An Era retires.

Throughout his mega career of 24 years, he silenced his critics through his bat. It’s a known fact that he would  like to speak more through his bat than use words and phrases, but when he put his bat to silence forever and used words to speak, he soaked billions of eyes across the globe. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, on his farewell speech spoke straight from his heart as straight as his straight drive on the field where you will not require a scale to draw a straight line, just follow the path of the ball till boundary and one would have a straight line.

As a keen cricket follower and lover, to be very honest, SRT did not fascinate in his early days, I would have debates and arguments with friends over Sanjay Manjrekar and SRT (I still feel Sanjay Manjrekar was the best batsman with his shots just picked up from Cricketing Text book and his technique par excellence) It was only during Coca-cup in Sharjah .where I experienced the power of this genius, he single handedly fought the last two matches and won them for India. He looked like a bull dozer on a demolition drive, where he was throwing anybody and everybody on his way, around the park and sometimes even on the roof. He had his ups and downs throughout his career, his personal losses, not able to cope up as a Captain, his injuries and at times being out of form, but every time surrounded with problems he appeared like a Phoenix bird, which would rise from the ashes with more force and velocity. 

I have never termed him as GOD, because for me GOD is a power which is felt and is not visible, but here I had a complete Human in flesh and blood, where I could see him and feel his power as well. He himself has never ever, been even a millimeter above the ground due to the fact that the entire cricketing world was describing him as GOD, such a grounded personality. This 5’4” human, first because of his performance on the cricketing field and then finally on the day of his retirement just multiplied himself into a GIANT figure because of his humble, down to earth attitude and his thank giving speech. After his speech, when he touched the 22 yards for the last time, I am sure he touched millions of hearts simultaneously.

I may not watch this game anymore, because the equation that has formed in last few years was such that Cricket means SRT and will be very difficult to imagine a squad without SRT. I know it may sound queer to many, but I am also sure there will be quite a few who would agree with me. Take a bow Master you have inspired the nation through your game and will now continue to do so by your humble approach of Being Human.

" पुढच्या वर्षी लवकर या "

. As an Indian we boast about our culture, traditions and values across the world. Today I feel these cultures; values are on downward spiral, thick and fast.  Not long ago, may be just 15-20 years back, moving along the streets during any festival was fun, joy and would give a sense of happiness. Today the same has changed to worry, fear and sadness, be it any festival, an average citizen is not at all comfortable in participating. So be it Holi, Gokul Ashtami, Ganeshotsav, or Navratri. Little over  a decade ago, it was fun to watch the Govindas moving along the streets, hunting for the handis and forming the human pyramid to break one, but today one is scared to watch these Govindas moving along the trucks and bikes, violating in all possible manners the traffic rules in the city in the name of festivals and an average citizen prefers to stay in-door, rather than stepping out of his residence.

Welcoming the Elephant lord home was and would continue to be my favorite of all the festivals, the feeling is completely different during the presence of the Lord at home or in your society. The void that is created for couple of days after his departure cannot be expressed in words. Lokmanya Tilak had a different vision and purpose when he brought this festival on the streets. Today we have successfully commercialized the entire festival and made it a money making business. The way Ganesh Mandals market themselves is just beyond imagination, it would actually give professional business houses run for their money.  I happened to read, one of the so called famous Mandal who serves the RAJA for 11 days, are offering whooping amounts in crores for celebrities to visit there mandals. Isn’t this amount paid from the donation that is received from the devotees who queue up, anywhere ranging from 15 mins to 2 days to take one glimpse of the RAJA. I am not an atheist, and am no way trying to send out opinion that one should not visit a particular Ganesh Mandal, but the atmosphere that has been created is something I am against, today visiting the RAJA is become a matter of social networking pride. Some of the updates that I receive really makes me wonder with what purpose have they visited this Ganapati.  Uploading pictures, updating status about being with RAJA sounds so hilarious, if the purpose of your visit is to take Darshan of the Almighty, then why are these guys busy updating their social networking sites status and pictures.

The immersion process a decade ago was fun to watch, today the entire path of immersion is covered by huge political banners and pictures of all the jokers, who are forcefully advertising themselves on us and then the procession itself is stooped to such a low level at least in Mumbai, that I really feel if Lokmanya would be watching it ,  he would surely be regretting his decision today. Having a DJ, cheap young shirtless boys drunk having no control on their body movement are part of this HOLY procession, playing item songs during the procession, only gives a feeling what has happened to the rich heritage culture of Abhangas, bhajans and kirtan’s that were a part of these procession few years before. Even the Lord himself would have a million dollar question to return next year amidst such atmosphere.

Time has come that as citizens we start differentiating between good and bad. Stop un-necessary promotion, just because someone else is doing the same on his social networking website. Time has come where we question the authorities why is there no walking place during Ganeshotsav on the streets and footpaths, Why are streets and footpaths handed over to these Mandals, who are mushrooming every year, and with whose permission. What happens to all the money that is being collected under the pretext of donation. Why are such expensive immersion procession taken around. If everyone of us takes the responsibility, authorities will have to answer and only then we can ask the Elephant lord " पुढच्या वर्षी लवकर या "

A dark CAPITAL four letter word.

A CAPITAL four letter word has taken a center stage and has made the government authorities and police think and act what they should have done years before. Although this four letter word has always been feared by the women, for just not now, but centuries together, time has come that this fear should be transferred from the women to culprit.

Within 2 days of this heinous crime, we saw series of politician (female member of parliament) carrying placard demanding justice, I have been wondering since, if these politician who represent us in parliament, where the law for  this country is made, are standing on the street and  demanding justice, where is the citizen of this country supposed to go. The Home minister immediately came with his set of, so called  measures to get down the crime, failing to understand the real reason for this crime. The real reason for this crime is only and only, no fear of LAW. The culprit has no fear and is pretty sure he will get away with the adventure. Unfortunately the citizens are also expecting all this to happen overnight, if we look at the records, around 260 MP’s and MLA have cases pending in court against molestation and misbehavior with women, out of which 20 cases are of RAPE. Hence can we expect to get justice from this set of parliamentarians, I think,  that would just be a dream.

These culprits have raised a serious question to all of us and that question is, we will continue to do these kind of acts, how will you protect yourself ? This question is in fact to all the men of this country, how would you protect your mother, sister, wife or daughter ? We had instances that friends, family members who tried to protect the female member have lost their lives and the law is yet to punish them. Had the law been so strict that these culprits would have been booked, charged and handed over severe punishment, the fear of repeating such crime would surely take a turn down rather than going up. There has been a debate about capital punishment for the culprit, but would that be so easy and happily possible, especially in a country like ours where the government is yet to hang someone who attacked the parliament over a decade before, the fear of living alive and living with shame should be there in the mind of someone who is even wanting to attempt such crime, , along with social boycott, chemical castration seems to be only solution at this point.

A police commissioner suggested all the female citizens  to carry chilli powder along with them, to get away, in a situation like this, if this is the message the law caretaker has to give, I would suggest all the female citizens of this country to apply for a gun license and do the justice on the spot, they can easily get away under the umbrella of self protection.

I would sincerely pray such situation may not arise, and hence all the lawmakers of this country sit together and work a solution, where the females in this country are much safer not just against RAPE, but also against eve-teasing and molestation. Why is it every time the citizen has to take on the streets where all the political class appears to be on one side and the citizen on other fighting for their rights in world’s largest democracy.

Earning or Spending monthly? Then Save monthly. Understanding SIP

During one of my recent meeting with a prospective client for  financial planning, we started a discussion on mutual funds and his first reaction to it was- “I would not want , even my enemy to invest in mutual funds”. I surely knew he would have got a very bitter taste of investing in mutual funds.  While taking the discussion further, I found that all his investments in mutual funds were done as  lump sum investments in equity funds during Dec. 2007 to Feb 2008, the time when Sensex and Nifty were at all time high. Moreover the gentleman who had suggested him these funds had also more or less assured that the funds would double in 3 years. It was the worst of the investors’ nightmare when  the fund value reduced to almost 50% in one year’s time and he barely managed to get his capital back by end of September 2012.

There would be hundreds and thousands of such cases today, where people who have invested or  were made to invest   at one time in equity funds, are not happy with the returns that  these investments  have given. A tenure of 4-5 years is a fairly good tenure to show some kind of returns on your investments. At least  in India,  we have never looked upon mutual funds from a period beyond 2 or 3 years and the expectation rises to double digit return during this tenure of investment, irrespective of the market conditions. So what really went wrong while doing investments in these Mutual funds? Were the schemes selected wrong or the fund houses were not good? In fact, both the schemes and fund houses were top performing in the market.  The only mistake the investor and his mutual fund distributor (I am not using the word Financial Advisor for him) did was to invest in Equity schemes at one time and that too when the markets were at all time high.

You have to play the game by its rule to enjoy it. One cannot apply cricketing rules to Football and say the game is no fun. While you invest in Equity mutual fund, apply the rule of Systematic Investment Plan (SIP). There are more than one benefits of doing  SIP. Following are those :

1)   Rupee cost Averaging: Any market works on volatility,  be it Equity, commodity or these days even Debt market has lot of volatility. SIP is the best route to beat this volatility.  By investing at regular intervals you get down your average cost of purchase, as markets would keep fluctuating, you would have actually made purchases at regular intervals. Let’s take an example, say you invest funds one time today when the Sensex is about 18600 level and in next one year the Sensex goes down to 16500 and comes back to the same level of 18600 ( not that I am suggesting the markets would go to these levels, this is for illustrative purpose) your fund value would either be same or may be less than invested. But through SIP route your investment is happening right up to 16500 level downward and again upward to 18600, hence by doing this, you reduce your purchase cost and you would be in profit when the Sensex is back to 18600. 

2)   Discipline while investing : When you commit to set aside a particular amount every month you are getting more disciplined as an investor. A simple logic that I ask  my clients  to follow is, we earn monthly, we spend monthly so we also have to save monthly. Hence you become more disciplined financially, since you would know you will have to make arrangement for a particular amount on a particular date towards your investments.

3)   You don’t have to time the market : A common mistake that most of the investors do is to time the market., They would want someone to exactly tell them, that this is the low point in market, you buy now and this is high point in market, you sell now, which is humanly impossible. SIP helps you to stay at all levels and hence to a greater degree allows you to time the market, in-fact in equities TIME IN market is more important that TIMING the market.

4)   Power of Compounding :  Albert Einstein referred to Power of Compounding as 9^th wonder of the world. SIP for a longer tenure helps you grow your investment because of power of compounding. Instead of investing a lump sum it is better to invest regularly. Have a look at following table :

Suppose someone sets aside Rs 5000 per month at different age till his age 60 what would be the amount accumulated at age 60.

Investment returns @ 10% 

AGE	Invested Amount	Value at age 60
30	(5000 X 360 months) =  1800000	1,13,02,439
35	(5000 X 300 months) =  1500000	66,34,167
40	(5000 X 240 months) =  1200000	37,96,844
45	(5000 X 180 months) =    900000	20,72,351

It's often said that you may become rich by earning lot of money, but you can become wealthy only by properly managing the money you earned. Few things one should bear in mind while taking the SIP route are :

Ø  SIP is a mode of investment and not a mutual fund scheme.

Ø  Past performance of any SIP should not be the parameter to choose the fund.

Ø  SIP returns are never guaranteed, not even the Capital. Hence if you are looking for a guaranteed returns product, do not select equity mutual fund.

Ø  SIP does not assure better returns than lump sum investment, but helps you to average your purchase cost if your investment horizon if of long term.

Ø  Start taking SIP route for your medium term or long term financial goals.

Ø  Select a financial goal and start your monthly investments towards that goal.

A convenient way of investing on monthly basis and reaching your targeted financial goal, thus helping you to follow a simple rule of investing which is ‘When we Earn monthly, spend monthly, why not save monthly’

Happy Earning and Happy Investing  !!!

The Dark NIGHT Rises

Imagine a situation where you have been assigned a job and you have failed miserably in it. While everyone in the office is expecting that you would be reprimanded for your in-competence, the office head  calls for  a meeting and gives you a letter. While others in the office  think  you have been shown the door, you confidently open the letter and with a smile  thank your boss for the promotion. Imagine what would be running through the minds of other employees or what would be the future of such organization. This is exactly  what is happenning today in the country’s Politics. I had mentioned in my earlier blog , that Congress has set a new tradition by promoting all those loyalist who have failed miserably, at the cost of nation. Shifting Sushilkumar Shinde from Power Ministry to Home Ministry only seals this thought. Mr. Shinde who was probed by CBI in Adarsh scam, will now head the Home ministry.

The entire nation including the government  itself is  clueless about the Power outage, still the blame game is on, and  on the same evening the country gets a surprise about shift in cabinet berths of some ministers.  In times of such crisis these decisions could have been simply kept for a later date and the focus should have been to solve the worst Power crisis which 50% of the nation was facing. The Congress today has reached an epitome of arrogance, while they do not care what the people who have brought them to power have  to say. They  continue to stay in  denial mode and in the glory that it is the  people of India who have given them power, but fail to understand that this is not the power given to them till infinity and they will have to face the same people in couple of years’ time (20 months to be precise). It reminds me of the advertisement from Tata Tea, where the husband is frustrated after reading various news from the newspaper and wife compares the state of the nation today with the process of Tea making, it is true that the entire nation is boiling today.

The UPA government has failed at multiple locations and on multiple occasions. The country is going through economic crisis, inflation is refusing to budge, there is labor unrest, today railway's is in it’s worst form, the number of rail accidents that are happening are witness to that, they have also failed to address the anti-graft issues and now the power crisis which is an engine for country's Growth, only shows the pathetic condition the entire governance  we have today. The haste in which the decision was taken to move the ministers is truly surprising, is Mrs. Gandhi trying to set a stage for Rahul baba in coming months wherein he has already given an indication that he is ready to play the bigger role. The enthusiasm with which Dr. Singh got in action after Pranab da’s moving to Raisina hill only seems to have disappeared the way monsoon has disappeared this year. The task he had set to ‘revive the animal spirit’ in the economy only reflected at Maruti’s Manesar plant where the GM was burnt alive.

In the given context it seems the game is far from over for the Congress. the nation is not going to forget and forgive them for the situation they have put us today. A country which can truly emerge as a strong nation on the global map is facing the current situation only because of lack of political governance in the country. While the people in POWER continue to remain adamant it is no surprise that the country becomes POWERLESS for two consecutive days forcing to say that ‘THE DARK NIGHT RISES’ on India.

Alvi da, Pranab da

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has set a new tradition in Indian politics by rewarding those ministers who have failed miserably in their job, take for instance Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh, after 26/11 he was asked to resign as Chief minister of Maharashtra and given a cabinet berth and now the favorite of all Pranab da who is considered as one of the worst finance minister, India has got in recent times, at least post liberalization, is now set to contest for  India’s Presidential post.

India Inc is definitely happy to see Pranab da moving out of north block to Raisina hill, much before his term ends. In-fact it is much rumored that India Inc was trying very hard for him to move out from the current position and contest for presidential post. The so called trouble shooter of the UPA II govt. has unfortunately not been able to play the same role for country’s economics, on the other hand, his role got exactly opposite from trouble shooter to trouble maker. The denial mode that the entire UPA II gets in for any problem which is self created or not, is the root cause, they at any given point of time did not accept that problems do really exist  and further tried to resolve it, be it the Anna movement, the various scams or even the current financial mess we are in, so much so adamant they are that they paid no heed even for the rating agencies downgrade threat that was issued, merely blaming  the euro zone for the current slowdown.

I always wonder what would be the plight of  an organization whose CEO is of age 80, the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) age 77, the company secretary age 72 and the HR head of age 68, it is expected to perform terribly, today we have people of the similar ages heading our country and are ministers holding various cabinet berth from PM to HR minister taking crucial policy decisions. Politics and Economics has to go hand in hand for any country, but it can be surely  handled by two separate class of people. If  both are mixed then either of them has to suffer, and given the callous politicians we have it is needless to say that the country’s economics will suffer.

The current government has always been blaming the coalition partner (again the denial mode) for not allowing them to go ahead with the reforms, but when the same coalition partner opposed Pranab da for his presidential post, they could rope in the numbers required, so why not in the case of reforms which are much  needed for country’s interest, why not, the same numbers can be garnered on these issues, it has become a very selective approach by the Congress.  When it comes to raising petrol prices or president nomination the coalition partner does not matter much, but when it comes to passing of FDI limits passing the pension reforms or the Railway budget, the coalition politics comes at the centre stage and the country is given an explanation that we have to take care of our allies. How can you be so selective in getting the support from your allies.

The advantage that this govt. has today is lack of opposition we have in this country. NDA opposes only because it is the opposition party and it is there duty and right to oppose, given the condition the NDA is today if they do not get issues sorted out right now, the road ahead for them to 2014 elections would be very coarse. The situation could have been far different today, if at all we had a strong opposition party or strong opposition leader who could have kept the UPA II on their toes. This was clearly visible once again during the president poll candidature wherein NDA is backing Mr. Sangma only because it has no other option. The unyielding leaders in UPA II are confident that with virtually no opposition today they can get away with the biggest of biggest blunders and by another 2 years they would put all these problems at bay and face the elections once again.

One of the epic task the Manmohan govt. facing today is to remove the country out of the financial mess we have landed ourselves. Dr Singh will have to put the politician in him to respite for next 2 years and get the Economist out of him and set in action, it’s only then the country would be in position to see some better days ahead. He may continue to be silent till the end of his term but for the balance tenor  let his action speak louder than his words in the best interest of the nation. Get all those reforms which were put on the backseat by your counterpart to the driving seat and set the tone of the country’s progress in the right direction. The capital markets have at least given thumbs up for Dr. Singh as FM and are surely happy to see Pranab da as new rubber stamp of this country. Alvi da Pranab da.

Parenting Financially today’s Teen

During one of my recent workshops with teens on financial literacy, one of the participant wanted to purchase a new mobile handset (rather all of them wanted to) for Rs 15000. When I started talking on this and probing the reasons why  he needed  a new handset, the reply was not something that, I had expected. He said “If my Dad can have a mobile of Rs 32000 it’s not a big deal  if I have a handset worth 15,000.”. A Child of 16 years actually compares  himself to his parents on spending, but does not want to get in the same shoes, when it comes to earning, as he thinks he is still young, when it comes to earning money.

Today most of the parents with whom I interact have a common problem. They say that their kids treat  them like ATM machines. Whenever and wherever they demand money, it has to flow into their pockets. When at one end they  want their kids to get  the  best of the up-bringing, at  the other end it is equally important to make them realize what is a NEED and what is a WANT.

Most parents would not like if I tell them that their  kids, especially the teenagers would try to imitate their parents as far as spending is concerned. Right  from childhood they have accompanied their parents to various places like malls, cinema halls, markets and have started getting early lessons from those places. Unknowingly they have seen them and have formed some kind of impression about money and the way it is spent. It is very important that they understand the value of money as early as possible and understand that there are few other things that can be done with money, other than SPENDING.  Another important factor is that we as a family still do not want to discuss family budget with our growing kids, making them understand what is the source of money and what are the expenses that the family as a whole undergoes on a monthly basis. As the child grows and starts demanding  money for his/her NEEDS/WANTS, it is important for the parents to make them understand what is the source of Income from which the spending happens.

Some months ago  I was interacting with class X students who had Farewell at school. One of the girl child’s parents  informed me how adamant their daughter was to buy a sari worth Rs 3000 for a function of 2 hours and it was very difficult for them to spend that amount as they were tight on the budget. When I spoke to the Child, she was a clear case of peer pressure where her school friends had not only bought new saris  but also booked parlours and were going to spend at-least Rs 2000 for the makeover at parlour. It took me a while to make her understand and explain to her about delayed gratification.  Finally she agreed to go with one of her relatives’ sari and not spend that money.

Parents often keep complaining that the current generation is too forward.  When we were of the same age our behavior and attitude was very different.But I would like to differ on this point, not completely but to some extent. Let me explain. When we were in our teens the options we had were very limited. We had one DD channel, today’s generation have almost 200 channels. We had only 1 MTNL as telephone service provider, today we have at-least 7-8 of them. For shopping they have malls and supermarkets. Now just imagine if we  as adults   sometimes have difficulty when we have lot of choices, so what can we expect from the children?  In-fact when we agree that they are ahead than their generation, why not channelize their thoughts in right direction and give them the advantage of being forward.

Today’s teenager should be introduced to the concept of money at an early age. The school curriculum would teach the child how to earn money and be a responsible person in life.  What to do with the earned money is rarely taught in school. Introduce to them the value of savings v/s spending at an early age.  As the first impression is the last impression, don’t let your child have an impression that MONEY = SPENDING.  Take a step today to make them FINANCIAL LITERATE.