The decade was of 90s.

Dr. R H Patil, calm, self-effacing, determined and a true visionary was setting up the National Stock Exchange battling immense skepticism and hostility…

BSE & its doyens were hammer & tongs & there was umpteen resistance to a new history being unfolded on the Indian stock market …..

Mumbai, Worli & furious promenades of dreams were on different adrenalin.

I was all of 27/28 having just passed my CA Final exams & that too with a Rank in the All India palette. I had dreams & was in the correct place and the correct time.

I met Rakesh Jhunjhunwala at his office on Dalal Street – “JJ Associates” (Jhunjhunwala & Jajoo) – a small decked up cute outfit of 270 square feet with a lot of Vsats in position ready to go – it was all about National Stock Exchange.

I worked for Shri Naren Aneja (a CA & a Wharton business school grad) who was mandated by his friend Dr. Patil of NSE to audit the books of all brokers on the block.

The year was 1992 – NSE began its maiden operations out of Worli –

RJ & his books were all of a few lakhs. RJ was a young man too & a CA. I didn’t have two pints of cash in my pocket to even think of getting into the stock market to nibble at a few counters – so all our dialogues with RJ & his partner Somesh Jajoo were around the formal exchange of pleasantries & nothing beyond.

A man whose balance sheet was all of a few lakhs however had many interesting facets – RJ was one of few Marwaris who ate chicken – he smoked too & a congenital bong like me also carried a packet of cigarettes. Those were days of glories bygone.

Cigarette smoking is injurious to health & I have given it a bye…

As young professionals, the street of brokers across Dalal street & the area at Fort was all about confusion & hyperbole to us. Brokers & financial syndicators early in the morning in south Mumbai during those days were a sea of humanity—-/ bears & bulls seeming to fight their last breath every second. The makeshift scene portrayed as if the world had its last day every day

Patil Sir”s daughter (also a CA) worked with us. Patil sir Is no more. It’s been a decade now. The Millennials today will fail to realise how he revolutionised the way stocks are traded. Today we take the smooth automated trading, glitch-free settlement, and compulsory dematerialisation of shares for granted. But as Dr. RH Patil had said once, “Indian capital market around the early 1990s was akin to the Stone Age.” They were inefficient, one of the riskiest in the world, an exclusive club of brokers who ran the exchange largely for themselves. Indeed, listed companies and investors were largely pawns in their game.

RJ remains in my memory (our interaction was all of 20 logical days at his outfit) as a chirpy man. His English was impeccable (a Sydenham grad) – he lived in south Mumbai – his father was in the Marine Lines office of IT

RJ treated us to lavish lunches ordered from Deepak Lunch Home at Fort -(auditors were entertained as part of the usage of trade)

I wish I could have had a London Pilsner (that was the beer during our times)long neck with him during an afternoon. I remember he was keen once the trading ended for the day. My boss Naren would not mandate that.

RJ left behind bullying billions – doesn’t matter –

That’s another philosophy of how wealth is defined but yes I really loved the way how he loved his grub (chicken et all)

RIP Dr Patil

RIP RJ

My memories of Mumbai bring/s back a sense of good feeling that life & it’s meaning has been self limiting –

We learn as we see & not as we carry our coupons ..

(Dr. Rahul Banerjee an All India Rank Holder Chartered Accountant, Six Sigma Black Belt & Oracle Certified Professional. He is conferred with a Ph.D. from UOS in Foreign Trade. He speaks at various Chambers of Commerce and Management faculties of Universities in India and abroad)

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