Loyalty is an overused term in corporate India. It is bandied about by HR executives who insist that our companies are on our side. We are asked to be team players, think about the bigger picture, work as one towards profits for the whole, and promptly tossed aside minutes after a crisis appears.

I watched this scenario play out repeatedly over the past months, as friends and colleagues were summarily let go by organisations they had devoted years of their lives to. Some were given a month's notice, others sacked with no salary, still others denied what was rightfully theirs via insidious tools like 'variable pay' thought up by immoral managers for precisely these conditions.