Kalpraj Dharamshi on lessons to learn from Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Radhakishan Damani

Kalpraj Dharamshi, Veteran Investor in conversation with Ravi Dharamshi, CIO, ValueQuest Investment. Kalpraj says to keep up with Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, one had to eat, breathe, and live in the markets. He did not suffer fools gladly. He could attack one’s opinions viciously and one had to be able to stand one’s ground. He did not like yes-men around him and till the end, there were no yes-men around him.
Kalpraj says Radhakishan Damani is a rarest of rare gems. He has been a successful speculator on the long side as well as on the short side. He figured out all the concepts of investing which we read about from Warren and Charlie and all these Peter Lynch's of the world and in a very desi earthy way.

Ravi Dharamshi: How was the market when you joined back in the 1980s?
Kalpraj Dharamshi: I joined the market in mid-80s, late 80s, the market. There was only one exchange, which worked for two hours. There was only one index, which was the Sensex. And the day I joined, the Sensex was around 550 or something. As soon as I joined, there was a bear market. VP Singh came out with the Budget and from February of 1986 to the end of 1987, we had a bear market and the Sensex went down to 390.

Those days, there was nothing called investing. Who is buying was the paramount thing and those were the only things which were tracked. Investing for the ones who knew what investing was, were multinationals. So, Colgate, Castrol, ITC were the investing stocks and then you had a merger, which is ACC ordinary, which is Tata Steel,