“My DCF is bigger than yours!”
Profound observations like these were commonplace at Irena’s dinner parties. Irena was a fellow student, who had a happy habit of making friends very easily. This, combined with an easy amiability and great culinary skills, meant that her house played host to many dinner parties, where crowds of students gathered to partake of a delicious meal and generous quantities of wine. The former contributed to a general feeling of goodwill among an otherwise neurotic bunch, while the latter inevitably led to profound observations on life, like the one mentioned above.
This particular profundity was uttered by Francis, who was a mix of Eastern European belligerence and North American smugness. I was carefully contemplating the virtues of another glass of the excellent red, when he made this remark. Moments later, I wasn’t the only one seeing red.
“No fucking way”, said Ashok, a second generation Indian from the USA, who managed to squeeze the worst out of both his lineages.
Irena looked at me with her usual sweet smile. She knew that dinner was on its way to being a success.
“I am telling you”, said Francis, with characteristic smugness.
“You are lying”, replied Ashok.
Francis immediately gave lie to this statement by springing up from the half-reclining posture which he had assumed on one of Irena’s comfortable sofas.
“Are you calling me a liar, you mid-ranker”?, bellowed Francis, for whom making a distinction in the previous term was probably the high-point of his life.
“He wouldn’t be the first one”, said Arabella. She was a rather hot-headed girl, who made devoted friends and sworn enemies with equal ease, thanks to remarks like these.
“How dare you?”, piped Francis, his face taking on the hue of the fine red that he had been helping himself to.
Arabella’s, on the other hand, carried the tranquillity of the white that she had been sipping.
“Calm down, Francis. Honesty and humility have never been your vices. If your DCF is really higher than Ashok’s, go ahead and prove it”, she said.
“Exactly”, said Ashok, who was pleasantly surprised by this unexpected support from someone who he had always felt had scant respect for him.
“I am damned if I am going to share the results of my analysis to you”, said Francis.
Ashok was notorious for provoking other people into showing their papers to him before submission and using them for his own papers. He was, however, never hauled up for plagiarism because he scrupulously followed the cardinal rule of research – if you copied from one person, it is plagiarism; if you copied from many, it becomes research.
“In which case, how do you know your DCF is bigger than his?”, queried Irena, innocently. It was very difficult to get angry with Irena. A combination of blonde hair, soft voice and pleasant manners meant that she could ask the most provocative of questions without eliciting any violent reactions.
I, on the other hand, not possessing any of the said advantages, usually managed to provoke a violent response, even to simple statements. Which is just what I did now, with the following remark:
“He must have peeked into Ashok’s report while he was checking mail on his laptop”
Both Francis and Ashok leapt out of their seats in a beautifully choreographed manner.
“You did what?”, Ashok screamed at Francis.
“I did nothing of the sort”, bellowed Francis at the same time.
They stared at each other. Two strong men eyeing each other, separated only by the dinner table. The rest of us looked on with hope. A good punch-up would be the ideal Oxford way to end a Saturday night dinner party.
Arabella, however, played spoil-sport.
“Pipe down, kids”, she said, in her usual authoritative voice, “We all know that is how you got your distinction last term, Francis”
“You keep out of this”, said Francis, trying to out-stare Ashok and Arabella at the same time.
“And why should she?”, riposted Ashok, who secretly harboured hopes about Arabella.
“Thank you, Ashok, but I can take care of myself”, said Arabella, coldly. Clearly, she harboured no such hopes about him.
Francis, on the other hand, refused to get distracted by these romantic interludes. He thumped his hand hard on the table, spilling a glass of his wine on himself.
“Careful, you stupid chump”, bellowed Arabella, as she jumped from her chair.
“But I say..”, said Francis, whose dignity had been severely dented by the red blotch on his shirt
“Quiet”, said Arabella, “Go wash yourself while we clean the table”
Francis started to say something, but quickly clammed up after he caught Arabella’s eye.
This unexpected intermission served to calm down everybody’s nerves. The next few minutes were spent in cleaning up the table. By the time Francis came down from the bathroom, his white shirt a delicate shade of pink, the dinner plates had been cleared away and various forms of dessert had been laid out.
“Ah! Delicious”, said Arabella, tucking into her cheesecake with relish. She had taken the words out of my mouth. Even Francis seemed mollified after taking a bite of the cheesecake.
“I knew it. I knew it!”, said Ashok, triumphantly, conveniently forgetting that it was I who had pointed out that fact. “You are a fucking crook.”
“I am nothing of that sort”, said Francis, his face once again striving hard to match the colour of his shirt. “I am just trying to help”
“Just what Norman Bates would have whispered to the girl in the shower”, said Irena, flashing her trademark beatific smile. If I had said that, I would have got a knife on my back. All Irena got was a refill of her wine glass from Arabella.
“And how exactly were you planning to help Ashok?”, asked Arabella.
“Well, now that he knows his answer is wrong, he can do something about it”, retorted Francis, with some of his original belligerence coming back.
“And why should I believe you?”, asked Ashok, hotly
“Because I am telling you, you fucking jerk. No wonder you did so badly last term. I can’t believe that they took you into the school in the first place”. Francis was himself again, bravely rising above the rosy tinge on his shirt.
“When they can take in peeping toms like you, I don’t see why they shouldn’t take me in. I bet you copied to clear your GMAT”, replied Ashok.
“I will have you know that I have a GMAT score of 780”, said Francis, a fact he had advertised to every single person he met in the city.
“And who did you pay to take the test?”, riposted Ashok, standing up.
“Don’t you dare”, said Francis, also standing.
I was wondering if the table was going to receive another thump, but Arabella pre-empted that.
“Relax, boys. Why don’t you simply show Ashok where he went wrong?”, she said, mentally resolving to add another mile to her morning run next day, as she shovelled in another helping of the cheesecake.
“I will, if this jerk is willing to listen”, said Francis, slowly retreating to his chair.
“Fine, show me”, said Ashok, realising that this was a good opportunity to get some free input on the report.
He drew out his laptop. We all crowded around as Francis went through the analysis in detail, pointing out how Ashok had not calculated the WACC properly and lecturing in detail about how he would have done it himself.
Suddenly, Ashok leaned back with a smug look on his face.
“You know what?”, he said
We looked at him – Francis, suspiciously; the rest of us, curiously.
“My IRR is bigger than yours…”
Irena winked at me and leaned back in her chair with a look of satisfaction. The night was still young…
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