(4 Jul ’10)
Are there others like
me, financially challenged? I mean, not poor or economically backward or
belonging to any weaker section, but those who have food at every meal, a
shelter from sun and rain, a bed to sleep in, a toilet, clothes not tattered, a
transport of one’s own… a little extra to spare at the end of the month to
treat friends or family. By financially challenged I mean I can’t see beyond
fixed deposits. And the PPF at the end of the year if anything’s left over.
Someone at work said
that was stupid, I should definitely own Mutual Funds if not shares. So I went
to a one-man company near my house and told him I wanted to invest. When he
heard how much, he suppressed his hysterical giggles to such an extent, that
the mirth that he swallowed caused him enough stress to trigger of a heart
attack, and he shut shop. So I went further down the road into another such
shop with a fancier name. I love those names: From Share Khan (love the pun),
and Disha Financers – the logo rests upon a graph background, an arrow pointing
to the sky, to Get-Rich investors – how simple can you make it.
I can’t for the life of
me read the tiny and tinier print on the forms that the companies send and the
postman keeps slipping under the door every other week. I told the girl in the
investment company I can’t understand the numbers and abbreviations, either. So
she called me to attend one program her company had organized for other
financially challenged people like me. We all went well-dressed, like we really
had benefited from her, and sat without yawning, staring intently at the screen
whilst a young man passionately told us how wrong we were that we hadn’t saved
Rs 1000 per month since we were twenty years old, and which was why we were
sitting here like dodos instead of enjoying the crores we might have made. Sad,
we thought, very sad. Then he told us, there is hope. Even someone in her or
his sixties can invest properly and become rich by allowing someone like him
make the money work for us instead of lying idle in the bank. Yea, I thought.
That’s sensible. Let the guy sweat. I’ll sit under the fan writing my novel.
Novel idea, eh?
Question hour woke me
up completely. People were asking… which meant not everyone had been
day-dreaming or dozing like me. One man had taken down furious notes. Another
was agitated, excited that no one had taken the trouble to give him ‘good’
advice when the market it was a-booming. One said, “At the moment, Mutual Funds
aren’t taxable. What happens if the government decides to tax them?” Stupid
question, I thought, the answer is simple: you pay what’s due. But the others
thought it was a fantastic insight into the future. A debate followed, which
was better, buying shares on one’s own or through SIPs. What’s an SIP, I asked
the suited-booted-tied gent sitting next to me. He mumbled something-something
plan. Oh, I said and wondered whom else I could ask.
One sincere soul asked,
‘what if the Fund Manager is corrupt’? The guy on the dais invited the guy who
owned the company that invited all of us to tell the guy who knew the answer to
come on stage. He’d gone ‘out’ so we permanently skipped that question. I
really wanted to ask about Fixed Deposits, but they’d been so ridiculed on the
slides that I was silenced. I’ve never studied commerce, maths has been the main
cause of depression through my student years, and there was no way I was going
to change my tactics: I put on an intelligent expression and stared at the
mike. The speaker wasn’t sure whether I was looking at him or at the screen or
the stage or where. Disconcerted him. served him right, I thought. What on
earth was I doing there, I wondered. Why had I gone there at all? I looked
around bored, then discovered the reason: food. I hadn’t consciously thought
about it, but in India, all meetings, get-togethers, lectures, anything means
there will be chai and snacks at the very least. I craned my neck – this was
more than that. The guys had made … or were going to make enough money through
the audience’s money to pay themselves salaries and feed us as well. Wah.
No one knows how much I
earn. Well, except another journo, I guess. Others imagine I have much to
invest. Who am I to interfere with their imagination? If one can get invited to
such dinners occasionally, it’s worth shifting agents, I say. Until then, let
me stick to paying my grocery bills on time.
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