Monday, November 05, 2007

So finally IT happened.....
IT took a very long time and i can't really say that i have not wondered about IT...during most of my college days and even during IIMB days IT was a thought which always troubled me...i had never done IT...will i manage to do IT...will IT be as much fun as is bandied about...so much has been said about IT in the books i've read...so many "educational movies" have been devoted to IT... will IT actually give me that feeling of high...will IT match upto the hype that surrounds it...i've always been told that one has to experience IT to believe IT...I used to look upto people who had done IT and who were doing IT on a regular basis...
Now that IT has finally happened I can reflect back on all that and as they say...we are all wiser by hindsight...now i wonder was IT worth the effort...I mean i am knew at IT and some people have told me that IT is an acquired taste..much like wine...really dunno about that.....IT does keeps one up at night when one should have been sleeping...have to agree with a friend who said that IT is a lot of pain...especially for first-timers...does lead to a lot of moaning and groaning..for some people doing IT actually means giving up something which was always preserved to be bestowed upon something far more superior...
Getting IT is a process of bull-shitting...if the subject is new to IT, bull-shitting is of the highest standard with all the people who are doing IT geting into a cock-fight to show who can best do IT..if it is an experienced candidate one does not lose much sleep over IT as both the parties know what they want...
However can't really say that I did not enjoy IT or am not enjoying IT...IT is a lot of fun...IT is a sort of addiction and once you get a taste of IT, don't think there is any looking back...I would recommend IT to everyone as an experience...
BTW i hope i am very clear as to what I am talking about here...surely most people with even half my intelligence get it...yes I am talking about Investment Banking...finally Investment Banking happened for me...between my last post and this one i've changed jobs and I've become a banker with Morgan Stanley in India and that is what I was describing all along...what did you think..
Hope you get/got IT :)

(dedicated to a dear friend who unintentionally inspired the piece when she said 'Mumbai guys just want "IT"..')

Saturday, June 16, 2007

It was the best of times,
It was the worst of times,
It was the age of wisdom,
It was the age of foolishness,
It was the epoch of belief,
It was the epoch of incredulity

These lines from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities capture my feelings quite succinctly over the happenings in the last couple of weeks. A lot has been happening...some of which i like and a whole lot which i don't.
Among the good things which have happened, first and foremost i got promoted (not that it was a significant achievement as it was in the contract which i signed at the time of my recruitment), we executed the India's largest ever IPO (which was a result of an 18 month labour pain with a couple of abortions in-between and will most probably grow into a problem child) and I found a dabbewali aunty who sends me lunch which is as good as 'ghar ka khana' (which is not great news for my expanding girth, but again as one of my colleague puts it bluntly, "jindagi mein agar khaya nahin to kya kiya").
As far as bad things are concerned, most are things which i can not put down in public space, however these are things which make me look at things in a totally new light. When i had decided to join IB from campus, the single biggest factor had been that of compensation and i had thought that whatever happens I will be able to take it all because of the undeservingly fat paycheck that i will receive at the end of the month and it seemed to me that i had been quite sucessful at doing that at first but now the urge to do things which add some amount of value and which make a difference to someone's life has begun to crop its head again. A banker friend of mine had once expounded the concept quite lucidly when he asked me "Think of it this way, if some loonie wakes up tomorrow with a AK-47 and decides to kill all cab-drivers, we will all be in a terrible mess, if he decides to kill all politicians, the country will be on a decidedly better path, but if he decides to kill all bankers, there wouldn't be a soul who will miss us...that tells us something about the value of our profession".
I have never facied myself as "a deep sort of person" (quite the contrary actually), but i always feel that the amount of thought and effort that goes into the making of a pitchbook (that too from the best of the minds of the country, given every second student at a b-school wants to be a banker (be careful of what you you wish for, lest your wishes be fulfilled)) could very easily have solved some of the most pressing problems that our country faces...

Saturday, May 05, 2007


Not that Unlike each other !!!!


The result of a test called - What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

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Since the time i wrote the last post there has been increased social activity on my front and quite a few friends whom i had long since forgotten (and assume they had too) suddenly discovered me...(i admit that i had acted as a catalyst in the process by changing my display name on orkut to "blog updated" to create interest...thank god for the cheap marketing gimmicks :))

I think that an update on the bonus situation is in order, however the strict rules of my fraternity forbid me from sharing any worthwhile information so i will continue with my rants...

Somehow i got this idea of drawing an analogy between bonus and monsoon...so here goes my latest brain hurricane..
  • Come to think of it both of them solve very critical problem of poverty. You may think i am being jocular here but it is an undiscovered fact that there are very few communities who are poorer than I-banking Analysts...we are poor in most respects... be it morals (i can show my organization to be at the top of the league tables across geographis,across products and across time periods...i can show India to be undervalued or overvalued depending upon the nature of product that i am pitching for and also depending upon what kind of day i've had or how miserable i am feeling) be it hygeine (don't think much of a description is required here...a colleague once confessed that it got to such an extent that he could not find time to buy bathing soap and he was using the same one for multiple purposes) or be it money (a friend whp earns US$80k fixed in India is perpetually in debt of amounts like Rs.5,000 while his credit cards are always maxed up..once it came to the point of the car-parking wallah threatening him with dire consequences if he did not pay the bill soon). Compare the situation to the teeming millions who depend upon monsoon for for their livelihood...they too become immoral, unhygenic and fatehal when monsoon does not arrive in time...
  • Both the phenomenona are highly cyclical and totally unpredictable. I've heard horror stories of years when even the newspaper supply to the office was rationed as the markets were down in the dumps and the deal flow was practically nil...on the other hand i have also been witness to people performing miracles like buying a house in south-mumbai because of the riches which were bestowed upon them...bonuses are a function of market sentiment, deal pipeline and most importantly what the competitor on the street has parted with...This is not unlike the binary sitiuation of drought or floods that monsoons often bring about
  • Both create a lot of haryali (greenery). Typically after a bonus one sees a lot of haryali on an analyst (in terms of his puffed up wallet) and also a lot of the same around him (in terms of chicks- he has two in tow with a one or two following behind). Bonuses bring about a situation whereby an analyst falls into a chimera of actually liking his work!!! This is exactly like what happens to nature after a heavy splash...


Can think of a few more but i will leave that for sometime later...

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Feels good to be back...it is more than a year since i wrote something (i.e. wrote something which had an iota of thought behind it). A lot has happened since then but strangely nothing that made me sit up and write something (which is ironic since i never write sitting upright).
So you one may ask as to what has changed today??? what earth shattering event has happened which made the perfectly honourable me log in to blogspot.com and waste an hour typing away...
Well, it is my evaluation day on Monday.
If you are not a banker it would be very difficult for you to understand what an analyst (the lowest in the i-banking food chain) goes through when his evaluation is near...it is a feeling which is somewhat between what a girl feels when she is subjected to a typical Indian numaish and what a guy feels when he is going to propose to the lady of his dreams...the concoction of expectation, exhilaration, disappointment and despair is quite heady...your mood swings are even more wild than that of an 7-month pregnant lady...afterall this is the carrot that has been dangled infront of you and you wait with bated breath just to see if the stories of untold riches have any substance, if it can really be true. In all, has it really been worth it as you have been reduced to a willing slave (calling home once a week, that too just to let gharwallahs know that you are still alive, meeting friends fortnightly and destroying every semblance of a social life that you never had).
Life at IIMB and at office at least have some amount of similarity in the sense that at IIMB, one half of my brain was constantly thinking about grades while the other side was busy calculating if whatever grades i got would improve my chances of making it to day zero and at office, I one half of my brain is constantly thinking of how much can i make as bonus and the the other side is calculating if whatever i get would be enough for my dreams...
I think bonus is the single most important annual event for a banker (and here i mean ALL bankers, be they lowly analysts & associates, semi-respectable VPs, just one step away from godhood Directors and gods themselves MDs)..this is what we live for...everything else is secondary...so now you would understand why i am on the edge...Monday is the D-day...so pray for me...