House #872

By Madhav Das

Four friends started their B-school journey together, in House #872 near the Delhi – Faridabad border. Neeraj, an Oriya boy with very high aspirations, focused all the time on studies and really helped many of his batchmates pick up complicated concepts with lot of ease and pass exams in flying colours. But he did not do that well in the final year exams. Struggled a lot to get his first job but finally he landed his dream job! Few years later, he realized that destiny had something else in store for him!
Keshav, an ambitious Malayali with typical Libran traits makes lot of North Indian friends so quickly as he wanted to learn Hindi to survive in Delhi. Most of his friends and professors in his B-school started seeing a potential HR professional in him and their motivation lands him in the world of HR.

Arvind Pal Singh, a tall and well-built sardar from Nagpur, lands up in Delhi to do his MBA after running a supermarket successfully in his city. He always wanted to get armed with B-school gyan and a post graduate degree to venture into new horizons and did not want to take up a corporate job working under someone.

Rajnish, a jovial and street-smart guy from Lucknow only had one dream. To be a banker in a reputed MNC bank! He felt all his small-town inhibitions will disappear in the big canvas of this B-school life in Delhi. Let us see how their college life progresses and where they land up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zorba Books
• Release date: Dec 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9789393029003

Madhav Das

Madhav Das grew up in Ras Al Khaimah (in United Arab Emirates) and in Pattambi, a small town in Kerala. After his graduation from Government College in Pattambi, he went to Delhi to do MBA. He stayed in Delhi for 15 years and then moved to Hyderabad. He is currently the Senior Director – HR in a global marketing technology company headquartered in New York. He has won several national awards for leadership and HR Excellence. He is also a social media influencer and speaker at various leadership conferences and B-schools across India. He finds time for writing and painting during the weekends. This is his first book, and it is a well spun fiction with interesting narratives about his B-school days in Delhi, the friendships he formed during that time and some of the roller coaster rides in their lives. Madhav lives in Hyderabad with his wife Divya, an ex-banker and two lovely kids, Avantika and Avinash.

Book preview

Preface

I started writing this book in March 2011 when I got a break for few weeks before I joined as HR Director for a Dutch MNC. Many elements of House #872 and my MBA days were somewhere in the deepest corner of my heart, so one day I took a notebook and started writing. It was the first time I set out to write a book. In couple of days, I completed the entire notebook and left it there. In April, when I joined my new company, had very little time so discontinued writing. After a gap of one year, I started writing again. Then again left it.

Then started typing everything I wrote in the book. Again, left it!

And this process continued for couple of years! Writing a book is really tough. It requires lot of patience! You can get distracted anytime and the manuscript immediately goes into the back burner!

In 2004, during the last semester of MBA, I had mentioned to Asit few times that I will be writing a book about our college life and that he will be the central character in it. We certainly had lot of interesting experiences in Delhi and I always felt like writing about it. He came from Cuttack in Odisha and I came from Pattambi in Kerala and it was our first experience staying away from family. We were staying in a hostel for the first time. After the brief hostel stint, we moved to a 2 BHK apartment (from now onwards House #872) near the college with some of our classmates and the following years were fascinating. Many memories to cherish!

It was in March 2002 our college sent out an email to all the selected students announcing about the commencement of the academic session. Within a week after that, I received an email from Asit which he had marked to all our batchmates. It was a sort of ice breaker introducing him and mentioning that he is looking forward to connecting with all of us. I replied to him. Our friendship started there! And he mentioned after few years to me that it was the only reply he received!

When we met on the first day of college, we decided that we will stay together in the hostel room. There was another Oriya boy who expressed his desire to stay with Asit as he was also new to Delhi and found some relief seeing a person from his state. But he was not keen and insisted that he will stay with me. I met Asit’s father on that day and he was so friendly to me. He mentioned to me about how much he loved South India. His name was Rajnikant Pati. He took pride in the fact that he had the name of the most famous movie star from there!

Asit and I moved to House #872 with Jairaj and Ranjan we acquainted during the hostel days.

This book was originally intended to be a narrative of our college lives, relationships and the initial struggles and the highlights of our journey in the corporate world. Back in 2011, I used to tell Asit quite often that I will only finish this book when something very interesting happens in his life. Jairaj and Ranjan also knew that something is brewing, and it will become a book someday. But they felt that I had dropped the idea.

I did not want the readers to get bored reading yet another college story. Many writers (famous and not so famous) have penned down their MBA days and lot more, but I wanted this one to be different. So, I patiently waited for these many years and certainly it was worth the wait! God always has his plan, and you need to wait for it to get revealed!

With so much that has happened so quickly in my central character’s life, I want to take you through how I saw things evolving during our friendship many years now. All the roller coaster rides we have been on and how God’s grace and our hard work brought us to a peak with a beautiful view. This story is inspired by lot of real-life experiences. However, this book should be seen as a work of fiction.

So, fasten your seat belts and have a great ride!

I am sure this book will take you through some nostalgic memories of your own college life, the kind of experiences that shape you in the corporate world and will also inspire you to continue believing in things you set out for, even if you have been knocked down a couple of times in life!

Keep chasing your dreams! Also have fun on the way because we all have very limited time here!

Madhav Das

1

MarketX interview with Neeraj

There was a slight drizzle outside. Very unexpected one but Neeraj felt it was a good sign.

He was bit nervous. Vipul Khurana, his interviewer from MarketX, country’s leading financial and business portal tried to make him comfortable. Vipul had spent considerable amount of time convincing Neeraj to travel to his office in Noida for this interview.

Neeraj asked him, Are you sure you want to do a story about me?

He continued, You guys have done interviews with lot of bigwigs, and I have read most of them. I don’t think I’m in that league and I’m a small-time trader who had burned fingers in the stock market and just trying to bounce back. Nothing more than that.

Vipul said, Your journey is quite amazing and inspiring indeed. Ï want more people to know about you. I’m very sure it’s going to inspire lot of people.

He added, My Managing Editor is also equally excited about it. I told him about the magic you do in the stock market.

Neeraj just closed his eyes and leaned on the chair. He had lot of visuals coming to his mind. The first person who came to his mind was his father.

He could clearly hear him saying, Neeraj, I’m proud of you beta! You are going to make it big. This one will be a big hit. He had lot of dreams about Neeraj and knew that he will make it big one day.

He remembered about the conversations with his father during the college days about investing in stocks and terms like portfolio and all. He heard from his father for the first time about Infosys, Reliance and many such companies, and terms like blue chip and all. He knew that his father invested almost 20% of his monthly earnings in stocks.

Neeraj opened his eyes and looked through the paned window. It was still drizzling. While picking up the coffee mug, his eyes fell upon Mindset Secrets for Winning by Mark Minervini which he was reading on his way to Vipul’s office. The tagline of the book again caught his attention ‘How to Bring Personal Power to Everything You Do’. That line set the tone.

Neeraj could feel that his nervousness was melting away.

Vipul sipped his coffee and asked, Can we start?

Yes buddy answered Neeraj. He felt like saying buddy as it made him more comfortable.

Vipul asked his first question, Can you tell us about your journey to become a trader?

Neeraj smiled.

He said, I have been on the research side of the Investment Banking field for the most part of my professional life. After completing my BCom Hons from Odisha, I moved to Delhi to do my MBA in Finance after which I worked in various research firms conducting sector research.

He paused and sipped coffee and continued, I later moved to Hyderabad where I worked for a KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) firm where I worked for lot of international clients. After two years I moved to SBC Captive which was being set up in Hyderabad. I worked there for nearly seven years and was actively involved in the Investment Banking research process preparing financial and valuation modelling.

Vipul asked, That might have been a high-pressure job?

Neeraj was quick to reply. Yes, 12-14 hours every day. Though we were compensated well for the sacrifices we made in our social life. He smiled.

Neeraj continued, 2012 was a watershed year in my life for more than one reason. I lost my father to cancer after an arduous 8-9 months of battle. We were also blessed with a pair of twins during the year. And finally, it was also the year I started dabbling in the market.

My father who was a bank manager was a regular investor in the market, but till the time he was alive, I rarely looked at it. I guess he passed on the baton to me. He smiled.

During the initial period, I dabbled in the cash and futures market. Though my work experience was on the fundamental side I was never a patient investor. I preferred the shorter version. My interest in the market started growing as I steadily started making money.

2

House #872

Flashback – College days

It was a foggy morning. Scamby kept limping. It was not easy for him to move around in the garden. He just turned 9. He was very obese like most of the Labradors and had webbed paws. I think Labs were originally used in Ireland for retrieving fishing nets. I’m sure Alex uncle and kids would have played catch and retrieve games with him a lot.

Now, even Alex uncle also didn’t have much