The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E24: Sucheta Exposes the Big Bull

What's up, fam? It's Sports Journalists, Ari Chambers.

“Hey, what's up, y'all? Is she girl Sam Jay?”

And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women Sports, a new podcast from Together. We're breaking down the biggest headlines, the viral moments, and the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. From game-changing performances to culture-shifting conversations, we'll give you our takes, our debates, and a few last-long away.

Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. From the eye-hot radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

My first guest is Pair Sultan, Shakita, Luke, and Yiddin.

Have surprises? Many surprises. Welcome to the Sweet 305 podcast where the new check comes to life. What a f*ck! You're the only person I know that loves dial-a-star-verse. What am I need?

“This is Sweet 305, here, oversharing, is encouraged.”

Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pans on the I-hot radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brenn, and on the disgraceland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories from music history.

These are the stories you had in her.

The kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time palm a carty spent in an notorious prison, or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of, where that time blondies Debbie Harry is skate, Ted Bunny. Listen to disgraceland. On the I-hot radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey everyone, it's the Jonas Brothers. This week on the podcast, hey Jonas, we're hanging out with Michael Bubele. After Kevin's recent, interesting confession about Michael. We figured there was only one thing to do. We must invite Michael Bubele on the podcast, and we want to know what's on his sexy

time playlist. "You know I didn't interview you, and you heard about this Jonas Brothers thing, and they were like, "What did you think of it?" I was like, "Well, I need it for several." We talked about Kevin's confession, Michael's reaction, and a whole lot more.

Our conversation with Michael Bubele is out now. Listen to hey Jonas, on the I-hot radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you step onto the trading floor at the Bombay Stock Exchange, your hit by a sea of movement. Stock brokers embossed down shirts, jossle, and barge each other out of the way. They frantically wave their hands to show the changing stock prices.

Hens and paper are flying. It's 1992, and each trade gets noted down by hand. Every time a new man enters the crowd, and yes, they are all men. They stop by a statue of the Hindu god Ganesh and pray for luck. They're going to need it.

Nearly at the Stock Exchange, things are always chaotic.

But today, the energy is ordering on manning. The smell of fear is in the air. For the first time in a long while, share prices aren't going up. They're plummeting. India's stock markets are in freefall.

And across the city, so Chetta Delal's phone starts ringing. I was in office. We didn't have television at that time. We couldn't see it live, and so I began to get calls saying that you know how much the indexes crash. And frankly, it was really chilling, okay? So Chetta is a finance journalist.

At this time, she's one of the only women who covers the matcho lines then of the trading floor. And with every call she receives, the news just gets worse.

“It was, I think, in person digital, the biggest crash, you know, ever.”

I was like, oh my God. She isn't just gobsmacked by the scale of the crash, though it is unbelievable. What's even more shocking for Chetta is the fact that all of this is happening because of her. She's just broken the bigger story of her life. And it's blown the Indian economy apart.

So Chetta uncovered something so huge. It sparked a transformation of India's entire financial system. Seriously. And she did it at a time when being a woman in her field made her a total outlier. So Chetta is a hard core, take no prisoners journalist on a mission to speak truth to power.

I'm Anderson Field, and from the teams at Novel and I Heart Podcasts, this is the girlfriend's spotlight.

Where we tell stories of women winning. Today, Chetta exposes the big bull.

“In India, in the 1980s, it was hard for a woman to get into any kind of job in journalism.”

But Chetta wanted to work in one of the toughest sectors. Breaking into financial journalism or business journalism was almost impossible. And I was too young to know that. And we're talking about mid-80s and we're all young and I didn't stick. So Chess didn't start out wanting to be a journalist.

She grew up in a small town in the southwest of India, then studied statistics at university. But when she moved to the big city, Mumbai, or as it was called back then, Bombay, she met other women who were working as reporters. And so Chess was inspired.

So she started applying for jobs and managed to land two interviews on the same day.

One was called Eves Weekly, because of a woman's magazine. And the other was Fortuna Nendew, which was an investment magazine. So I got both the jobs. So Chess has a choice to make. A woman's weekly or a hard-nosed financial paper.

She talks it through with her younger brother. So that's when my brother said, "You've got a background in statistics. Why don't you go to Fortuna Nendew?" And I said, "I don't know a thing. I don't even know about business families in their name."

He says, "So what? Because both were going to be equally new to me." And so I joined Fortuna Nendew.

And, believe me, it's tough.

It's a steep learning curve. But Cicetta is a quick learner. One of her colleagues shows her the ropes, and she gets to know all the financial jargon and who the major players of the business world are.

But it's a struggle to persuade her bosses to let her do any actual reporting. Most of the time, she's stuck behind a desk, proofreading her male colleagues' work. And so she starts looking for a new job. When I actually wanted to get into the potting,

then I realized that this huge transparent wall out there, which, you know, you don't even know about. One day, Cicetta goes for an interview at another business paper.

“I think they decided, "No, they don't want a woman."”

So they said, "You know, the editor and the publisher was supposed to come in for the interview, not just the bureau chief." And said, "He's not in." So, you know, the interview is not happening today. Then he comes back to me, called you.

And I had a friend working in another paper of the same group, so I stayed chatting with her. And I saw the editor and publisher was very much around. And I saw him walking to his cabin. So I realized that, you know, they're just pretending that he's not there.

I was convinced that not going to call me again. And a couple of months later, they called me again. And this time, I've dared the interview. And the interview goes off, I think, quite well. But I was, by then, really cynical. I wasn't expecting it, okay?

I thought they were wasting my time. Right there in the interview. So you just asked them, "Point blank, "if they're really serious about hiring a woman." And you know, they said, "You start as a trainee."

I said, "I don't think that's happening. I mean, I don't know what clicked, but they decided they wanted to give you a break." And I got in. And I must say that I really learned a lot in those four and a half years.

“I think they probably must have recognized your determination to get that job.”

And so that you'd be really good on the floor of a newsroom. There was no woman covering the capital market just those days at all. So even a friend and colleagues didn't believe that I actually covered the market. You have a press conference. I used to be the only woman there. And in fact, I got quite used to it.

One of the biggest challenges to check a face was building a network of sources. As a journalist, I know all too well that we're nothing without the people who choose to share their stories with us. As a woman, Cicetta was already an outsider. And in Mumbai in the '80s, she was bound by a different set of social norms to her male colleagues. Something as simple as meeting a source alone for a coffee could get misconstrued.

It must have been so frustrating, but Cicetta was philosophical about it. Things were tough, okay. And when I looked back, a lot of times people say, "You know, what you singled out because you were a woman, did you have a tougher time?" I'm not sure because I think it wouldn't have been tough for anybody. Cicetta also faced another barrier, nephatism.

Lots of the other reporters on her beat had friends and family in high places.

because another reporter was family friends with one of the key players.

I'm never going to beat that at all, because I'm never going to have that kind of sources.

And all it's going to take me years and decades, so I then stopped aiming for the top, okay. And started aiming for people who actually are in the know and doing the work. My boss has a hierarchy where he never allows me as a computer, a staff reporter to get anywhere near the top guys, but I get all the stories, because I get it from the guys who are doing the work, who are actually doing the deals, who are writing out the contracts and

they're the people I'm talking to, and I'm getting more stories than them. Cicetta is tenacious, with an instinct for a good story. It won her respect. One time, she wrote a story revealing that work is at the stock exchange, we're planning to go on strike.

So they exchanged, hold all the journalists in for a press conference. They had this fitting, intimidating round conference room,

and all the first journalists were there, and as always, I was only woman.

And the president of the exchange and the executive director started this meeting and you know, they talk about, oh, you know, how some papers are so careless, they write things, they talk about a strike, which is not even true, and I suddenly realized that, oh my god, this conference has been called to single me out, and to contradict my article without saying so.

Oh my god, so I heard them out for a while, and then I said, listen, are you talking about me and my story? If you are, why don't you say it upfront? But what surprised me that day is that a lot of the senior journalists, to my complete surprise, they just backed me up, you know,

“and they aggressively said, she's completely right, what are you denying?”

Her story was correct, I came out there feeling so good about the fact that, you know, you're a bunch of senior guys at the backed me up, you know, and it was so unexpected. God, that's so cool. Yeah, I mean, you had to be bold, didn't you?

And you're like the way you presented yourself, the way you stood up for yourself, in order for you to get any room in those spaces. You really had to be a big personality. Yes, but I think back about it, I think I tended to sometimes, and on some issues come across more aggressive,

because then that insured that people don't mess around with me. You know, a lot of us permanently stood that day, I'm had a choice. If you were pure weak, then you're out of the least, right? By the late '80s, Sue Chatter was making a name for herself in the finance world. But that world was changing, fast.

Now, we're going to get into some economics here, but stay with me, because this is really important. Prior to 1991, India had what's known as a closed economy. In simple terms, the aim was basically to make the country self-reliant. So things like foreign investment and imports were heavily restricted.

The government controlled the tight and number of products manufactured inside the country. They did it if you can get into a business, because some bureaucrat would sit in a ministry and say, "Oh, we have six companies doing this." So, that's matter of people who are waiting for two years. You don't need another car manufacturer.

You don't need another scooter manufacturer.

“And that's how you had this third-rated list. If you wanted a telephone, you had to wait for two”

or three years to get a phone connection, to get a gas connection. If you wanted a book, an automobile, you had a choice of two, and you had a waiting list. By the end of the '80s, the Indian economy was in trouble. Big trouble. Things got so drastic that in 1991, the government was forced to borrow money from the International

Monetary Fund, and as a condition of that lending, India had to open up its economy to the rest of the world. How much did that change things for ordinary people? Or dramatically. I mean, it's just like a dual world, you know, because we let in foreign companies come in, we let foreign investment come in, and the world was itself changing at that day. And that must have been a really exhilarating time to be in finance reporting. Absolutely.

It just changed journalism, right? Because suddenly the world was much bigger, people were reading more, so new newspapers were launched, right? So many of us, in fact, our careers got fast-tracked. So there were more women coming into journalism, many women writing on business, on finance,

“on politics, on crime. I think life changed for all of us in India at that time.”

But where things are changing fast, there'll always be somebody ready to take advantage.

This brave new world ushered in a new class of financial gurus, ready to show India how to get

After the break, meet the big bull.

“What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.”

Hey, what's up, y'all? Is she girl Sam Jane? And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women Sports. Because let's be real, women sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week.

Every week we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. We'll give you our tapes, our debates, and probably a few disagreements.

We'll talk to athletes, celebrate big moments, and get into what's happening on and off

the field, sport, track and beyond. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women sports.

“So if you're already a fan, now you're just getting into the game. There's a seat for you right here.”

Listen to everyone watches women's sports from the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. My first guest is Harris Hilton, Shackida, Luke, and Yiddin. Samida, eat. Good I see you. I'm so excited. On the bounce, you bet. You have surprises. Man is surprises. Welcome to Sweetpeal 5, where the good chat comes to life.

What a f***t. It's like you're not from that, it's like, "Hola amiga, hola me hola amiga hola armana hola."

What a f***t. Look at that, never been able to speak with anyone.

Except you come and see what my situation is having. I'm not asking you to do that, like I said, because I would like to talk to you with this person. This is Sweetpeal 5. Listen to Sweetpeal 5 with Lele Ponce as part of my turn to the podcast network.

“On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.”

Hey everyone, it's Jonas Brothers. This week on the podcast, hey Jonas, we're hanging out with the one, the only, the only and the one, Michael Boble. You guys, I'm genuinely a huge fan. Like, it's funny, you know, I made a whole thing about doing this TikTok right got you guys to sign the guitar. Right, it was real, like, we listened to in the car all the time. Like, it literally is hanging up with all your signature. Wow.

I am so honored. After Kevin's recent, uh, let's call it interesting confession about Michael. I had a feeling this wasn't going to be going away. We figured there was only one thing to do. We must invite Michael Boble on the podcast and we want to know what's on his sexy time play list. You know, I didn't interview you. You know, if you heard about this, Jonas, I just think, and they're like, "What do you think of it?"

I was like, "Well, I mean, it's reciprocal." Like, "What am I going to do?" Now, "What am I going to do?" We talked about Kevin's confession, Michael's reaction, and a whole lot more. Do you have a hockey drink in your house? Right, too. I do.

Our conversation with Michael Boble is out now. Listen to Hey Jonas, and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, The Scraice Land. I tell the stories behind music's biggest names, the moments that shaped them, haunted them, and changed music history forever.

Like how the story of the foodfighters in Dave Grohl isn't just about music. Imagine that. You're in the biggest band on the planet, as Dave Grohl was in 1994 in Nirvana. In the phone rings, and you learn that you're singer, your friend, the reluctant voice of a generation, Kurt Colbaine, is dead. This is a story of fame, pressure,

friendship, and the weight of fulfilling your destiny. Learn more about the moment everything changed. Discraice Land is part of the exactly right network. Listen to new episodes every Tuesday, bonus episodes Thursday, and rewinds on Sunday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A man is silhouetteed against a bright blue sky, leaning on a car while a photographer snaps pictures of him. One hand is in his pocket, artfully rumbling his great double-breasted suit.

glinting in the sun. He has carefully brushed hair,

“parted on one side, a moustache, and of course, Aviator Shades. The whole look is pure”

nonchalant 90s swagger. Oh, and the car, it's Alexis. That might not sound like a flex, but in India in 1991, it's a big one. India had two cars, a theater, and a ambassador. Anyone with a foreign car, worth, you know, a fuel balloon, rupees, and other than diamond merchants, nobody owned a foreign car. The man's smiling for the photographer is Harshert Messer,

and in the Indian finance world of the early 90s, he's a rock star.

He and his brother were a blaze in an insurance company, yeah, very ambitious,

and wanted to get into stock-broking. He was flying high, he was buying up companies, he was like a big daddy in the stock market, and he presented himself like a movie star, right? So he was dressing up in the most expensive clothes, flashy cars, he'd got the subtly big apartment, it had a swimming pool, which at that time was like super luxury which Indians hadn't seen. Before all the upheavals of the 80s and 90s, India didn't really

have a big culture of ordinary people investing. But with the economy opening up, everything was changing, and Harshert Metter was the poster boy for this new era. He played off his family's

humble origins and sold the idea that you, too, could make your fortune on the stock market.

If you followed his advice, everybody said, oh well, Harshert can do it, we can do it, you know,

“all you need to do is buy the right stocks at the right time, and they're going to keep”

going up. So he was selling dreams very consciously, and I think he felt that he's got to be like this pipe pipeer. Millions of retail investors were hanging on to what he says, and people were following him, I believe people used to go and listen to what his driver had to say. So the driver held the court in the morning to say, what did Harshert Metter discuss? And they were happy to buy the stock, only if they heard him talking about it in the cart. Everything, Harshert Metter

touched seemed to turn to gold. He even got his own nickname. The big bull. The big bull, what does that mean? It just means that you're the biggest bull operator on the exchange. In 1991, India was in the middle of what's known in finance jargon as a bull run. That's when the market is booming and stock prices just keep on going up. Bull operators buy and sell shares, expecting their value to increase. And Harshert Metter was the biggest bull of them all. His enemies in the financial

world were the bears. I know, bulls and bears is like some whole weird testosterone fueled animal kingdom. The bears are pessimists. They're betting on share prices going down, not up. Compared to Harshert Metter, the Indian bear cartel was old money. The big bull wanted to shake up their establishment and show the bears who was boss. He did a photo shoot with India today of feeding bears. As in actual live bears, Harshert went to the zoo with a media crew and fed

peanuts to the bears to assert his alpha status. And the bear cartel, they're extremely wealthy, well-played generations of wealth. So to be seen as feeding them, being seen as people who are negative, not wanting something positive, wants stocks to go down rather than go up. Well, this man is thinking of the country and thinking of how to help everyone make everyone rich. And the story you was peddling is that if I can do it, all of you can be as rich as I am.

Hmm. It was a nice story. Yeah, it's a nice story. I can say it's a bit Robin Hood S. Crick that you can buy into. But also it's got a smidge of the Donald Trump about it.

“I think so. I think it was a little naive I would say. Yeah. You know, he was wired to be super optimistic.”

He probably just felt that he had control of the whole system. Everybody was eating out of his hand. And I guess this kind of idolation probably goes to your head. And I'm sure he loved the nickname, the Big Bull. That's a compliment. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. In 1991, everyone seems to think that harshest matter is some kind of financial wizard who could do no wrong. Everyone that is, except for C chatter, I should seem to be able to have an endless supply

of cash to keep buying shares of the market and nobody knew where it was coming from. A lot of journalists were all part of this bandbag and looking at many people were happy, they were praising him and they were no questions asked.

In fact, she's starting to suspect that the Big Bull could be full of BS.

I get a call one day from a source who says, you know, I'd be reading your stories. And I think that you would probably be the only one who would write what I tell you about

“what's going on in the market. So can be neat because I think you need to listen to what's going on.”

C. Chester meets the guy late one evening at a restaurant where they won't be overheard. The source claims he had secretly bribed someone at the state bank of India to consider deal with him. And he says he's not the only one up to some dodgy dealings. He says, I'm telling you this

a front because I don't want to pretend that I'm, you know, cleaner than anybody else,

but I tell you this is not the way I want to do business. I did not like the fact that I had to do this because there's no other way for me to break into getting any business from this bank because the whole system is got so corrupt. And I'm sure you can guess who is right in the middle of this whole mess. Harsh had matter. The guy claims that the reason Harsh had has so much money is because of his shady deals with politicians. Those deals have allowed him to persuade very large

government financial institutions to buy his shares in bulk at ramp top prices. Do they extend that he was saying that he's virtually running their strategies. That's where the money's coming from. He then uses this money to pump the same set of stocks even higher. It's a big accusation. This source is basically claiming that Harsh had matter is using fraud to manipulate the financial markets. So if this is true, it means the entire system is

propped up on a house of cards. Sue Chetta meets with her source again and again, talking late into the night. But before she can write anything, she needs evidence. It won't be easy to go up

against someone as powerful and influential as Harsh had matter. Then one day, in April 1992,

Sue Chetta was on her lunch break at the Times of India where she works. One of her colleagues comes over, he says a guy has turned up at the office and he's got a story to tell. So he brought this guy along. This guy's seeing something about Steve Bank of India and Harsh had met

“there and Lexus and all that. Why don't you listen to him and see what he's talking about?”

The man starts talking. He tells her that the state bank of India has discovered a massive hole in their finances worth 500 crore. That's the equivalent of about $119 million at the time. The bank believes that Harsh had met her illegally diverted the money into the stock market to fund his own investments. Now, the man says, Harsh had his driven to the state bank of India's office in his shiny Lexus for a crisis meeting. The bank wants him to pay back the money quietly so

they can keep the whole thing harsh dark. Sue Chetta can hardly believe what she's hearing. I thought he was making up the 500 crore number but I thought it could be 5 crores of 50 crores. And I said, what proof do you have here? Nothing. He says, covered me and see, everybody is talking about nothing but Harsh had done the Lexus. This could prove that everything Sue Chetta had heard about Harsh had met her is true. His entire financial empire

propping up the stock market is built on fraud. The Sue Chetta doesn't have long to find the evidence to back it up. Harsh had his supposed to pay back the money the next day. My worry was that if he pays back the money, well, I don't have a shred, you know, on which to

“hang it. Once the money is paid back, in all fairness, I wouldn't be able to say that I believe”

he took out this money and he gave it back but now it's all paid back. Then it's a non-story, right? Well, once the money was paid, nobody was going to admit there was a problem at all. Sue Chetta has 24 hours to figure it out. If she gets it right, she could bring down Harsh had met her once and for all. If she gets it wrong, it could cost her career. After the break, Sue Chetta takes the big bull by the horns. If you're service, let's all trust the text with the train. That's us. 270 hours with zero complaining. They train under the hood. They train down in the pit.

270 hours means they're training's legit. It's the smart choice for smart folk and care for their state, trust the instant oil, change wisely. What's up fam? I'm sports journalist, Ari Chambers.

a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women Sports. Because let's be real,

“women sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. The highlights, the rivalries,”

the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. In the conversations that start during the game, and somehow keep going all week, every week we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's boards. We'll give you our tapes, our debates, and probably a few disagreements. We'll talk to athletes, celebrate big moments, and get into what's happening on and off the field for a track and beyond. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it,

because everyone watches women's sports. So if you're already a fan, there you're just getting into the game. There's a seat for you right here. Listen to everyone watches women's sports from the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

My first guest is Harry Soltin, Shakita, Luke, and Yirin, Samita E. Good I see you!

I'm so excited! In the bounce, you bet! In the bounce, you have surprises? Man, you're surprising! Welcome to Sweetpeal 5, where the group chat comes to life. What a f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing f***ing me. Look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that. It's up to you, come and see, I was missing you, she's having...

- Say mi amante. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk. (upbeat music) - You're the only person I know that loves to y'all as diverse.

- Oh, I'm a nerd. - I'm not an adult, I'm a kid, I'm a fulta, like you said. I would like to work with this person. (upbeat music)

- This is sweet, for your five. Listen to sweet, for your five, with lelepons, as part of my Tultura podcast network. On the I Heart Radio app, apple podcast,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

- Hey everyone, it's Jonas Brothers. This week on the podcast, hey Jonas, we're hanging out with the one, the only, the only, and the one, Michael Bublé. - You guys, I'm genuinely a huge fan.

Like, it's funny, you know, I made a whole thing about doing this TikTok right got you guys to sign the guitar and then. - Right, right, it would be real. Like, we listen to in the car all the time.

Like, literally is hanging up with all your signature. - Wow. - I am so honored. - After Kevin's recent, let's call it interesting confession about Michael.

- I had a feeling this wasn't gonna be going away. - We figured there was only one thing to do. We must invite Michael Bublé on the podcast, and we wanna know what's on his sexy-time playlist. - You know, I didn't interview you.

“- Yeah, like, did you heard about this Jonas Brothers thing?”

- And they're like, "What do you think of it?" I was like, "Well, I mean, it's reciprocal." Like, "What am I going to do?" Now, "What am I going to do?" (laughing)

- We talked about Kevin's confession, Michael's reaction, and a whole lot more. "Do you have a hockey drink in your house?" - Right, too, I do. - Our conversation with Michael Bublé is out now.

Listen to Hey Jonas, on the I Heart Radio app, apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, The Scraiceland. I tell the stories behind music's biggest names,

the moments that shaped them, haunted them, and changed music history forever. Like, how the story of the foodfighters in Dave Grohl isn't just about music. Imagine that.

You're in the biggest band on the planet, as Dave Grohl was in 1994 in Nirvana. In the phone rings, and you learn that you're singer, your friend, the reluctant voice of a generation, Kurt Colbenen, is dead.

This is a story of fame, pressure, friendship, and the weight of fulfilling your destiny. Learn more about the moment everything changed. Discraiceland is part of the exactly right network. Listen to new episodes every Tuesday,

bonus episodes Thursday, and rewinds on Sunday on the I Heart Radio app, apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) At the offices of the Times of India,

Sucetta is reeling from the bombshell tip of she's just received, but she springs into action.

The first thing Sucetta needs to do is figure out

where the harshest matter really is at the secret meeting at the State Bank of India. I could not walk into the State Bank,

“canteen, I would have stood out like a sort thumb, right?”

So I had a colleague working for me, I said, would you like to go in, at least look at, whether at least that part is true. So you went along and he came back and said, yeah, they're all talking about harshest driving in and Lexus.

So the car attracted, I think more attention than anything else, and led to all this gossip in the bank and things leaking out. And he definitely was summoned to the MD and the chairman's office.

So then I worked the phones and I asked a lot of people what's happening. Everybody took time, this is let me get back, let me get back. And I remember making 30 or 40 calls to everybody, I could think of, you know, try to piece together

And everyone had some little thing that they would be able to say, yeah, I think he was in trouble. Yeah, I heard about this meeting with the city bank and he was trying to sell a bunch of his stocks to them to get liquidity.

“Why would he do that unless he was in financial difficulty?”

So there were little bits and pieces that people were putting together, which said that, yes, there was reason to believe. There's some kind of trouble brewing.

I finally was able to confirm with enough of people

that it is true. And it's most likely to have happened. And I didn't have a piece of paper to back it up. So it's all hear saying. And can't write a story like this, right?

We were asked to speak to the chairman of state bank, which had lost some money. And he said, it's said it's a figment of some journalist imagination, nothing of that sort has happened. Then we said, okay, Dr. Hechthmetov.

So Hechthmetov also said, no, wait, complete lies. Someone's making it up. See, Chester doesn't believe, has shared all the chairman of the state bank. But it's tough to persuade her editors

to run the story in the face of these denials. And she's nearly out of time.

“So my boss said, listen, you have to get a confirmation”

to somebody in this B.I.

That's the state bank of India.

At least a verbal confirmation or we are not going to be able to carry it, which was fair enough. So then I find I had a source who used to be a very sober kind of gentleman who would not have given me the story, okay?

But I called him up and I said, listen, I know that you're not going to talk about this. But I want to tell you something. It's a story I want to write today. If it is wrong, I think my career is over.

But I want to narrate what I have put together and what I've gathered, just answer with the yes or no. Can I run with it or can I not, right? So I narrated to him what I had. And I said, what do you think?

And he says, okay, yes, and bang the phone down. Wow, that was my only confirmation about the story. On the 23rd of April, 1992, the times of India run C. Chattas story. So even the next day, in office there was nothing.

Nobody had clue about what was brewing in the financial world. Even when I went to the market,

“I could see this buzz and that people over it.”

And all Loki and people looking scared. You know, no one's talking about it. By that evening, I began to get this sense of panic because everybody was cleaning up their books, checking their stocks, the chairman

called meetings of treasuries the next day, the chairman of the state bank of India decides to speak to the press. But he doesn't call suit Chattas. He gets in touch with a different paper.

To reassure everyone in the financial world that nothing is wrong. So he said, you know, we got the money back. It was actually 625 crore. We have all the money and there's no problem anymore.

So he was doing the right things of banker in order to not create panic. But in the process, he conformed by $300 per cent. So the confirmation that I had was this interview the next day where he admitted in the process

of saying, all is well. You know, I got my money back. It's too late to put the genie back in the bottle. The big bowl has been outed as a fraud. And now that Chattas has broken the news,

even more revelations start coming to light. It was like a dc chain. So it turned out that everybody was involved moving from one bank to another. And there was just complete lawlessness in the market

because there wasn't just this one scam. So the fact that we wrote the story, it just sort of broke that whole chain of trust. Suddenly everybody was matching the books. And they realized this lawlessness

had been going on for two years. So suddenly I'm thrown into this way. My story is making it to Parliament. People are asking questions talking about it. The market is crashing.

When she checked the first published her story,

the stock markets were closed. The brokers were striking over new regulations in the finance industry. But four days, the market had been shut. And I think that made it worse

because complete panic had set in. The Parliament was open. The opposition was being for blood, wanted the finance minister to design. And all this market opens.

So obviously the selling pressure was incredibly just crashed. It's one of the largest financial crashes in India's history. Many of the people who trusted harshest matters advice and followed his investing tips have lost their money.

But she, Chessa, hasn't just exposed the big ball. She's also exposed massive cracks in the entire banking system. Everything about the system needed to be cleaned up. In there was so short of final exchange that foreign banks thought that they could get away with

whatever they wanted because the government

There was insider trading, rampant insider trading.

And even politicians were trading in the markets. Nobody wanted to clean it up. Because it was in nobody's interest to have a clean market, right? So in the scam happened, suddenly everyone wanted

to wash their hands off and show that they do it something. So they demanded the setting up of a joint parliamentary committee. And it turned out that there were 25, 30 or at banks. And they were at least 8 or 9 different kinds of frauds that were happening simultaneously.

Wow. I mean, you just like blew the whole financial world. Totally open. The first trigger, yes. And it was a lot of the stories afterwards.

I mean, you temporarily turned India in its finance world on its head.

“You must have felt either powerful or terrified.”

Terrified. Terrified.

Do you remember, India has a very high tolerance for corruption?

So there are enough of people who, when they are facing a loss, their attitude is, we don't care what happens. We shouldn't close money. So their thing was, oh, if she hadn't written the story, we wouldn't have lost money.

You would get calls to say, be careful. And I found later that there were people who were following me. Then there was somebody who had a private agency to find out who my sources were. And then one day, I get this envelope in office.

And I, you know, there are lots of letters that you get, right? So it was one of them is an envelope I opened it. And it's powder that falter. And those were the days when they used to be that untracks coming in the mail, remember?

I remember just dumping it and going and washing my hands. And believe it or not, it was just a scare, because we hesitating you went and looked at what it was. And it was just wheat flour. But somebody had, you know,

“done the sick thing of putting it in an envelope”

and sending it to just three at a frame. Oh my God. So Chester is so matter of fact when she talks about all of this, but it sounds intense. I can only imagine how terrifying it would have been

to open that envelope full of white powder.

The fact that so many powerful forces wanted to keep her quiet

just shows how much impact her reporting was having. It must have taken a lot of courage to keep writing. Then one day, she heard from the person, you'd expect to be the most pissed off of all. And how did Hashad Mesa react to your story?

Hashad was an interesting character, you know? He wanted his key. What she was was his ability to charm people and get along with people. So I also think that the audacity to pull off something

like this or to even manipulate the market you're wired completely differently, right? So even when all this was happening, he was on a high full of himself. So I remember one day he calls me out,

and he says, you know, Madden, we should meet sometime. I said, sure, I mean, I'm a journalist, I meet him. I understand. And I thought he would be really angry and I said, yes, sure thing.

And he says, you broke the story of the decade. Because believe it, he actually said that. The audacity clearly Hashad Mesa signed up to the idea that no publicity is bad publicity. But the big ball was about to be cornered.

The very same day he called to Chetta, the police arrested Hashad. He went on to be charged with dozens of criminal offenses. It was a spectacular fall from grace for the golden boy of the finance world.

But the legal cases turned into a battle that dragged on for years. And in the meantime, Hashad wasn't the type to stay out of the limelight. He wanted to make a comeback around 96, 97.

And he wanted to set himself up as an investment guru. And he wanted a column in the times of India where I was writing on the same day that I had a column which was Monday. And he had managed to convince the management

to give it to him. Because this time, he was harsh at the expert. And they had agreed.

“So I remember going to my resident editor and saying,”

that, look, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be the financial editor who carries his column. I'm designing. So then I was told that, OK, the column is not happening. So I came back from leave.

I can't believe that they would want to bring him on as a columnist. That is amazing. And that top paper is actually did it. In the end, Hashad was only convicted

on a tiny proportion of the charges before he died of a heart attack in 2001. This is something that I most disappointed about India is that we just do not seem to be able to complete any investigation.

We have a very good judicial system, which doesn't work. Because if cases drag on, just as delayed as just as denied. But I mean, who gets the last laugh really? It's definitely you.

But the ripple effect of her reporting

goes way beyond just harsh at matter. Because of what she uncovered, there was a complete overhaul of the banking sector. New laws were passed to regulate the stock markets and tackle fraud and corruption.

She literally changed her country's economy. As a journalist, that's the kind of impact that you can only dream of. The story has even been turned into a Bollywood movie and a TV series.

And she's still at it. Over the years, Cicheta has exposed all kinds of different frauds and scams.

The story itself, the fact that you broke it,

it was a whirlwind at the time.

“But now, how do you feel about everything that you achieved?”

When I look back and it's 40 years later, and we've done a tiny magazine called Money Life, it is a digital publication with a skeleton staff. And I'm quite amazed to find that I'm still relevant. People have expectations.

We're still able to write things that matter or have perspectives that matter and people are reading us. I'm interested to know what the values are. I've shaped the way you approach your journalism and your career. You know, I believe that a story is something

that others don't want to, not my words. They are the reason why all of us want to be journalists to tell the story that others want to keep hidden, right? So I believe that it's my job to be neutral, to investigate, to be fair and to put it in perspective.

And I think I have managed to do that most of the time. And there is a price to be paid for it. I would have had a different life, a different journey, a lot more fun, you know, a lot of invitations, scholarships, what have you, if I had done things differently.

“So when people ask me, why did you choose to do it?”

Like this, well, I am wired like that, right? Yeah, there is no other answer. You can have done this any other way. Let's try it. (upbeat music)

Thank you to Cicetadelow and iconic journalists and the Matador to Harsherd's bull. Keep up with her reporting at MoneyLife.in. (upbeat music) If you've enjoyed this conversation,

you can find loads more incredible women on our feed.

Do check them out. And please do spread the word and tell your friends about us. We want as many people as possible to be part of the girlfriend's gang. This season, the girlfriend spotlight is supporting

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organizations and movements to strengthen and grow. If you'd like to find out more or donate to help them secure equal rights for women and girls across the globe, you can go to womenkind.org.uk.

(upbeat music) The girlfriend's spotlight is produced by novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from novel, visit novel.ordio. This episode was written and produced by Caroline Thornham.

Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher is Zayana Usuf. The editor is Hannah Marshall, Max O'Brien and Craig Stracken are our executive producers. Production management from Joe Savage,

Sri Houston and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander, Daniel Kempson and Dan King, music supervision by J. Kutai-Vitch, Nicholas Alexander and Aniston Field.

Original music composed by Louise Agarstein and Gemma Freeman. The series artwork was designed by Christina Lemcool. Willard Foxson is creative director of development and special thanks to Katrina Norville, Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at IHeart Podcasts,

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