Last week Nina Shen Rastogi at Slate asked the question, “If we’re in the midst of a financial collapse, why aren’t executives jumping out of office buildings?”
Because the current situation hasn’t had nearly as devastating an effect on people’s personal finances. The Great Crash of 1929–and, to a lesser extent, the crash of 1987–did lead some people to commit suicide. But in nearly all of those cases, the deceased had suffered a major loss when the market collapsed. Now, due in large part to those earlier experiences, investors tend to keep their portfolios far more diversified, so as to avoid having their entire fortunes wiped out when stocks take a downturn. In addition, some of the worst declines in the past week have been limited to a smaller number of companies (such as Lehman Bros., Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs), further limiting the potential damage to individual investors. [Link]
Sadly, we may be about to see people’s personal finances affected if things keep going bad. This afternoon there was tragic news out of the San Fernando Valley. An out-of-work Indian American financial advisor killed his wife, mother-in-law and three young sons before turning the gun on himself:
“We believe this to be a murder-suicide,” Moore said. “It appears [the gunman] killed his family and then took his own life.”
The bodies of the man’s 39-year-old wife, 70-year-old mother-in-law, and three sons — ages 19, 12 and 7 — were found inside the home’s various bedrooms. Authorities had earlier said that one of the victims was the gunman’s mother but now say it was his mother-in-law.
Friends and neighbors identified the couple as Karthik and Subasri Rajaram, who had lived in the neighborhood for a few years.
Moore said police believe that the gunman shot the victims sometime after 6 p.m. Saturday, and that he had left behind three letters indicating that he had carried out the killings. One letter, addressed to law enforcement, confessed to the shootings. He wrote a second letter to friends. The third letter, police said, appeared to be a will.Moore said Rajaram had previously worked for Price Waterhouse and Sony Pictures and “had attested to some financial difficulties,” Moore said. “He had become despondent over his financial” situation…
One of the young victims, Ganesha Rajaram, 12, was a 7th grade honors student at Alfred B. Nobel in Northridge, which he had attended for the last two years, said Principal Robert Coburn. His parents were very involved in his education, frequently interacting with teachers and never showing any signs that anything was amiss, he said. [Link]
Of course it is pure speculation at this point to assume that Mr. Rajaram’s financial woes are directly related to the current bear market, but the San Fernando Valley was one of the hardest hit in the sub-prime debacle. Hopefully this remains an isolated incident and not a national trend.
If $$ is the issue, why do these guys kill their families, rather than take what $$ (and, $$ to be raised by borrowing) is left and heading out for, say, Paraguay or Cambodia? I’m no psychiatrist, but methinks something other than mere finances is up here (the USA is, after all, the land of “second chances” in terms of finances!!).
It’s really sad, not the least because they were dependent on him, so he thought he owned their lives.
Meaning they were his dependents, depending on him to find a solution, but surely not this one. I don’t get how he managed to shoot so many people in the head. Did he shoot them where they were and then move them to their own rooms? If there was a will, what did he leave and to whom? It’s awful that they published a picture of someone being gurneyed out.
Seriously? That’s what jumps out at you as “awful”? What is your baseline, and where is it coming from?
Aww, man. This was headline 10 pm news, they gave it like 5 whole minutes. I too wonder how he shot six people, all in different bedrooms without anyone else hearing the shot. I also wonder what compelled the neighbor to call enforcement this morning but not the night before.
We were just talking at work today about spotting signs of mental health issues and potential suicide in the APIA community, and how spotting these signs are going to be slightly different than signs seen in the mainstream population. This totally could have prevented if people could have caught the signs early enough… 🙁 Very sad story.
A Tragedy.
Yikes. If all of this is true, then there are 2 things I don’t understand:
Why leave a will? You’ve killed your heirs.
I may never understand the concept of murder-suicide. If that was his intention, why not do everyone a favor and skip the murder part? The ending is the same for him. Sure, the rest of the family will be shocked and dismayed by his self-destructive decision, but it’s far better for them than the alternative.
This is a real tragedy. Strong community presence could have avoided this tragedy.
the more i read, the more f**ked up it seems….
what a terrible waste.
all i can say is, if you know someone under significant stress and anxiety (in this environment, we all probably do), reach out. i bet there were outwardly signs of distress.
I think the undertone of financial crisis somehow being at fault here is a little … inappropriate? A lot of people have been seriously affected by the financial crisis, but have, thankfully, not resorted to killing their families and themselves. The real issue here is one of mental health. This person clearly needed help. A more interesting angle on this issue might be if his ethnicity precluded him from seeking that help, or from others identifying that need.
I am in shock. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. I might understand suicide but murder is hard to fathom in this context.
4 · rob said
Obviously it’s not the worst part of this story, and Amrita didn’t say it was at all. But it’s pretty tasteless…like that story of the couple in India whose families didn’t approve of the match and then ended up murdering them, when the article included a shot of their bodies in the ground.
This is awful, all around. He’s by no means the only one going through this–there had to have been a support structure in place somewhere, where he could have gone to talk this all out instead of resorting to such a gruesome and permanent solution.
I feel like there’s way more to this and the media is just telling this story from what they hope to see more of, as disgusting as that sounds. I’m not saying that the family wasn’t having financial problems, but there’s no way that this guy couldn’t have gotten a job. He has an MBA from UCLA. He could have easily found a job teaching math or business or even in the accounts payable department somewhere. One of the articles mentioned the family had taken two loans out. They had also made a 400K+ profit by selling their last home and moving into this rental. I think the media is taking some liberty with how they are casting this situation as a result of current market conditions.
Also, how could he have been a financial advisor? Since when does PWC, a tax consulting firm, have financial advisors?
From the latest l.a. times report, the father had some real issues with control.
My question – how do you talk a 19 y.o. into a murder suicide pact? AND a 17 y.o?
13 · skp said
Whoops! Horrible grammar…and the article included a shot of their bodies lying on the ground, not in it.
I never understand why these suicidal bastards feel it necessary to kill their families before offing themselves?! It makes me so angry to see these young kids’ lives snuffed out.
roos wet behind the ears wrote:
So fucking what? I know people with degrees from Stanford and MIT who couldn’t get a job at McDonalds during another downturn. I learned a lot of things then. Almost every assumption I had grown up with got turned upside down and around. People writing from their naive comfortable perch in blogs like Sepia may not realize that every little rat in wall street is heading for the exit at the same time. That long line winding around the block that you thought was for tickets to the new hit Broadway show is actually the employment line for McDonalds or Starbucks or Walmart. And by the way, local community colleges and schools are actually quite smart. They don’t want these foul-weather applicants who will just jump ship when the sun starts shining outside again.
“but there’s no way that this guy couldn’t have gotten a job”
Roos you are generalizing. I, too, have an MBA from UCLA, and since being laid off this June, cannot find work. Yes, I have other resources and am working as a consultant part time, but, there are MANY pf us, who cannot find work because of the market conditions and lay-offs. Yesterday’s eBay news (laying off 1600 people) means we MBAs will have to compete with those 1600 more executives, particularly here in Cali.
In no way is what I am about to say an excuse for the killngs here. This is tragic and inexcusable. But from my experience, the pressures created within desi communities for the perception of success and the “competition” for us to one-up one another, and, yes, show off, combined with the economic downturn, this situation was inevitable. When I saw the headline and situation, and before I read the names, I had a feeling this would be a desi family. Add to that the mother-in-law lived with them. And if it was the type of saas that was constantly complaining and nagging, not a rarity among us, I can well imagine the stress within the household. And yes, too many of us are concerned with status, that rather than work in a lesser job to keep ourselves afloat, we take the easy way out and off everyone. This guy was a coward. He should have grown a pair, sucked it up, and do some work with his hands if he had to. I have a family, and I would dig ditches if it came down to it.
his guy was a coward. He should have grown a pair, sucked it up, and do some work with his hands if he had to. I have a family, and I would dig ditches if it came down to it.
Not all of us can be real men like you.
This is just a sad sad tragedy. Lot of lives were lost and its going to take some time for the whole truth to come out. But I think, meanwhile, we need to be respectful for all those who lost their lives.
Sorry, but there are tons of temp jobs out there in finance and law right now (I could easily get you a temp paralegal job that will last nine months at the least in fifteen minutes flat), yeah, right now. If you haven’t found something, it’s because you aren’t widening your scope. Accountants are still in high demand. I know. I staff them every single day and can’t find enough of them. You have to make adjustments.
Talk about over-generalizing, Jagat. Just because you’re feeling shitty doesn’t mean that things are as bad for everybody as they are for the people who aren’t trying to make it work by taking a job that isn’t a dream job. You might not be getting calls from hedge funds and VCs, but there are definitely openings for the skilled and experienced out there, as long as they’re willing to get their hands dirty and not walk out when the sun comes a-shinin’.
I think that this underscores something that is too-little discussed in the South Asian community: mental illness. We, as South Asians, need to start talking about this more.
Pagal_Aadmi:
Not all of us can be real men like you.
Wow, you have some issues. With attitudes like yours, where you are more concerned with trying to appear smart and quick-witted, that’s exactly the desi way, “I’m better than you,” that may have contributed to this tragedy. Grow up.
All I said was that if one has a family, own up to your responsibilites. If you can’t, then leave. You don’t have to take everyone out, an extremely selfish thing to do. But then again, judging from your reply, being selfish doesn’t seem to bother you, as you were more concerned about how you think you would come across. “Boy, that was a good reply. I really told him.”
Roos, please. Firstly, though I am not above a temp job, the pay rates will not cover a mortgage. Secondly, broadening scopes are relatives. My MBA is in Strategic Marketing Management, which qualifies me to work in marketing, sales, advertising, PR, communications, and any subset of these. Still, with my 185 LinkedIn contacts, work experiences, and hefty resume, positions are few far in between.
I am working as in a temp position, yet, cannot afford to pay the mortgage and find myself a reasonable health insurance plan.
This is not to draw attention to your arrogance, but to highlight the pressures the head of a 5-member family must have felt, coupled with the societal pressures of being the provider. I am a single gal, mid-thirties executive, who has resources to fall back on. The sadness of his plight, is he didn’t.
i understand your concern, perhaps too painfully. have a relative who committed suicide — but this is not solely a southasian issue. it is a community issue, a shared challenge. this has been in the news locally. [1]: A desi family goes public with its family history of schizophrenic paranoia. of interest, the young lady here had trouble dating once she found out there was [2]: Story on lucy maud montgomery [Author of Anne of GG] – that she was chronically depressed and committed suicide. [3] : Statement by CMA stating the extent of the stigma associated with mental illness.
I think a problem afflicting the desi community is a reluctance to ask for help, that is , the feeling that we should be clever enough to figure out problems of this nature on our own.
I think this incidence had more to do with the father’s mental instability than financial problems. Kartik Rajaram’s wife was working and they had some income. I am not saying that it might have been enough but at least they were not totally without any income.
I live just abt 10 miles away from Porter Ranch (where this tragedy took place), didn’t know this family but am feeling that we, as a Indian community here in the Valley area, failed badly to help Rajaram’s family. I have been feeling terribly guilty.
Did I not just say you’d have to broaden your scope beyond what you think you’re qualified to do? I staff 21 year olds with BAs in Basket Weaving and they net about $2400 a month working 50 hour weeks. Trust me. They’ll hire you. You code documents all day for lawyers. And $2400 will make a better dent in your mortgage than $0, if you’re honestly hard up for work. You won’t get health insurance, but thems the breaks. You should have gone to med school or nursing school.
You’re right, though, no one needs a marketing person to do any kind of marketing during a downturn. It’s definitely a useless degree. Maybe it’s time to learn something that translates into a real job.
My original point was that Karthik Rajaram would have been easily employed should he have sought accounting work. It didn’t have to come to this.
27 · Bobby said
At risk of being labelled the resident conspiracy theorist, I refuse to believe that it was a murder(s)-suicide. It’s next to impossible to kill five people in different rooms in the house with a gun, without a silencer (and the gun did not have it). At the first shot, someone almost everyone in their rooms will freeze. At the second, at least one or two people will have a flight-or-fight response.
I believe the financial problems. Maybe they took a loan from the wrong people, and could not pay back in time.
M. Nam
“these signs are going to be slightly different than signs seen in the mainstream population”
Taz, what do you mean exactly? I think I understand but not quite.
Bickering about what jobs are out there or who is more sarcastic is pointless and a bit disrespectful, don’t you think?
Also:
The lack of compassion for others on this thread is an indictment of our “community”.
Abhi you end the post on that note? Hopefully this remains an isolated incident? OF COURSE we hope that, it goes without saying but PLEASE SIR, this post directly effects the people who knew these people personally. Please be a bit more sensitive. I say this not because I have ever seen you be anything but sensitive but at this time, I actually know people who knew these people.You almost say it like its a flu epidemic.
My condolences to all those people who were acquainted with the family.
This is not a struggling homeowner on a subprime mortgage story.
The house was rented. His wife was working. With IIT Madras BTech. + UCLA MBA + his experience, he could have gone back to India and got great jobs. He made a profit of 400K+ by selling the last home. There are two SUVs waiting in the garage to be sold. IIT+UCLA networking should lead to a decent job even during a really bad downturn. In 1999-200, he made 1.2M after liquidating publicly-traded internet incubator NanoUniverse, of which he was a co-founder. After that, he co-founded another company — The Azur Company. Recently he was a partner in a financial holding company SKGL LLC.
By adding all that up, my guess is he was heavily invested in the market, either directionally or by fading volatility, and could not take the recent correction and volatility spike. Hindu report seems to support this theory.
[link]
Derivatives, leverage, fading volatility, or any combination of them, can be deadly for a portfolio, without very sound money management skill, and a strong will.
“Maybe it’s time to learn something that translates into a real job.” “he could have gone back to India”
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. So easy to throw stones on how others should pursue their careers or live their lives from your glass house, eh? While there are twice as many counterpoints to these taunts, many people here in the Valley actually are sympathizing with him, and rushing to donate to the mass funeral prep, currently underway. It turns out so many people here ended up knowing the family through the Val.
I was just saying that the media is spinning this into a “Wall Street Kills Family” story and that’s just not what it is. Bobby’s the one spinning this into a channel to discuss the tragedy of her career. My point is that this guy could have gotten another job in accounting (that’s when Bobby wanted to talk about how she can’t get a job in marketing. I won’t charge you for the advice, Bobby.).
Bottom line, it’s not normal to kill your whole family even though you’re jobless, and, honestly, I doubt any community could have done anything for him. I definitely feel for the family, which is why I think the media is portraying this story in a very disrespectful way (talk about disrespect). There’s a lot more to this story but the media, and people reading the story about the Rajaram family, are missing the point, courtesy of journalists with an agenda. The media is essentially using this tragedy to fit their needs and fuel their themes, which apparently, no one cares about, especially people concerned with disrespect. And so it goes.
Thanks, skp, and Rob, this story is something much worse and more grievous and shattering than merely awful. If we’re not allowed to see images of body bags of American soldiers who died in Iraq in the press, they should stay with the same standard here.
Moor Nam, do you think there’s a way he might have killed them all one room, laid everyone out separately and then killed himself? It’s pretty weird to leave a bunch of mysteries like that behind, regardless of how he did it, very Nabokovian, control issues and saas included. Look how we’re all focused on him, not wondering about the bright kids quite yet. Dipanjan’s right– on a scale of things, he would have had a chunk of change to lose. Also, why rent for over two years when they had sold the last house and prices had fallen since? They would have needed to shelter the gain, one would think. But he bought the gun two weeks before the market first crashed– meaning last Monday, since the markets plunged again today, so he had been planning this for a while. There must be a paper trail, so the mystery will be solved.
Not going to make any excuses for what happened, just wanted to say that this is a horrible tragedy any way you look at it. I too will never understand the murder-suicide act; there’s just nothing else to say except that I hope this never graces any community again. Terrible, terrible, terrible.
I seriously wonder if the mother-in-law’s nagging lead to this. I just picture a out of work guy with the pressure of providing for a big family and his mother-in-law everyday nagging the hell out him and asking him “Why didnt you become a doctor?”
I know it is a sterotype, but I cant help to picture that situation ocurring.
This has been a horrible tragedy, and of course we want to get a handle on it, some way to make some sense of it all beyond the overwhelming grief and sadness that the larger family, which includes their other desi friends and acquaintances, and ultimately all desis in America, and then all desis. This is that huge.
Some good points have been made here and I especially commend Dipanjan’s comment.
Two emotions could dominate a person’s irrational reactions – rage and shame. It seems to me rage would have been directed outward, while the reaction to an overwhelming sense of shame would be more along the lines of what he did. And the desi angle here is that we’re driven more to shame than to rage, or if both, then shame (what will people think?) dominates. If the feeling is so overwhelming, you not only want to leave, you don’t want your loved ones to feel that shame (of your going, or why you went) either. Not that these things can ever be fully explained, or that anyone else should act this way. No. Heaven forbid.
God give the family the strength to bear this loss, and the rest of us wisdom not to think that way, no matter how bad things look.
This is truly a very sad and gut-wrenching story. The first question that comes to mind is how could a father do this to his very own family? His kids, the very ones he is supposed to protect and nurture. By all accounts his kids were doing everything possible to over-achieve in school and make their father “proudâ€! His wife, who was probably the care-taker of the family and working outside the home to help with the family finances. What more were they supposed to do???
The guy goes and gambles in the market and loses. Happens every day! Granted most people aren’t betting their life savings, but even then, I’m sure there were still options available to start over or make amends. I’m sure his family would have supported him! What he did was choose the easy way out with a very sick twist – taking his innocent family down with him in the name of honor! He was sick and/or deranged. Regardless, many innocent and promising lives were lost….what a tragedy!!!
IIT Madras Alumni –
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3571562,prtpage-1.cms
32 · MoorNam said
Just making a wild-guess though the police may have verified it…I suppose the note that he left is his own handwriting (and not forged) or else it could have been just murder by some third person.
Weird story though…He could have just committed suicide if he was in some trouble. Why did he have to kill his children, wife and in-laws ? With his resume he could have atleast tried to search for wrk anywhere else in the world instead of killing himself. I bet he must have been suffering from mental illness or other family problems and must have used the financial downturn as an excuse.
42 · chachaji said
maybe desi people should get used to sometimes a temp job..prob it is harder after a high-flying career and education. though it is not clear from the news whether he was unemployed the reason for suicide is just some financial difficulties. and the will that he left is for his parents i suppose ? weird…
46 · Priya said
Ok..i take this back. Yes he was unemployed. But I find it hard to believe that he just murdered…Can succcess create so much pressure? I smell something fishy here..
Pakistan is on the verge of bankruptcy
Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves are so low that the country can only afford one month of imports and faces possible bankruptcy. Zardari is seeking a bailout from the West, not much chance of getting one, given the way things are going. Saudi Arabia is now giving 100,000 barrels a month free. For how long?
No wonder Zardari now thinks India is not a threat, and Kashmiri militants are terrorists! Time to suck up to that rich neighbor!
BTW, I wonder how State Farm is doing? And Blue Cross? Wonder why no one mentions them? If they have big stinky things cooking in their balance sheets, the US govt will have to nationalise them, no other way out. There, you have your public health! 🙂
I don’t understand such morons. Yo dead guy. Just kill yourself. I am sure your kids will live fine without your loser crazy ass. I mean, one of the kids was 19.
I wish his suicide part was botched so he could have died a slow death and understand his crime.
To the “how did he do it” posters… I’m guessing he started killing when there were only one or two family members in the house and then ambushed each of the others as they returned home…