The Saga of Doury & Youdi – Chapter 5

He was the goodness in the bad! Someone, everyone admired from deep within, but would inevitably never accept it, publicly! Always wise to curse the badness and let the goodness be interred with the bones or burn to ashes.

That is pretty complex to understand, in one simple reading. But does not matter, how many times you read it, Kranz would always be more complex than the Minotaur’s maze. Life is never black and white; at times, it is grey. For Kranz, it never saw a black or a white. It was perpetually grey.

Born a love child to an unwed teenaged mother. Fathered by one of the most powerful man ever. A father who had no inhibition of accepting the son but would not marry. Social complexities! A father who gifts his illegitimate son, a golden share in all his businesses. The gift made Kranz, the quintessential trump card for all Board decisions as he had a veto across conglomerates.

With all the power he had, he still had no identity!  Corporate tapes shadowed the anonymous benefactor. Abandoned by a mother, left in a basket floating on the town square lake. Picked up by a cab driver and raised as his own. A ‘lowly’ cab driver who showed no interest on the contents of the small memory stick attached to the baby, with details of the golden share across businesses of one the most iconic brand in the market. Kranz was the son he could never had, and he raised him with love and care any father could ever give. He instilled more than enough courage in his foster son, to take on the world.

And Kranz did take on the world! Highly ambitious, he was a kid prodigy. He had set his eyes on the best of the ivy league institutions. The same place where the gifted sons of Kooroos & Paendey’s studied. So did I, on a teaching staff’s quota!

Kranz overshone all of us combined with his merit and should have received all and any scholarship available. My father, Dr.Ona ensured he did not get one. Without a scholarship and patronage Kranz could never be inducted. Dr.Ona headed the institute, and he could pull strings. I however still wonder what motivated my father to do that. Many said, he didn’t want a mismatch in the students, as they would not be from a same peer group and would have different upbringing creating an imbalance on the fabric of the institute. I feel, Dr Ona wanted to steer clear from a prodigy of a child with an anonymous benefactor bequeathing him power more than the child could fathom.

Did not stop Kranz from getting his education. He went to a small family run private school, disguising his faith, as it was a ‘Members only’ school for a particular faith.

Philanthropy earned a new meaning with the way Kranz offered charity. He was ready and actually keen to give, all he had, to charity.

Wondering how does Kranz fit into my story, Asty’s story on Youdi and Doury ?

Well Youdi and Kranz had the same mother. Kranz born out of wedlock and Youdi and his 3 siblings to miracles of artificial insemination and IVF!!

And Doury’s embrace of true friendship. Doury’s belief of merit over everything else. In spite of having a golden share to multiple behemoths, he could never be a Director. His golden shares made him one of the most powerful businessperson with veto rights to zillions of rupee business, but he still needed to be introduced by a Director, to get his DIN number and be inducted as a Director. His cab driver father’s credentials never got him that. That is where Doury had stepped in, being his referee and patron allowing him to be inducted and registered as a Director.

Kranz’s fierce loyalty to this selfless act of Doury changed destinies in the future. We will talk of the The Business War of Ten Millenniums one day.

Virtues practiced to an extreme can be a dangerous self-destructive trait. Kranz knew it, but still in his convoluted belief of principles, gave it all away. He created the chasm himself and jumped into it, happily.

When the Paendeeys, knew for certain that Kranz, for Doury’s sake, will be using his golden share veto rights to stall and perhaps destroy the flagship business of Paendeey’s, they took it away, and Kranz gave it willingly. Full of deceit and corporate slyness, they used a fledgling start-up to seek Kranz’s patronage and his golden shares to give them the boost to survive and grow. Kranz smelt the deceit, but still gave it all away, for the good of some unknown start-up.

And that’s not the end to it, all of Kranz’s assets were dissolved, again, by deceit and he was declared bankrupt. His only survival was from a last personal Trust, safeguarded by an ironclad decree of being untouchable by debtors. Krey organized a dummy failing set-up to seek help to survive, Kranz gave that away too, ensuring his death knell!

Belief overcomes logic, as does principles. Was it a superhuman ‘holier than thou’ greatness? Or Was it a pure self-destructive suicidal belief?  Not even Time will ever answer this. 

Death makes angels of us all ! Does it matter to be a better angel !