It had almost been, a year being away from home and I had already made yet another
painful transition from Secunderabad to Chennai, leaving behind a girl gang I
had come to love in a matter of days of staying together. It was heart
wrenching, settling farther away from home, paying for every single thing from
drinking water to laundry ! But I soon started to find solace in a place where
I never had to bathe with 'Hot' water, where I would wake up and go for a jog by
the beach, return to do an intense ab workout, put on the Gayatri Mantra as I
got ready for work, devotedly light up an essence stick and a diya to do my
daily pooja as I soaked in the power of the hyms and was all recharged to take
on the day in my stride !
I had
come to love myself, to love the city and to B.L.A.Z.I.N.G.L.Y love my routine, which I
thought, was the most balanced life I've ever lived ! I remember telling my
mother, that I wouldn’t mind marrying a south Indian and settling down to
retire by the beach side in Chennai. She
said it's not going to be long before you start to feel home sick - and like
always, she was right !
Just as
quickly as I had fallen in love with my new found freedom, it was time to
un-settle myself, with the thought of getting married and it being arranged,
just meant I was flying back home sooner ! I was leaving behind memories of
half a year, of being surrounded by peers - almost all of the seniors in the
integration practise had returned/were being posted abroad for long/short term
stints working with onsite clients. Which also meant, I was surrounded by at
least a dozen folks who were sitting on high net worth's just 2.5 or 3 years
into their careers..!
I've
never been happy being dumbfounded while others carried on with intellectual
conversations. And when men make money, they talk a lot about where to put
their pennies. If not participate/contribute to those conversations, I had to
at the least, comprehend the jargon around stock market investing and the
likes ! This was the anniversary year of me being a tax-paying citizen of my
country. Introducing myself to investments was relatively easy - I just
familiarised myself with the tax declaration form and had a long hard look at
section 80C. I then started to research each instrument in my free time from
PPF/VPF, NSC, ULIP, ELSS, Endowment plans to even Home Loans. A lot of websites
came to my rescue - from moneycontrol to valueresearch, from personalfinance to
msn money. My leisure reading on weekends was dedicated to picking up and
reading magazines like Outlook Money (apart from the ones on GoodHomes and Good
Housekeeping).
Working
in Tidel park in Chennai, made it easier to gain access to a broker - Centrum Finance was located on the 1st floor of the same building where I worked
for a while. These guys were the first ones to help me with investing in tax
savings mutual funds -a.k.a ELSS.
There
were three close friends who critiqued my investing decisions at that point in
time:
Seema : She believed that buying NSCs from a Chennai post
office was a bad idea, since I may not be in Chennai when it matures - I was
never going to return to the Teynampet Post Office to redeem the investment six
years on.
Krunal : Who felt insurance and investment should be separate and
I should instead, start to build up a decent equity portfolio.
Santosh : Who felt a ULIP investment was expensive when compared
with the total contribution vs. the administrative charges and future returns.
I have a
lot to thank them for, for contributing to those views! But like always, I went ahead with my gut.
It truly proved to be one landmark year mixed with
lessons in investing to experiences of being Smitten - by someone Tall, Dark
and Handsome. Literally my knight in shining armor, the one I had pictured in
my mind as a young school girl, a gentleman who charmed me with his quiet demeanor, who sat in my room as a stranger and said "its ok if you can't think of anything to
share, you can call me if you wish to speak.. once you are ok." - and I thought "Wow ! This has got to be Him !!
Here is my Prince Charming! Finally !! 😃"
Abhi and me courted each other for 9 long months before we tied the knot on December 25th and ended 2005 with eternal vows !
Yes, I digressed - it was supposed to be a post on my financial timeline, but 2005 was a landmark year, which can never be complete without the mention of a love story that began, the mention of "The" man who took my heart away and a year that taught me that everyone from my friends to my mother were indeed right !
A picture taken at Ravi n Rasika's wedding reception in January of 2008 !
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