At an investors’ conference in Mumbai, I once asked a guy, “So, what do you do?” He was so stunned that for a few seconds he was speechless. Then, he turned to others and said, “You know, once, everyone knew me. Now I am asked what I do!” Realizing that I had...

On 31st Oct 2002, a bloody riot on the roads of Trivandrum showed me an unseen side of human nature. That morning, a protest march of 20,000 people was demanding the release of an extremist political leader, arrested in a bomb blast case. As the chief of the...

When I got into the Civil Services, my mind did not go ‘Wow, this is great news.’ It was more like -- ‘Ok, this is done. Now, what next?’ All my life, I have chased the next mountain to climb. As a result, I ended up trying a lot of different things, failing often and...

At the fag end of my MBA, having had enough of finance courses and the hyper-competitive MBA crowd, I wanted a short break from the rat race. So I signed up for ‘History of Western Classical Music’, a course outside Wharton, offered by the music department. The...

In 2009, when I first joined private equity investing, I found that we MBAs understood finance less than a typical Marwari businessman. Most investors talk only about growth and multiples (usually EV/EBITDA) but rarely does anyone ask: Is this firm REALLY creating...

It was so unfair -- we were all fit, thirty-something guys, pitched against a team that included senior people, including a 70-year old. This friendly football match during a company offsite, in my last job, was going to be a no-contest. And it was. We were crushed,...

I write almost every day, except on Sundays. Some days, the writing flows effortlessly, like water. Ideas just snap-fit into words. Other days, it is like you are dragging a dead body. And yet, the key is to accept both experiences with equanimity. If you are able to...

When I left the Civil Services to join an MBA program, I found people looking down on technical knowledge as something low-value, meant for the ‘junior guys.’ The senior folks were the ones supposedly creating real value because they could speed-dial an Ambani or a...

At Wharton, in Prof Jeremey Siegel’s class, we had no place to sit for the first 10 minutes since people would crowd for his ‘daily market updates’. He was a rockstar professor but had one quirk -- to keep his teaching material exclusive, he would give his course...

On a hillock in the jungles of Tripura, we were assigned small huts for our stay in the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) camp. This was during the IPS training when we were attached to our paramilitary forces for first-hand exposure to counter-insurgency...

Three years ago, my startup was catastrophically burning cash. We only had cash to pay salaries for 3-4 months. To survive, we had to change the business model. But for that, we needed to survive. It was a catch-22, without a way out. Or at least, that is how I felt....

It was day 1 of Prof. Robert Verrecchia’s class at Wharton. As I gingerly entered and took a seat at the back, I saw the intimidating crowd of my ex-banker classmates around me -- this was an advanced accounting course and as an ex-cop, I could barely spell...

When I quit my job to become an entrepreneur, I was thrilled: No more office timings, no need to dread Monday mornings -- I would finally be ‘free.’ I could do whatever I wanted, whenever. Every day was Sunday -- if I chose to! Soon, I was working late nights and...

Early morning today, when I woke up, my head was buzzing with anxiety. It happens often but I was not too worried -- I knew what to do next. Within 10 minutes of commencing my meditation, I could suddenly sense my mind calming down -- it felt like an engine switching...

In sixth grade, I started wearing glasses, and then began my nightmare. While playing, I would get sweaty and the glasses would keep slipping and falling, occasionally cracking the lens. Also, I would keep crushing and twisting them inadvertently during sleep. As if...