The first time I was exposed to the stock market was in the early '90s when one of my father's colleagues came home one evening and started howling. He had lost most of his life's savings on a stock named Nagarjuna Fertilisers. Over the hour or so he was at our place, he abused God, Harshad Mehta, the Birlas, his wife, his broker - almost everyone other than himself.

When I began earning in 1995, at 21, an age when you think you know EVERYTHING, I bought my first shares - RPPL - much to my father's chagrin. This led to an addition of about 15 minutes to my daily morning newspaper routine. I would check the opening price, closing price, highs, lows of RPPL on every stock exchange in the country.

At B-school, stocks were the in thing. No one had much money to put into shares but we had these 'dummy' portfolios that we used to track zealously. Almost everyone knew everyone else's portfolio and we used to run "Mock Stock" contests. Some of us used to make more money on these contests than we would ever get to make on the bourses!

After MBA was the first time I started making serious money. Around the same time, the government took away almost all tax benefits if your income was over a certain limit and the bank interest rates fell to ridiculous levels. One started seeing one-third of one's salary going down in taxes. And then was born Me, the investor!!

I have been known to take risks in everything I do. My upbringing in a strict boarding school and in a very traditional middle class family has made me strive to be 'different' in all my actions, and I take pains to break out of the mould. These traits came in handy in the stock market! So here I was putting money in PSUs when the market was going gaga over IT...while I lost some big money right at the outset, I quickly made up my losses when the divestment story came to the fore. As I learnt the tricks of trading, technology took giant leaps. Gone were the days of physically handing over share certificates to the slimy neighbourhood broker; I could buy and sell from my desk.

Today, I spend at least and hour everyday on stocks. It just happens that my working hours coincide with the market timing, and so my employer pays for my profiteering!! It’s a thrill when you make money and a pain when you lose. And I'm sure they reflect on my work. But I can't give it up now.

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