20k on sensex makes me nostalgic....

Now that the sensex is back at 20k, I am feeling nostalgic. I am one of the luckiest person in the world, in-fact most of the my batchmates too are in the same category. We all are visiting second economic cycle of our life and we are in the center of it. And all this has happened in a period of less than 3 years. Any other generation would have spent over 10 years to visit 2 economic cycles.

I started my career at Lehman Brothers. My relatives and family friends in my hometown were always confused about the company I was working in. They used to refer to Lehman as "Ameriica ka bank hain, bahot paisa deta hain". Some called it "layman brothers" others "Leemaan Brothers" and some creative people made it "Rehmaan Brothers" :)). As the fate would want it, in the months to come Lehman Brothers featured in the most relished daily of my hometown "Dainik Bhaskar". And everyone recognized the bank immediately. But all this is the context, the observed stories are as follows:

Story one

I left Lehman Brothers in April 2008. I know you would want to know why I did such a thing. And no matter how smartly I devise my reasons, I will be far from the reality. I guess Karl Marx has described this reality quite beautifully:

"What is great glitters, its glitter arouses ambition, and ambition can easily have produced the inspiration, or what we took for inspiration; but reason can no longer restrain the man who is tempted by the demon of ambition, and he plunges headlong into what impetuous instinct suggests: he no longer chooses his position in life, instead it is determined by chance and illusion."

And this

"But it is not only ambition which can arouse sudden enthusiasm for a particular profession; we may perhaps have embellished it in our imagination, and embellished it so that it appears the highest that life can offer. We have not analysed it, if you read this, shout not considered the whole burden, the great responsibility it imposes on us; we have seen it only from a distance, and distance is deceptive."
- Karl Marx, 1835, Reflections of a Young Man on The Choice of a Profession

But the story does't end here:

When I left Lehman in April 2008, everyone said "this guy has gone mad, he has not seen difficulties in life and does not understand importance of money." My tauji's driver was shocked to here that I have left a respectable job for a teaching job in a coaching institute. He was worried about my living expenses, he asked me "Bhaiya! mumbai seher bahut mehengi jagah hain, kitene din aise chala paoge?"

However, 5 months later Lehman went bankrupt, and the news was in "Dainik bhaskar" too. This time every one said: "Kya intelligent ladka hain, sahi time pe nikal liya". Some of my brother's friend asked me "Abe tujhe kaise pata chala ki Lehman bankrupt hone wala hain?" :P



PS: A better version of this story, comes at the end of of the movie "Charlie Wilson's War".

Second story to follow :)