Since the client had publicly stated his support of my statements, the partners said that the contents of the voicemail would now become the official opinion of Dufresne Partners. No disciplinary action would be taken against me. He also said that they had drawn up a new employment contract for me with a few added clauses:

• I was not to mention a word about the previous disciplinary actions taken against me. All of that would be expunged from my record.

• I was now a full member of the Lederman project team with immediate effect.

• I was to be available twenty-four hours to speak to any media channel in any form anywhere in the world.

• I was expected to travel at short notice to any part of the world in case Dufresne wanted me to talk to clients, even potential ones.

• All my performance evaluations to date would be scrapped and I would be given fresh evaluations by Prasad, who would make adequate adjustments in the light of recent developments.

• I would be given twenty per cent of any royalties that Dufresne would receive thanks to any commercial use of the audio recording.

• I was not allowed to record anything in public or private without prior consent from Dufresne.

• I would agree to make any audio or video recordings required by Dufresne under the previous royalty rule.

They also offered me a fifteen per cent salary hike effective immediately. I told them that I was flattered but I needed some time to think about it. Prasad said that Dufresne’s terms were negotiable but they hoped that I would not act too rashly or hold a grudge about bygones.

I told him that I was too professional to act like that. And I requested him to give both Yetch and Rajni fifteen per cent pay cuts with immediate effect. He assured me that he would look into it.

As soon as they left I got a call from the BBC about a possible radio interview for their daily business programme.

All day today I’ve been responding to calls and talking to reporters. In the afternoon the global CEO of Dufresne Partners, Carlton Dufresne, appeared on CNBC’s American feed and told them how he’d always heard great things about Robin Varghese in India and how he had already asked Boris Nguyen in the Asia office to personally ‘take the brash young genius under his wing’.

Believe it or not even Jenson appeared on NDTV Profit and told them Robin Varghese was one of the smartest guys in the office. He said it was quite clear early on how I got the nickname ‘Einstein’. Some of the other channels latched on to this immediately. India TV had a scrolling headline which said ‘Einstein abhi bhi Mumbai ke Wadala ilaake mein zinda!’

Okay, I have to prepare for an online chat session on Rediff tomorrow morning.

It’s all very, very difficult to believe. I haven’t even had the time to sit down and grasp all that’s happening.