stakeholders, viz., workers and small creditors and shareholders. With this in mind corporate bosses often resort to turnaround strategies through restructuring the company’s business methods and culture among other things. There have been many success stories regarding turnarounds in the corporate world, viz., Volkswagen, Tata Teleservices, Fiat Auto, Nissan and Mitsubishi – to name a famous few. The book under review narrates the saga of a construction company’s tryst with disaster and subsequent comeback, thanks to the chutzpa shown by its CEO. Since the novel’s protagonist and author have similar professions and head construction companies there is a strong probability that the contents are significantly autobiographical.

Harsh Mehta is an architect who loves to draw variegated blueprints of buildings to cater to different tastes of the Mehta Housing Ltd’s numerous clients. The company starts off as a family business (private limited company) managed by Harsh’s two brothers Nilesh and Shailesh. Over a period of time the company starts going downhill even though its balance sheet indicates sound financial health. As time passes his brothers part from him and he is left alone to manage the company. It is then that he gradually begins to realize that he has been gulled, especially by his brother Shailesh. The assets on his company’s balance sheet prove to be fictitious. Liabilities in the form of unpaid bills and mounting overheads become unmanageable. Even by going public the company appears to be unable to make a turnaround.

Lack of liquidity only increases the threat to the company’s goodwill. Clients begin to clamor for delivery of the promised products and services or refund of their advances. He finds his brothers unhelpful during this hour of crisis. He is left with the only choice: declare bankruptcy. But his spirit rebels. He isn’t prepared to give in. he looks around for solutions and help.  Even as things are looking hopelessly bleak help does arrive in the person of Swaroopchand and Billimoria. The long haul to turnaround begins.

This volume (slotted as fiction/business) may not have the gripping dramatic elements of Arthur Hailey’s Wheels, or its narrative may be a lot slower than an average American corporate thriller, but it keeps one engrossed as Harsh Mehta struggles to save his dream – a dream on which are dependent a large number of his company’s employees, shareholders and many others. As he climbs the seven-stepped pyramid to corporate recovery one joins him in his stoic but stimulating fight-back. This volume is valuable for the simple reason that its contents appear to be authentic.

Only a well-informed, experienced professional could have written such a novel. The alternative would have been extensive and intensive research on the subject of building projects – something that Indian writers are not exactly adept at. Although Chetan Bhagat and his clones have tried their hands at writing corporate novels the genre has yet to come of age in Indian writing in English. Novels like Married but Available (Abhijit Bhaduri), Local (Jaideep Verma) indicate that the corporate novel is still in its nascent stage. However, Suhas Mantri’s is a laudable addition to the corpus.

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