When Dhoni held the World Cup, it rightfully belonged to the whole of India.

To the Indian cricketers who played in the 1930s – and they assumed that we will NEVER be able to beat the better prepared white man.

To the Indian cricketers of the 1960s who went through the motions of foreign tours. Remember our captains said “we are here to build goodwill, sports is for brother hood,….etc. etc.”? They had no hope to WIN anything.

In 1971, Ajit Wadekar’s team won a test match and a series in England and West Indies.

It was in 1971 that we started believing that we could win against a white man.

In 1983 we believed we had a TEAM that could play the biggies and EVEN expect to win. India were 40:1 outsiders!

Then Sourav Ganguly, etc. showed how we could match them – sledge for a sledge. Or a SRT who plundered Shane Warne.

Dhoni created a team which is no longer an outsider to winning. We now do not get 40:1 odds.

Now come to risk. Today’s kids find it difficult to understand how it must have been during 1999 to 2002. Your income dips 95% (repeat 95%) when the market goes into a recession. Nobody wants to talk about being in the market. Suddenly in 2003 you see green shoots. I know many, many people who cashed out of ‘Hdfc Growth Fund’ when it reached its NAV of Rs. 10. Recessions and bad times take their toll.

Then the market kept going up. Wisdom said “India has NEVER had 4 continuous good years, so selling in 2006 made sense”..but the market went up. It was the 5th year. Skill was in continuing to invest – 2006, 07,….there was NOTHING to suggest that you had to book profits. Remember, if you had an old portfolio of FMCG and Pharma, YOUR portfolio did not go up. But yes, it was an infra book – LnT, Bhel, Tata Power…all were up a few times the cost. These were a screaming sell based on the PE.

One very important learning for me – MARKETS ARE NEVER, EVER, HIGH OR LOW. Just keep looking at your own portfolio. Do you have Cipla? It has a PE of 39. At the same time Sun Pharma has a much lower PE.

Exactly at the time that Icici bank was losing money for its customers, Hdfc bank was creating wealth. Icici mutual fund is the largest mutual fund, Hdfc mutual fund is the most profitable. SBI mutual fund is growing its assets under ETF. Great, but profitability is taking a hit?

So when you tell people about Ketan or Harshad they look at me like they look at their Grandpa. There seems to be some respect, but there seems to be no readiness to learn from past experience. Go and look at your portfolio and see why some companies have a high -to very high – price earning ratio.

Risk comes from reading and learning from history. It is perfectly all right to be scarred by defeats (remember Sunil Gavaskar NEVER played to win, he played ‘not to lose’). MSD plays it cool, has a process in place, are much fitter, play like a professional (meet the older cricketers – they do not really have money), …well risk perception of MSD is different. Virat Kohli takes on the Australian and says ‘they are no longer my friends’. Views change. Risk perception changes.

See your OWN family’s risk history ….that is more important !