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...