Time & Tide

  The roadshows for introduction of a new financial product in the Indian markets was on. As a consultant to a brand new currency exchange, I had the responsibility of making presentations in different parts of the country. I was very happy when the Merchants’ Chamber of Kanpur requested a presentation in their city as I saw this as a great opportunity to interact with market stakeholders in a place where I had no reason to venture into hitherto. The enthusiasm met with some trepidation as my command over Hindi is circumspect. There was no question of going back on my commitment and this was a challenge that I was willing to take. I have always met with constant criticism of my use of the language from my wife who has a very good command over Hindi and me!   I got my presentation ready in English and put my heart and soul into making a fitting translation of the entire text. Call it ego or self respect, I wanted to go through the entire exercise without any help. It was time t...

  In 1996, it was one of the regular business trips to meet my clients in Bangalore while I was the regional incharge of treasury business at a Bank. My travel bookings were with a budget airline that had to close down its business and this experience was a good enough indicator of the airline’s future. The meetings went off extremely well and after a comfortable overnight stay at a hotel, I was to take the return flight at 3 pm. I reached the airport only to realise that the flight has been cancelled. Mobile phones were still rare during those days and was not made available at my level of hierarchy. I had to get back to Chennai in time for some important early morning meetings and the airline could not offer any option. I tried some name-dropping that had no effect at all. There was no hope of getting a comfortable berth in the overnight train. I had to do something and I called up the CEO of the airline, whom I had a professional acquaintance with, from the pay phone at the airp...