Today’s a sad day for us in the Indian stock markets. The biggest Hero for millions like me, the legendary stock investor, Shri Rakesh Jhunjhunwala passed away this morning. It was the most terrible news to have woken up to. He was and remains my Hero, the one man I really looked up to and one I really admired and took inspiration from. He went away far too soon, for he had almost an entire generation ahead to inspire.
I’ve been investing since 2017 and that was around the time when I began to learn about RJ and was instantly hooked by his persona and what he managed to achieve in less than a generation from scratch. I am neither friends nor family, never met him but I did consider him as my Hero, one who taught me more than anybody else has, anybody else ever will. He made me think big and doubled down on India. I’ve always been optimistic about the India growth story but his journey, which he told through the multitude of interviews all over the internet inspired and gave me the courage to bet big.
If ever I was in doubt, I plugged in with one of his interviews and somehow could always find the right answer. If I have been able to make some money in this market, it’s got to do a lot with the courage I gathered out of his early days and how he raised money from his brother’s clients and doubled down on the Madhu Dandavate budget, etc. The biggest high of my small career was when I had about 30% of my portfolio in TaMo and discovered that he too had bought big in the company and propounded the same idea – how can a company with 3lakh crore in sales have a 20000 crore market cap!
One thing I get inspired from him is to dream big and believe that it can happen. I always had a hope that one fine day when I will be an investor of some name, I might get to meet him in person and pay my respects. Alas, not possible anymore but I pay my deepest respect to the first real King of Indian stock markets and it’s only fitting that both on the days he passed away and the following one, Markets are shut and in some way, we all are paying our respects through this coincidence.
As the country celebrates Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav- the 75th year of Independence, let’s also celebrate the life of a man who lived the Great Indian Dream- how a man born in a middle class family can amass a fortune worth Billions of dollars, in a fair and clean way and without cutting corners and give a lot of it back to the society in less than a generation. He may have been India’s second richest Individual Investor but is and forever will be the guy who had the most impact on the market. He was in a sense, India’s stock market impersonated. There are some idiots who have always cast doubts over his integrity but what bigger proof one needs than to see the Chairman of Tata Sons arriving to pay his condolences at his residence!
It’s also heartening to see the top political leadership paying their condolences and celebrating his legacy, in public. It’s high time Indians begin to give as much respect to him and other Investors as Buffet et al gets in the US. The least I expect of the government is to posthumously award him with a Padma Vibhushan, for he truly deserved every bit of it. In more ways than one, India lost one of its greatest sons, just before turning 75!
And I’ll finish with his parting line- India ka time aayega nahi aa gaya hai!
Life is all about Compounding! 