From Ashes of a Burnt-Down Office, Account Books Were Rewritten

The former CFO of Network 18 Reveals how a fire completely destroyed the account books, and how they were retrieved.

RDS Bawa, Former Group CFO, Network 18 (Photo: The Quint/Rahul Gupta)

In mid-1999, a huge fire completely destroyed the basement office of TV18. Tapes with years of programming, scripts, computers, even the account books were destroyed. But the finance team somehow managed to salvage some documents from the burning office. That year, they could have easily declared that the account books are destroyed.

But staying true to TV18’s undying spirit, the finance team decided to reconstruct the account books. They dried the half-burnt, wet pages under the sun and then got the account books back in shape.

RDS Bawa led the finance team through these trying times. He went on to become the Group CFO of Network 18 and this is his Network 18 story.

‘Network 18 – The Audacious Story of a Start-up That became a Media Empire’ has been published by Portfolio Penguin. It’s launching in September 2016. Advance copies are available in bookstores and online.

Camera Person: Sanjoy Deb

Video Editor: Kunal Mehra