Ah well, so that’s Jimmy in India for the next few months. At least, in the Andaman Islands at the moment which is, I suppose, a relatively gentle introduction and probably feels very much like St Lucia, but, if you’ll let me be the proud father just for a moment, I do think it’s a pretty cool thing she’s doing. Flew out to Kolkatta on her own and then headed to the islands hopefully to meet up with a couple of boys she really doesn’t know that well. Talking of a couple of boys she rang me from the airport for a quick chat on book selection for her to read on the flight. Not for her Indian classics such as Kim, A Suitable Boy or even the Life of Pi….she settled on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Odd girl that one.
And on the subject of strange things and India yesterday I overheard one of my colleagues saying that he was going to ring our Indian economist and then, growing increasingly concerned, I listened to him on the phone discussing the upcoming Indian elections and their implications for the stock market. It was quite an intense conversation and my colleague, a gentle unassuming soul on our derivatives desk, seemed to be getting just a wee bit frustrated at the apparent failure of the person he was talking with to properly answer his various questions. “Well”, he said at one point, “if our Indian economist doesn’t realise there are elections in April/May this year maybe it really isn’t an important issue for the stock market” and a little later…”No thank you, If really don’t need you to send me a link via Google to a useful webpage, I’m much more interested in what you think”.
So at that point, ever the diplomat, I helpfully intervened by sliding in front of him a detailed report that Sonal Varma, our brilliant Indian economist, had contributed significantly to, which sets out all you need to know about the political situation in India. Give me a shout if you’d like a copy! But it didn’t much alter the shape or tone of the conversation I was listening into. This went on for, and I kid you not, at least twenty minutes failing miserably, evidently, to deliver to our “derivater” friend the requisite ammunition with which he had no doubt been hoping to structure a cunning little strangle or straddle strategy. How about that for alliteration. Consequently when he put the phone down with a disgruntled “Humph” I thought I had better try to soothe the situation, because I really didn’t want him to have the wrong idea about Sonal who is one of the good ones. Maybe it had been a bad line, she had misunderstood his questions, or perhaps she had indeed been having a rare off day. But it was none of these things. On probing we discovered he had typed the name Sonal on the internal system and ended up ringing a lady, of the same first name, granted, and just as keen and eager to help as you will find Ms. Varma is if ever you need to know what is going on in that economy, but with a very different surname and who, it transpires, works as an assistant in the legal department of our Mubai office.
And getting back to Huckleberry Finn, what news of Bob? He was home last week for half term. I will not rattle through all his quarry though it was a particularly varied bag including a jay and a seagull and some moles. On Sunday I managed to persuade him to come out for a few holes of golf with me at Royal Worlington. With my eye for detail I was never going to miss the additional “weapon” he had slipped into his golf bag. A folding .410 shotgun of the sort used by poachers.
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