Blood is thicker than water

On a fine Sunday afternoon, two months ago, Charles Roseland was relaxing on his majestic bed. The bed was handcrafted to accommodate 7000 calico-pocketed springs for consummate weight distribution and the mattress consisted of a luxurious blend of cashmere, mohair, British fleece wool, and lambswool. His eyes were directed towards the jumbo floor-to-ceiling windows, but he was not staring at the majestic New York skyline view. Instead, he was reminiscing about his childhood days. His memory time machine took him 80 years back. His childhood was spent in a rural area in Minnesota. They used to live on farmland, farming being the family’s main occupation. Charles Roseland’s father sold some property which provided him the capital to start an import and export business. The gradually gaining pace of business impelled him to travel to other states. He used to have extended stays in other states for business. Finally, he relocated his family to the business capital of the world New York to sow the seeds of the business empire that Charles and his next-generation built. He remembered those old days when he used to live in a wooden house in a small village and was flabbergasted to ruminate how things have changed around him. Then he became the proud owner of a mansion in Manhattan. His family’s vintage car used to be a BULLock cart. He loved to roam around the muddy roads of the village on the bullock cart.  Along with the mansion, he was the proud owner of many exquisite cars including BMW. His life had been a rollercoaster ride from bullock cart to BMW. But all that glittered was not gold- he was having sleepless nights in the luxurious bed as trouble brewed in his paradise.

Charles had two sons. Richard the elder and Ronald the younger. Sibling rivalry, which is a type of competition or animosity among siblings, is particularly intense when children are very close in age and of the same gender. From early childhood, Richard was extremely jealous of Ronald. He was of the perception that his brother got more attention than him. Usually, in most cases, this kind of rivalry gets diminished with age. But this was an exception in the family of Roseland. The rivalry intensified with age. In the meantime, Charles had established himself as a businessman. He enhanced his father’s business manifold. Both his sons showed interest in business, and so, it was a natural course of action for them to take an important position in his father’s company. The company reached unprecedented heights within a short time of their joining. But the fights between the brothers never stopped. The Roseland brothers began their careers as collaborators. Charles used to describe their approach as “two bodies, one mind” to the managers of the office even though he was fully aware of the rivalries. He was hopeful that the bitter relations would soon be a thing of the past. Instead, they grew increasingly estranged.

In their childhood, Richard made sure he wore better clothes, played with better toys, etc. than Ronald. This trend continued to present age as old habits die hard. Whenever Ronald bought any car, Richard bought more expensive cars. He always slicked back his hair and dressed in sharp suits and made every attempt to grab attention from Ronald. This competition did not end in cars though and extended to private jets, yachts, and mansions. With plenty of cash to play with, Richard adopted billionaire hobbies such as horse racing to outshine the lifestyle of Ronald. Their relationship soon grew strained. Each believed the other was making business decisions without enough consultation with each other. Ronald was annoyed when Richard announced a water purifier project without discussing it with him, and Richard was infuriated when Ronald restructured the entities that managed the company’s shares without his input. Underlying it all was a dispute about the basic nature of the relationship. Richard saw himself as the undisputed boss, whereas Ronald considered himself an equal partner. In the same company itself, the brothers became business rivals. A sort of Roseland civil war ensued.

The brothers devoted a huge time to overtly bashing each other. They filed defamation cases against each other after their slanders escalated past the point of no return. The confrontation was so grave that a split in their vast conglomerate became evident. After the split of their empire, they became direct competitors.

The elder brother understood the market well. It was not a mere fluke but an educated guess which enabled him to be successful. He hired the best financial advisers, but then again which businessman of his stature did not. But it is the intuition of the businessman which plays a big role in the long run. In 2007, the market, which was enjoying a high for over a year, started to fall. The investors were blatantly being pessimists leading to further decreasing prices and increased negative sentiment. Richard's shrewd business disposition enabled him to make a profit in the bear market when almost every businessman suffered losses. It was hard not to admire his chutzpah.

BULL markets are the opposite of bear markets. They are characterized by optimism, investor confidence, and prospects of strong results for a continued period. Richard had the acumen of leveraging the BULL market which started in 2010 and soon he became one of the richest people of New York. Richard hit the BULL’s eye with his new venture on Electronics equipment.

For his success, the community crowned him with the epithet of the BULL. There was an article in the Washington Times about him with the heading “ the BULL of Wall Street”.

On Broadway, near Bowling Green in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, stood a bronze statue called Charging BULL, sometimes referred to as the Bull of Wall Street. This was in Richard’s office area. This was Richard's favorite place in New York. Early in the morning when it was less crowded Richard used to go there and used to stand in front of the statue and stare into its eyes. He could see his image in the statute. It was the symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity. Richard thus could relate to the statue most. The statue was in a ready-to-charge posture, leaning back on its haunches with its head lowered. Exactly like Richard.

On the contrary, Ronald’s career had constantly been on a descending slope. His companies had been flagged as fraudulent with debts up to a whopping $ 700 million. He was preyed upon by loan sharks. He was swindled in debt. The problems kept piling up with Ronald’s company. Being overambitious and lacking the business ingenuity of his brother were the major inadequacies in his character. But this labefaction was not totally Ronald's fault. This mishap was methodically and scrupulously orchestrated by Richard. Richard reneged on mergers and even blocked lucrative business deals which could have provided Ronald the impetus to excel in his ventures. The meteoric rise of Richard to mega-wealthy had already grabbed the media’s attention. Earlier there used to be a buzz in the business corridor and the question doing the rounds was that all was not well between the brothers. Soon the friction between the brothers made way to the newspapers. The rivalry with his brother had scaled new heights in the past few decades. Ronald accused Richard of predatory behavior publicly which was followed by counter-accusations. Ronald dropped almost entirely from public view. He tried to turn things around, working as many as 14 hours a day to rescue his companies and protect his remaining assets.

Ronald was 10 days away from a court-imposed deadline to repay $80 million in debt, and failure to comply with the court order was potentially punishable by imprisonment. As Ronald faced jail time after his company failed to make payments, Charles spent sleepless nights silently crying. The family patriarch, Charles, requested his sons to amicably resolve the issues. The truce between the brothers was impossible. Ronald would never ask for help from his brother. Why should he? His brother played a major role in his downfall.

Three days later, Ronald's daughter Nancy saw her grandfather crying. She was 8 years old and very smart for her age. She got to understand the complete picture. She was deeply affected by her father’s misery and the cries of her grandfather. Nancy ran ten blocks to her uncle Richard’s house. She entered his room without knocking. “ Mr. Richard Roseland" (and not uncle Rich as she used to fondly address him) " do you not have a heart?", she said looking straight into her uncle’s eye. "You are so jealous of your brother. You will allow your own blood to go to jail. You always BULLy others. Do you not see the tears in your father’s eyes? Do you like it when the media makes fun of our family?......” a lengthy rant followed.

The next morning, in a surprise move, Richard came forward and provided the necessary cash for his brother, not only saving him from time behind bars, but also from a tarnished business reputation. A statement was published in the newspaper “Beholden we have moved beyond the past” attributed to Richard and Ronald commented that his brother’s help showed “the significance of adhering to the resilient core family values”. Hatchets were being buried and this was the initial stage of reconciliation. Charles was taken aback, like everyone else. Charles postulated the cause of the change in Richard's heart. He could only think of 'the fearless girl.' The fearless girl was a bronze statue placed right in front of the Charging Bull and it symbolized female strength. Charles could see the 'fearless girl' in Nancy.  He remembered the plaque beneath the statue that stated: "Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference."  Charles smiled.