If you look at 2009, why did the recovery happen? Recovery happened because somebody in the world's largest economy opened the tap: the U.S., followed by Europe and now Japan.
What we have to be careful is that if we drop interest rates where the rate of interest is lower than inflation, then savers will not put money in financial savings and move it to gold and real estate, which is bad for India.
Historically, in India, the strange fact was that the equity owner was not taking as much hit as the lender. Therefore, if we restore the first principle of economics, that first the equity owner needs to take the hit and then the lender, we will get a good solution.
I have got nothing against family companies, but there must be real equity, that is all I say. It cannot be based on influence or political friendships. It has to be based on real equity backing their dreams.
I am a believer in the journey and enjoying the journey.
When a lion doesn't get its prey, it remains hungry. When the prey saves himself, he has not won, but has saved his life.
Our entire approach to the banking and financial services business is risk-adjusted returns. We believe that in most parts of the world, and including pockets in India, banking tends to mis-price risk.
I grew up in a joint family of 60 people with one kitchen. So I am a firm believer in the family concept.
In equities, you price the risk. As far as debt is concerned, if the markets get more sophisticated where, for the levels of risks that you take, you get the debt returns, we will certainly look at it. It's back to a philosophy of risk-adjusted returns.
It's true that I have always been very comfortable with numbers.
A lot of family members worked in the joint commodities family business. It was a classic case of capitalism at work and socialism at home.
There is socialism in the family that conflicts with meritocracy. And that bothered me.
Growth should take care of the fear of job losses. People will be challenged to do different things. For people who are not up to it, purely based on objective assessment, that's a different issue, which, you do it anyway.
For me, the real thing is make, serve and list in India. Which means we need manufacturing, we need services, and we need financial markets.
A lot of our fiscal deficit went to fund consumption and really did not get used to build investment and infrastructure. The trouble is, you can get a spurt in GDP growth, which may not be sustainable. I would much rather build the gradient of a long-term marathon.
I keep wondering at night, 'Will I have a bank the next morning, or will some technology company be doing banking without needing a bank?'
Our view is that younger customers love our digital offering, our mobile banking applications and so on. Older customers expect relationship managers and want much more personal attention in terms of their needs.
As we were all growing up, there used to be a very big mantra in India which was called 'export or perish.' There was a long period when we used to focus on import substitution.
The single biggest resource India has is people and skill.
Culture is about the mindset of people, and we are very happy to have a strong combined mindset of people.
