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.

Almost all

From where I sit, I can see tiny and not so tiny dots of light flitting around a largish nucleus more or less in an orderly fashion, like a disciplined army of fireflies coming from different directions to a central point and then dispersing on to their own different ways.

It’s funny how the view from the top is so different from what you see at the ground level.

Do you notice that our impression of things is based less on what they actually are than on what they appear to be? Do you realise the role of SIZE in forming our perceptions? Or how distance can annihilate most of our negative feelings?

I have a morbid fear of heights. My palms and soles break into sweat whenever I look up to a REALLY tall building, or when I see (on TV!!) some idiosyncratic adventurer cycling on a thin rope strung between two cliffs. But from my office I laugh at the nearby slabs of concrete which happen to be 15 stories high. No sweat! When I am driving, an erratic driver who weaves in ahead of me provokes anger. The same chap from up here is just another ‘firefly’!

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Delhi by night is a beautiful city, especially from where I am seeing it. Right across the busy Barakhamba Road is the tall yet naked Player Towers which has remained unfinished for the last decade and more due to some litigation. It overlooks the Ranjit Singh flyover which leads to the Inter Continental and the infamous red-light area of G. B. Road. If I look further north, I can see the dome of the Jama Masjid and the sprawling ramparts of the recently sanitized Red Fort.

On the way back to the here and now, I graze my sight over the dense woods adjoining the Yamuna which house the famous dead (Mahatma Gandhi, assorted Nehrus, the odd Zail Singh). Then I notice the extremely slow moving traffic around the ITO crossing. But what pleases me most is the immaculately manicured lawns of Modern School and the blue water of their Olympic-size swimming (no, I am daydreaming here; I can’t see any water at night).

Then I turn to face the concentric circles collectively known as Connaught Place. The yellowing (or graying) low-rises are home to some of the hottest nightspots, old and famous eateries and also to established shops facing the onslaught of young and trendy super-malls. From here it’s just a solid circle of light peppered generously with moving shadows.

If I walk around to the other corner of my office, the sight can be both elevating and disturbing, depending on whether I am looking up or down.

 On the horizon is the poorly-lit but beautifully shaped Qutab Minar some 10 kilometers as the crow flies. One could not see so far in Delhi some months back but the introduction of CNG-fuelled buses and some strict enforcement of pollution norms have seen reduction in smog levels. That’s the reason why I can even see the Lotus Temple which is well-illuminated at night. Closer up, there is India Gate which still has the Independence Day lighting of saffron, white and green that looks awesome from here. I wish I could see Rashtrapati Bhawan but the British Library is blocking my view.

I do not want to look down, but I have to. There are the parking lots which have a zillion cars parked bumper to bumper. If you have not seen the parking attendants in Delhi at work, you have missed something in life. They are like kung-fu masters who operate on razor-thin margins of error. They will scare even seasoned daredevil drivers when they sit in your car and park it. And now they are busy un-clogging the mess they have cleared in the morning.

That reminds me I have put in my mandatory hours of paid inactivity and I have to go down to become one of them ‘fireflies’.

Last night I saw someone crash to the concrete under the pedestal I had put him on.

Anyone with a passing interest in Indian classical music would have heard of Mukul Shivputra (MS) or at least his legendary father, the late Pandit Kumar Gandharva (PKG). I have been a diehard fan of PKG's inspiring, innovative and captivating singing style. The son has followed in the father's footsteps, grasping the finer nuances and then effortlessly re-interpreting them whichever way he wants to. He is a creative genius if ever there was one.

MS has been known to live a reclusive life. He has forsaken most worldly possessions and lives somewhere near Dewas with his disciples and his music for company. He gives few concerts and these occasions are eagerly awaited by all his devoted fans. Yesterday was one such event.

He sauntered in, as is his style, as if walking on a thin film of ice. He sat down, tuned his accompanists' instruments (only a tanpura and tabla, as he does not use any harmonium or sarangi). Then he gave his crooked smile seemingly full of disdain for the audience, and the audience in turn lapped it up, as always.

The very first note he picked up was a disaster....he could not sustain it long enough to create an impact. Some listeners thought this was another of the games he loves to play. So we waited for the next...and it was worse. As he went through the motions of the concert his worshipful listeners were moved to sorrow and then to tears. Once or twice, once saw those sparks of his genius that we knew of but they were lost in the all-enveloping darkness of mediocrity that rapidly filled the auditorium.

No, it was not as if you were listening to a newcomer who could not handle notes. It was like Isa Khan sculpting another Taj Mahal and not getting the symmetry of the minarets right... it was like a skillful surgeon failing to open up a simple blister... it was like a van Gogh failing to evoke any sentiment from his canvas.

And our Isa Khan, our van Gogh, our surgeon, our very beloved and hugely respected MS was too drunk to even notice. He just got up and left when he thought it was enough. I had been hearing of his slowly slipping into the abyss for a while now; but it still hit me hard when I actually saw the results.

One can argue that his art is his own and no one has any business either deifying him or criticising him. He has got his genes from his father, his talent from the One Above and then he has polished his craft with his own perseverance and hard work. So, even if he does not come upto our expectations, its none of his problems. He is not a monkey in a circus who has to always please the ticket-paying public.

But, unfortunately, the issue is a little more complicated. However much it sounds presumptuous, he is a custodian of our shared heritage. He has chosen to take up a profession where has picked up the outcome of years of laboured effort by countless individuals. He cannot mess with it. I will not go far enough to pass judgment about his handling of his own genius (which I think is criminal) but I would say he should stop practicing the art which he cannot add any value to.

My words may or may not be able to amply describe my grief as I write this but last night was one which I would like to quickly forget. Quite like those who saw the majestic towers of the World Trade Centre simply crumble to the ground on 9/11.

p.s. Hopes die last. He is singing again on the 10^th. I’ll give my favourite singer another chance. If he fails me again, I have all his albums.

• I would wear an orange shirt and bottle-green trousers, a silver bracelet and a thick gold chain around my neck (two strands? maybe!). I will die a Dilli-wallah even if I was not born one.
• I would let an older woman seduce me. For years I have found them attractive and some of them have made me skip a beat. There are lessons to be learnt here and I won't leave without them.
• I would have Idlis for breakfast, Dosa for lunch and some Thai food for dinner. The former two because I simply adore Dravidian cuisine, the latter because I can't stand it.
• I would drive up and down the Delhi-Noida Toll Bridge at over 160 KMPH. I have done 130 there but have been scared to do more.
• I would rush to Surajkund and get myself a shot at Bungee jumping. I sweat at heights and so have not gathered the courage to.
• I would call up all friends who I have fought with and say sorry.
• I would call up Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sonia Gandhi, Jayalalitha, Laloo Yadav, Praveen Togadia and the guy I cross everyday who digs his nose in public....and tell them FUCK YOU.
• I would go watch Ben Hur one last time.
• Once I am through with all the above during the day, I will take the lady from point 2 above and fly off to Kathmandu. There I will gamble till the call comes!!

Imagine being at the Gateway of India, wetting your feet in the waves of the Arabian Sea, taking in the afternoon sun, munching the peanuts sold to you by the innocent-looking urchin. Imagine your loved one, sitting next to you, pointing out the silhouette of a ship coming on to anchor. And, then, imagine a loud bang as you are thrown up 100 feet, stung by the sharpnels of an RDX device. As you hit the concrete with a back-breaking thud, imagine seeing your loved one charred beyond recognition, the only way to identify her being the packet of peanuts she is clutching for dear life.

I quietly turned 30 last fortnight.

Celebrating birthdays with aplomb has never been a family tradition for us, thank God. So, I waited up for the call from parents which came on the dot, received their blessings and then slept.

When I woke up there were a dozen SMSs from friends spread across the globe. It felt great, even though the much touted mobile revolution has taken the fun out of occasions. I mean, here are the friends who are really special to me, and who care to remember my birthday every year. They would come to my place to wish me when we were younger. When we went our own ways to study, they would write letters and send birthday cards. Once we started working and had some more money to spare, there would be calls at midnight and we would chat for hours. Now, some laboured punches on the keypad and *whoosh* I have an SMS saying “Happy Birthday, ole chum!”

I share my birthday with two ex-Presidents: Shankar Dayal Sharma and Bill Clinton. So, I do nurse a dream of doing what they did…. Becoming President like the former and putting cigars to ingenuous uses like the latter! I renew the dreams every year, lets see when they come true ;)

But seriously, this birthday was very different from the others. I was not excited at all, was very introspective the whole day and was kind of glad when the date changed. Maybe it’s the realization that I am no longer 20-something, maybe it’s the fact that I am not married yet while most of my friends are proud parents, maybe it’s the truth that a birthday is after all just another marker on the turf of time.

I am looking forward to the next year for the following reasons:

1. I have decided on losing 5 kilos and 2 inches around my waist.
2. My parents have decided that they need to get me married off ASAP.
3. My landlord has decided to extend the lease for another year.