Rajaratnam could not have cared less about the South Asian pecking order at Wharton. “He was so charismatic,” says Anju Jessani, a former classmate of Rajaratnam’s. “Everyone knew Raj.” She says he “wasn’t like all the other Indian students who were much more reserved and kept to themselves. He socialized with lots of people.” His bawdy sense of humor and his single-minded focus on meeting beautiful women disarmed Americans, whose perception of South Asians was grounded more in caricature than in reality.
