[Reader-list] FINANCE: Karthik Rajaram Kills Family, Himself

[inder salim]

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:14 PM, inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com> wrote:
> thanks for forwarding the news item which appeared in all the daily
> news papers all over the world.
>
> i remember a Wim Wenders ( i dont remember the title of the film ),
> wherein a middle class man kills his wife, his child, a neighbor, and
> finally himself. That was quite profound as far as my understanding of
> cinema is considered. The reason for the action was triggered almost
> by nothing.  The victim-cum-murderer was not a interactive person, and
> would easily lapse into some incoherence while speaking to friends in
> a party. He was a draftsman working in the office an architect's firm.
> Drawing lines on sheets all the day. one can interpret his job of
> drawing lines in many ways...
>
>  I dont know how to describe actions like these, because the present
> ways of living can drive a man into some depression. Chasing a dream
> can land a person into a strange unpredictable domain, which instantly
> gives her/him an alien look.
>
> Just a couple of moment ago, he was just one like us, this is how
> friends/relatives think after hearing about such a thing..... ,but the
> quantum of flux hidden inside a person is difficult to fathom. We were
> perhaps  never in a position to judge the other. Our own beings too
> can devastate/transform a so called smooth living in a fraction of a
> second. No one to blame. The desire has an abstract face too, which
> are not familiar with. We are always, perhaps, trying to know  its
> form, texture and meaning .  But the element of chaos hidden inside us
> perplexes us all the time.
>
> Some one said, Kartik Rajaram was a HAPPY GO LUCKY person, but then
> how many amongst are like that. I feel most of times we are surrounded
> by situations which are simply meant for fun.
>
> I dont if some psychoanalytic     treatment could have helped him out
> the situation. He had perhaps, lost some necessary grains in his
> brains. or had replaced them with some other cells which are alien to
> us right now.
>
> Only 'Americanism' is not the culprit.
>
> love
> is
>
> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:18 PM, Naeem Mohaiemen
> <naeem.mohaiemen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Father kills family and himself, despondent over financial losses
>> By Richard Winton, Evelyn Larrubia and Kimi Yoshino
>> Los Angeles Times
>> October 7, 2008
>> http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-porterranch7-2008oct07,0,523407,full.story
>>
>> Karthik Rajaram was found dead in his Porter Ranch home along with his
>> wife, mother-in-law and 3 sons. Neighbors and coworkers say he was a
>> loving father, but 'very intense' and at times unstable.
>>
>> Karthik Rajaram had fallen hard.
>>
>> The 45-year-old Porter Ranch financial manager who once made more than
>> $1.2 million in a London-based venture fund had lost his job. His luck
>> playing the stock market ran out.
>>
>> On Sept. 16, he bought a gun. He wrote two suicide notes and a last
>> will and testament. And then, sometime between Saturday night and
>> Monday morning, he killed his wife, mother-in-law and three sons, and
>> took his own life.
>>
>> "This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been
>> destroyed, apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit
>> hole, if you will, of absolute despair, somehow working his way into
>> believing this to be an acceptable exit," said LAPD Deputy Chief
>> Michel Moore. "It is critical to step up and recognize we are in some
>> pretty troubled times."
>>
>> In a letter addressed to police, Rajaram blamed his actions on
>> economic hardships. A second letter, labeled "personal and
>> confidential," was addressed to family friends; the third contained a
>> last will and testament, Moore said.
>>
>> The letter to police voiced two options: taking his own life, or
>> killing himself and his entire family. "He talked himself into the
>> second strategy," Moore said. "That that would be the honorable thing
>> to do."
>>
>> Authorities believe Rajaram killed his family and himself after seeing
>> his finances wiped out by the stock market collapse, according to a
>> source familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity
>> because the investigation is ongoing.
>>
>> Concern about the family's welfare began Monday morning when Rajaram's
>> wife, 39-year-old Subasri, did not show up for her carpool. Friends
>> went to the house in the 20600 block of Como Lane, only to find it
>> strangely quiet. The morning newspaper lay in the frontyard. The
>> family's two cars, a Suburban and a Lexus SUV, were parked in the
>> driveway.
>>
>> When police entered the home in the gated, Spanish-style community,
>> they first found the gunman's mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69,
>> dead in a downstairs bedroom. His wife and three sons -- Krishna, 19,
>> a sophomore at UCLA majoring in business economics; Ganesha, 12; and
>> Arjuna, 7, all named after Indian gods and warriors -- were discovered
>> in various upstairs bedrooms, all shot in the head, some with multiple
>> gunshot wounds.
>>
>> Their father was found dead in a bedroom with Ganesha and Arjuna, the
>> gun still in his hand, police said.
>>
>> The Rajarams had lived in the upscale Sorrento neighborhood of Porter
>> Ranch for a couple years in a 2,800-square-foot rented house. The
>> landlords, another Indian couple, said that the family paid their rent
>> on time and that there were no indications of trouble.
>>
>> Neighbors in the Northridge neighborhood where the family previously
>> lived said they were well-liked and enjoyed entertaining guests.
>> Except for one night when residents heard a man screaming for hours,
>> the family seemed content for the nine years they lived there.
>>
>> "He loved those kids more than any man I've seen love his sons," said
>> next-door neighbor Sue Karns.
>>
>> But Karthik Rajaram, who held an MBA from UCLA, was a hard-driving
>> businessman. He was involved in several financial ventures. Between
>> his home sale and another lucrative investment, he should have had a
>> pile of cash.
>>
>> A 2001 article in The Daily Telegraph of London, under the headline
>> "Bust, but big bucks for the big boys," called Rajaram a "winner" in a
>> deal for NanoUniverse, a Los Angeles- and London-based venture fund
>> taken public on the London Stock Exchange.
>>
>> For a 12,500-pound investment, Rajaram, one of the company's founders,
>> received 875,000 pounds -- or about $1.2 million in 2001 dollars --
>> after a voluntary liquidation, the newspaper reported.
>>
>> He also sold his house in 2006, a calculated decision even though his
>> wife, a bookkeeper at a pharmacy, did not want to move, their former
>> neighbors said.
>>
>> He sold the house for $750,000, making a sizable profit on a home the
>> couple purchased in 1997 for $274,000.
>>
>> "The market was going down and he wanted to get out before the bottom
>> dropped out," Karns said. "I talked to him last December and he said,
>> 'I feel I did a good thing by selling when I did.' "
>>
>> It is unclear how Rajaram invested the cash since then and how he lost it.
>>
>> In 2003 and 2004, he worked for Greg Robinson, an entrepreneur and
>> founder of several companies, at Azur Partners LLC, a management
>> consulting agency.
>>
>> Robinson said he was forced to fire Rajaram because "his life wasn't
>> moving in the right direction."
>>
>> "He had some behavioral problems," Robinson said. "He wasn't reliable.
>> . . . He was not an emotionally stable person. It was a real problem
>> and would affect any business he was involved in."
>>
>> The two had also worked together in the Century City office of
>> PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Robinson recalled Rajaram as being "a very
>> smart guy," who he believed posted a perfect score on his business
>> school entrance exam.
>>
>> Although Karns and her husband said they liked Karthik Rajaram and
>> were stunned by the news, they said he was "very high-strung, very
>> intense."
>>
>> "The man was never relaxed," Sue Karns said.
>>
>> In the Porter Ranch neighborhood, next-door neighbor Kinda Almukaddem
>> said she had rarely spoken to the family since they moved in a couple
>> of years ago. But in the last two weeks, Karthik Rajaram visited her
>> twice asking whether she would be home this past weekend. He urged her
>> to keep her side windows shut because he had heard of burglaries in
>> the area.
>>
>> Rajaram seemed nervous -- shaking, pacing and taking notes on a
>> notepad as he spoke to her, she said.
>>
>> "He noticed my side windows were open, the side that my house shares
>> with him," she said. "Now, come to think of it, I think he was trying
>> to have me close my windows on that side so I wouldn't hear anything."
>>
>> Police said nobody reported hearing gunshots or anything out of the ordinary.
>>
>> But on Monday, the neighborhood was far from normal, with police
>> leading convoys of media into the gated community. Children at nearby
>> Alfred B. Nobel Middle School, where 12-year-old Ganesha Rajaram was a
>> seventh-grade honors student, were sent home with notes informing
>> their parents of the news.
>>
>> "This one will shake people to the core," Principal Robert Coburn
>> said. "When you think about it, all kids have a mom and dad. And if a
>> father can do this to his kids, it's very scary."
>>
>> richard.winton at latimes.com
>> evelyn.larrubia at latimes.com
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