I met Jayagopal first in 1981, the year I reported at our Bank’s branch in Trivandrum. A stockily built guy with thick black hair and twinkling eyes, he had a very nice smile. He was my clerk in the Advances Dept. When I told him that I wanted to revamp our filing and information system, he readily agreed. He was very intelligent, hard working and willing to put in long hours.He never seemed to get tired. Our Branch Manager, Shri.N.R.Achan, used to call him a “Bull Worker”. We made a good team.
He used to live near where I lived and once or twice he called on us with his wife Sheela and their son, Anoop. Slowly, we became family friends. Once when I had to attend an official function in Ernakulam and had to take along my clerk, we shared a room since his allowance for a room was very low.
One day I found him very perturbed. When I asked him why, he said his brother-in-law was arriving from the Gulf, the next day and there was to be a strike by taxi and auto drivers. I offered to borrow my father’s car and pick him up from the air-port. This cheered him up, no-end.
In 1984, I was posted at our Rajapalayam Branch, near Madurai. Soon after, Jayagopal took a transfer to Cumbum Branch which was not very far and we met once or twice. After that, he was promoted as an officer and was posted in Bihar. in 1987, when I was in Ernakulam, he visited us with his family. After that we lost track of each other.
In 1990, when I was with our Audit Dept. in Madras, a few of us were sent to Bihar to audit some of the branches there. First we audited their biggest branch in Patna and then split into smaller teams of two each. Myself and my friend Mr.R.N.Kutty were to audit two branches in and around Gomia.
Gomia was a non-decrepit town, with only the huge factory of Indian Explosives Ltd to its credit. There was a pot-holed main road, couple of schools, a few shops and that was it. Our branch there was headed by one Mr.Davare from Andhra Pradesh. When we reached the branch, he was profuse in his welcome. After some time, he called for his Manager (Advances) and who walks in, but my friend, Jayagopal! It was a very pleasant surprise. The tedium of the two weeks we spent there was relieved only by our visits to Jayagopal’s house.
After some time, Jayagopal got his transfer back to Trivandrum and our contacts were regular. Once when I was in Trivandrum, I visited the new house he had constructed. They now had an angelic daughter, named Ammu. Sheela had started a beauty saloon for ladies. They looked like a happy middle class family . By then, our earlier Manager, Shri Achan had become the Zonal Manager and Jayagopal told me that the Zonal Manager was very pleased with his performance as a Branch Manager.
Then one day, in 2000,when I was posted in Bombay, I got a call from Jayagopal. He and his family were in Bombay. I invited them home for dinner. There was a subtle change in Jayagopal, which I couldn’t identify. Jayshree had prepared some chicken curry but they did not touch it. I couldn’t believe it; Jayagopal was such a voracious non-vegetarian! They explained that they were on a pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi Temple and had turned vegetarian for the time being.
I was out of touch with the happenings in Trivandrum and learned the developments only when I went there on leave. Nobody had a clear picture but from what I could piece together, the story was like this. Jayagopal had managed to get the account of a Government Dept. and they had placed huge deposits in their Savings Bank account. He teamed up with the Manager of another branch and surreptitiously transferred a few crores from this Savings Bank account, to a Fixed Deposit account, opened in the other branch in a fictitious name. They were sharing the monthly interest received on this deposit.
Jayagopal had fudged the accounts at his branch to hide this transfer. But being the Branch Manager, there was a limit to how much adjustments he could do. Soon, the staff members of the branch smelled a rat and informed Zonal Office and there was a special audit and the whole sordid tale unraveled.
Shri Achan later told me that it was one of his very painful decisions to place Jayagopal under suspension. In fact, he was under suspension when he and his family visited us in Bombay. He and his accomplice soon lost their jobs and the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
One day, Jayagopal rented a room in one of the hotels in Kovalam and he and his family took poison. Seeing his children suffer, he put them all in his car and drove to a hospital. On the way, he lost control of his car and crashed into a tree. Luckily, the local people pulled them out and they all survived.
Once when I was in Trivandrum, I telephoned Jayagopal and tried to talk to him and find out his version of the entire matter. He was in no mood to meet me or even talk to me. Our conversation was very brief.
Afterward, I learned that Jayagopal and his family have disappeared. Nobody knows where they have gone. Some say he is in North India: some say he is in one of the Gulf States and some say he is in the U.S.A or in Canada. Nobody knows for sure.
I do not know whether it was greed or the pressure of being the Star performer and the need to keep on turning in outstanding performances that ruined this friend of mine.