As I laughed

I don’t know if it was the day or was it more the reaction from Manoharji or just the words “thaki gayi dikri ? ” but I laughed till tears welled up in my eyes. I was too engrossed to realize that everyone on the floor had heard me and was even wondering what made me crack up. This was followed by another spurt of laughter after I read an email from a client.

As I came back home and squatted on the couch I tried hard to think of a time when I laughed like that.. Uninhibited and simple... I am amazed at how the smallest remarks make you laugh like there is no tomorrow. I have no particular reason to be unhappy but I still dont laugh all that often..

Hope there are more days like this..

QSQT

So this post has nothing to do with Aamir Khan, his movie and bollywood. In fact this post Quarter se Quarter tak (QSQT) is more to do with the fairly lousy world of commercial banking and I have been extremely unoriginal by having picked up the phrase from a colleague at work.

This is the way I believe most companies operate atleast in India and surprisingly so do banks that lend credit to them. Every quarter ending with a green along the year in green is enough for a company to drive a hard bargain for interest rates. Needless to say the stronger player in any game has a higher bargaining power! So everything around credit arrangements is confined to profit maximisation.

This reminds me of my first strategy class where I learnt the difference between profit and wealth maximization and how firms should try to work towards maximizing wealth. But the classic principal agent problem twists the situation. The CFO of a company is still an agent and unlike the principal looks at everything in the company from a short term perspective. So does the bank (very conveniently) when it lends. So at the end of the day of relationship management is neither about relationships nor about fundamentals. It is as my boss fondly says about opportunism (I love the sound to this word!) As I try to grope around in this murky world of lending at least I have figured out that no one cares what happens to the company down 3 years, the CFO met his target for the year and so did I!!!

PS: I am writing this post after a long discussion with my boss regarding how corporate banking differs in India from that in Germany. More on this topic to follow in the next post..

When a banker jokes

While driving to one of the client meetings with my boss amidst hills and perfect weather I start pondering about all that I have been reading/wanting to read in the last few days. I suddenly realized that most of the fiction I read in the past was by Indian writers. Since the multi - capabilities of my boss (who btw is German) fail to surprise me anymore I ask him if he has read any Indian fiction. I hope to get a serious reply especially after he suggested to me last week that I should also try to read a little bit of history as it can be very interesting.

Suddenly he gives me an affirmative look ( I am still calculating in my head who would these authors be) and with a straight face says "RBI circulars, Analyst Reports...." and I burst out into peels of laughter. " Priyanka, you asked me for fiction and I am giving you fiction.. all by Indian authors !! "