2022 : From rock bottom start to a new phase

Last year, I was looking forward?to?2022 with a lot of excitement as?we were charting the path for a completely new?phase and was in the middle of a lot of excitement to?set the stage for the next phase of our startup journey. Little did I know that within a couple?of days, I will go through a loss which will create a vacuum in life I could never imagine. I lost my father at the start of 2022 and it was so unsettling that a normal day turned into a life event that definitely has changed me forever when I look at what this life is all about.

I always knew and experienced from outside what it means to bear a loss of someone close but when I went through?my father's loss, I was completely unsettled and could not accept it. The last word my father told that he was feeling better when I took him to hospital in an emergency and within hours of medical attention. But then within a couple of hours, he died of major cardiac arrest while in the middle of the best medical attention. I was not able to accept this fact and for first three days, his last words were echoing in my head and I wanted to get into details why would he die if he was feeling better. I visited the doctor again and he said nothing you could do with best intentions and efforts, we cannot control such outcomes in life. It definitely calmed me down to accept the reality that my father is no more and get a closure.

When I started to reorganize myself after his death, I looked at all the things he did the day he died. And I was happy to see that he followed the markets whole day and did trading even on his last day(his age was 72 when he died). He even recorded all his trades in his diary, old world habits where he maintained his accounts and trading in physical notebooks. And this made me think a lot about how much he has impacted my life when it comes to exposure to Capital Markets. And the fact why passion and love for something is important in life to enjoy each day. His love for markets and trading is beyond imagination and can be concluded very well today with fact that his recent demat statement I checked and he hold more than 300 unique stocks, not high in terms of value but very high on coverage and engagement. Even at that age, he had all closing prices on his tip. Our most discussions was always around markets.

As a father, he got me introduced to Equities during school days, what stock means, how to track prices(from newspaper dedicated pages to tickers on news channels to our phones), we have gone through this journey together. How his investments in stocks with long term view and applying for IPOs in 90s, how these same investments made us come through major financial crisis and managing my sisters marriages. Stocks have helped us survive the worst when my father lost all his money in his business in which he put his entire liquid savings. But even in this failure, he taught that risk taking is fundamental to think big. While it ended in worst way for him and he lost all his savings, but experiencing that in his journey from survival to passion, ability to take risk for one's passion is once in a lifetime thing and one should not shy if your intentions are right.

My love for computer science and programming which I got exposed during 7th standard and how Equities and Capital Markets run mainstream in our family, made me what I am today in life building a business in Capital Markets. My father's adrenaline rush to push his limits for his passion even with a life of survival bring risk taking in someone like me when I started in 2016.

While he is no more now, his legacy is continuing. I am sure there are many people pursing dreams in India who have their own unique experiences and have backgrounds where thinking big is unimaginable. But as a country as we transform from survival to passion economy, the biggest rise will happen from middle and lower India. What is needed is believing in what they are passionate about and taking it to next level with some risk.

Wishing everyone a great 2023 when you dont know what can happen tomorrow but you can pursue your passion today like no tomorrow. As a country, apna time aagaya!