The toughest conversation ever

Expense Account, Mint

I’m talking to an old friend. The conversation veers around to ageing parents and he speaks of the difficulty in talking to his 80-year-old father about end-of-life choices, putting his assets in order and writing a will. Over the past decade-and-a-half he says he’s been through various stages—indifference (this will sort itself out), denial (my old man won’t cop it so soon—we come from healthy stock), guilt (what am I doing thinking about the death of my own folk?), worry (gosh, the run-around XYZ went through to get basic bank accounts unfrozen and don’t even talk about the real estate mess) and then courage (I’m going to nail this talk next time we meet) and finally to despair (dad doesn’t want to discuss it!).

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Progress! From a paper ration card to a plastic one

Expense Account, Mint

Two years ago, I had a dream. It was vivid as some dreams are. A giant elephant was being taken to be chained up. I remember waking up traumatized at the anguish of the animal at being pulled, pushed and dragged back to the place from where it had so recently got free. For some reason I still feel the helplessness of the beast, who simply wanted to be free. I can’t help but see the analogy with us as an aspirational nation, being bullied, dragged, prodded and pinched into going back to the 1970s. Having grown up in a middle-class DDA colony in Delhi, one set of the memories is about the lack of everyday things. Everything was in short supply – milk, butter, ghee, eggs. The line at the Mother Dairy milk booth would stretch 50-60 people long.

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When good decisions lead to bad outcomes

Expense Account, Mint

You book a Delhi-Mumbai flight and the online travel site says the journey will take two hours. It takes four due to sudden bad weather. Would you use that site again? Sure—it wasn’t the fault of the site that the weather turned bad. Let’s complicate the story. Your paediatrician advises you against the chickenpox vaccine. The week after, your child goes down with it. Do you stop going to the doctor? No, you took a considered decision and are OK with the kid being out of action for a couple of weeks—chickenpox can be treated with medication and rest, unlike the more life-threatening diseases that need vaccination.

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To spot a future problem

Expense Account, Mint

When retail investors begin to jump onto an investment idea that is either complicated or offers very high returns or both, you know that the end is near. We never hear of investors rushing suddenly to the idea that large-cap funds are so cool. Or that the Public Provident Fund is the next best thing after toasted bread. Nope. But you get asked if it is a good idea to buy a contract on a commodity exchange to earn a sure 15% return — and by a person who otherwise has just fixed deposits (FDs) and real estate in his portfolio. This has happened so many times that it is almost a rule set in stone. So when some three months ago I began getting questions from readers and viewers about investing in 100% guaranteed products offering double the FD rates by brokers on the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), it was clear that the unravelling would begin soon.

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