Retirement Investing: Why 'Playing Safe' Can Be Risky | RIA Ravi Natarajan

A lot of times I meet families where the husband or the spouse, one of them, is looking at the entire finance and the other person does not have any clue.

Absolutely risky, because she’s not comfortable accepting that there will be a time when the husband may not be there. Life has its own uncertainty. Nobody knows when who will pass away.

You cannot be caught in a state of surprise. You need to know what kind of investments you have, where you have those investments, and hence take relative control of it.

That cannot happen overnight. It is planning that we are doing for the entire family, wherein you have to be able to manage it independently. You’re not caught off guard.

Thank you so much, Sachin. Pleasure to be here.

Sachin, this is a very subjective aspect.

What one needs to know is that when he is going to look at retirement, retirement is not going to be a particular moment. It is going to be for a period of time ranging anywhere between 20–25 years, probably.

There are one or rather two clear uncertainties.

One is: what is going to be the life expectancy that we’re talking about?

And the second one is: what is going to be the cost of living, or the inflation, that one needs to look into?

This is something which is going to be a constant for everybody.

Where it then comes to is: what is the level of comfort that he or she has in terms of the overall understanding?

What he wants to know, more importantly, is: “Am I going to be able to live through the entire period of my time the way I want to live, without any decrease in my lifestyle and without being dependent on my children?”

That is what he is looking into.

I think it is more to do with protecting what the rupee can buy. That’s more critical, because that’s what you ultimately want to do.

You don’t want to probably be in a situation wherein you are not aware of what you can do. You’re probably kind of short-changing yourself in a way because somewhere in the mind you’ve started thinking, “I’ve retired. I don’t have an income coming in. Am I going to be able to manage it or not?”

And you start cutting down on your immediate lifestyle.

I think that’s not the right approach.

You need to start looking at things the way they come in and how you are going to be prepared to keep meeting those requirements as you keep moving forward in life.

I think that’s more important rather than looking only at safeguarding the rupee or safeguarding the capital.

Yeah.

Ideally, whether the market corrects or does not correct is not in anybody’s hands.

What is probably in your hands is how you approach the entire phase of retirement.

What level of exposure do you need to have in an instrument which is more market-linked?

Those are nuances that one needs to go into in detail.

Because the last thing that you want is that you run out of the corpus and you’re stranded maybe 10 or 15 years down the line.

What do you do? Because you still have another 10–15 years left after that, and you don’t have a corpus available with you because you took a decision 15 years back that, “I want to look at it in a very conservative manner.”

When you start your retirement phase, you need to have clarity about how you are placed to look at the next 25–30 years of your time period.

Then take those decisions: to what extent of equity can you go for, to what extent of conservative instruments can you go for, and hence maintain a proper balance between them.

Again, there is no right or wrong.

It purely depends upon the articulation of exactly what your set of requirements are during the retirement phase.

If I am saying that I’m going to be living a modest life, I need only so much to manage my expenses, and if your corpus is relatively large, then maybe the interest percentage of the corpus can help you tide over this particular requirement.

But have you built in the cost of inflation over a period of time?

Does the interest component remain constant throughout this period?

With the fact that India is a developing economy, will the interest rate start coming downwards over a period of time? Then what do you need to do?

Because at one pace, your cost of living is increasing, but your interest rate seems to be coming down.

Then how do you make the two work?

Right.

Somebody may have a really large corpus available and a very modest living requirement, and hence maybe even a lower interest can match up to his requirement.

But the next question to also ask is: is it the right and efficient way to manage the corpus?

Would he have wanted to pass on something to the next generation?

He believes that the capital being saved is what he is passing on. But based on the time value of money, what is the value of that money after 25–30 years?

The next generation receiving that money does not have the same value at all because actually it has depreciated over a period of time.

For us, what we normally do is: each person has an understanding of the extent of risk that he or she can take, which is what we call risk tolerance or risk appetite.

Most of the time, when you look at risk tolerance or risk appetite, given a choice everybody would say, “Give me something which is lowest on risk and highest on return.”

But in reality, nothing like that exists.

You need to look at risk appetite from a few perspectives.

One: what is the capacity of risk that you can take?

Second: what has been your historical behaviour in terms of how you have been managing your portfolio and your funds?

Third: over this duration of 30–35 years, what is the extent of understanding that you’ve got and the willingness that you’ve got in terms of the risk?

Once you put these three things together, you come across what is the extent of volatility that one can sustain.

Most of the time, risk is conceived to be more of a loss. That’s the interpretation of risk.

Unfortunately, that’s not true.

Risk in financial parlance is more about the sustainability of the volatility that you can withstand at any point in time.

At each person’s level, there will be somebody who is comfortable taking volatility of maybe plus or minus 10–15%. Somebody may even be looking at 30% kind of volatility and be absolutely fine.

You have to consider that as one critical aspect: what is your level of tolerance, which has to be built into the structure?

The second is also to understand what is the exact amount of requirement that you have over a period of time, inflation-adjusted.

When you put both of these things together, you come across the answer to what extent of equity you should have exposure to.

Absolutely.

If you have a pension, it’s a constant stream of income. It’s already there for you.

What needs to then be looked at is what are the different sets of requirements that you have.

Again, you have to look into what extent of equity you are supposed to take to make your portfolio more efficient and more available to you from an inflation-adjusted point of view.

Whether you are 45 or 65, the fact remains that if your requirement is near-term, you need to be cautious.

When you’re looking at an instrument like equity, you have to give it time.

Time is the only solution to it.

The more time you give it, the more you’ll be able to make the desired return out of it.

From a short-term perspective, you can be subjected to high volatility, which cannot be the right way to look at it.

Hence, whether you are 45, 50 or 65, when you have a short-term requirement, you have to look at conservative instruments or a safer option.

The first thing is that I need to understand what is the risk appetite and risk tolerance that they can sustain.

If the approach in the mind is that I want to look at it from an FD perspective, then we need to look at the fact that if you have a corpus of ₹2 crore, you can only take out the interest component.

Supposing it ranges at 7% or 8%, you’re going to get only that much interest income coming to you to take care of your requirements.

Maybe in the initial years, that is more than the requirement that you already have and hence it can sustain you.

But over a period of time, when you reach the seventh year or some later year, inflation will outrun the interest component.

You will start looking at a shortage, which means the only way to meet the requirement is to start pulling money out of the ₹2 crore.

That means your principal will come down.

Then, if you look at the interest component of the new principal over a period of time, you’ll run out of that fund sooner than later.

While the FD gives you a lot of peace of mind and confidence, you have to also be aware that it can cause you to run out of money sooner than later.

As I said, firstly I would do a risk appetite assessment.

Let’s assume that they are moderate-risk people.

In that case, typically what we look at is anywhere between a 60% equity and 40% debt kind of ratio.

The strategy will typically have a concept of asset allocation along with a bucketing strategy.

You obviously need to know the risk profile, which tells you what is the base allocation that we’re talking about in terms of liquidity and debt.

Then we need to know what are the short-term, medium-term and long-term requirements that they’ve got.

Based on that, you decide what extent of money they should have in the safer asset classes to take care of the immediate short-term to medium-term requirements, keeping the equity from a longer-term perspective.

As they move forward, you keep reallocating this equity-debt ratio accordingly, so that at every point in time they are adequately prepared for the short to medium term in the safer instrument.

And they also have the balance amount of the corpus growing at a relatively higher rate of return to meet future requirements.

When you refer to SWP, that’s more of a mode of remittance that we’re talking about.

Whether you look at it as an SWP mode of remittance, that is more preferred because most of us have a requirement on a monthly basis, and hence that disciplines you in a way to take out that amount.

It’s on both sides.

You have to somewhere draw the line very clearly.

One should not be completely in the mindset of being very conservative, wherein all the money is lying in the safest instrument possible.

And one should also not look at completely going aggressive in terms of looking for the highest return possible.

You have to strike a balance between the two.

That is where the comfort level and the withdrawal expectation come into play.

You need to look at the asset classes very differently.

Something which has to give you a lot of confidence in terms of accessibility and liquidity to withdraw has to be kept in the safer instrument.

That does not mean that it is not growing at all or is stagnant.

It is growing, but it is growing at a relatively lower rate of return compared to the other asset classes.

One needs to have that confidence that he’ll be able to live through that short- to medium-term requirement based on those funds available.

That is what is going to give him a lot of peace of mind when he takes exposure to equity.

Because if the markets are volatile, he’s not vulnerable to taking money out from equity at that point in time.

He needs to have the patience to wait it out.

Now, patience is too easy a word to say because, more often than not, while we can tell it, it is his money and it is his worry that we’re talking about.

But when you start looking at the fact that what I want over the short to medium term is kept in a much safer instrument, which is not getting impacted so much by the markets, he or she can sustain being more patient with the equity component.

The moment you run through that period of time, equity should be able to recover and do well for you, which then works for the next future set of requirements.

Again, it’s not a constant.

If it’s a conservative investor or if it’s an aggressive investor, the component of equity will vary.

But typically, at any point in time, I think a minimum of two to three years of requirements should be kept in the safer instrument to take you through it.

The balance should be in equity.

But then you need to keep rebalancing it accordingly as you keep moving forward depending upon the requirements.

The answer more or less would be the same.

If I’m looking at starting off saying that you’ve kept aside the two- to three-year money in the safer instrument, and assume that you’re unlucky that you’re starting your second innings with a market drop, ideally speaking the market drop is not impacting you from a requirement perspective.

Because the requirement is going to come out from the other bucket, which is on the safer side and is not volatile. It has not gone down.

That is the first way to look at it in terms of comfort level.

What is obviously going to happen is, in the mind you’re going to get worried that, “I had 100 and it has gone down to 70 at this point in time.”

Now, that 100 to 70 — is it hurting you today more from a mindset point of view? The answer is yes.

Is it hurting you from a consumption point of view or withdrawal point of view? The answer is no, because you’re not looking at that 70 from a withdrawal perspective right now.

Once you understand this particular aspect, you’ll be able to stick with that particular number.

Most of the time, when you see markets go down in a knee-jerk manner, they have a much better recovery over a period of time.

We cannot pinpoint when exactly the recovery will happen, but there is enough data available which says that over a period of time markets have been going up and down.

Taking that into cognisance, one should be aware that equity will bounce back eventually to make the requirement being met.

When you’re looking at returns, returns are normally not linear in nature.

One thing somebody has to understand when it comes to the equity market is that equity has an element of volatility at all points in time.

There’s no fixed reason for it to be volatile. It can be for various reasons.

One cannot be very clear as to what extent equity will go down, how long it will remain down and when it will bounce back.

But having gone through these sets of volatilities, equity eventually gives a return which is beating inflation by a decent 4% to 5%-plus kind of a number.

If the asset allocation that you’re starting off with and the rebalancing of the assets continues on a regular basis, whether it be a market fall at the initial part of his innings or whether it be a market fall at the end of the tenure, in both cases it will not be impacting him.

Because in both cases he or she will be prepared adequately in the debt component to take care of that time’s short- to medium-term requirements.

Let’s take an example.

Today, if I’m saying I’m starting with a 60:40 ratio, then the 60:40 ratio is as of today.

As we keep moving forward, the 60:40 ratio will keep changing based on the new set of requirements that he’s got.

It may either come down to a 50:50 ratio or a 40:60 ratio as we keep moving forward.

Then there are market factors which have to be looked into.

Supposing the market has given a very good return at the initial level, which means your equity component has relatively gone up from the desired levels, then you prune down that equity ratio to get back to your desired allocation.

I think the suggested rebalancing we look at is a minimum of once a year.

But obviously, if the market gives opportunities in terms of a spike or a fall, then it gives an opportunity to either rebalance from equity to debt, or even from debt to equity for that matter.

You’re bang on.

We do have clients who started their retirement just at the cusp of the COVID timeframe.

There was a client who started off right around the time of COVID, which was coincidentally fortunate for him because he entered the market at an absolute bottom, or a relative bottom.

The kind of recovery that it had over the next nine months to one year gave him phenomenal returns on equity.

Now, that many times can also dissuade the clients with the thinking that, “Equity is actually not what I thought it to be. It is absolutely good.”

And now he suddenly becomes a little more aggressive, or if I can use the word, greedy, saying, “Let me have more of my money in equity and not look at the other component,” because he has not seen the market falling.

But the same client today, when you look at it, I think this period from 2024 to 2026 has been the longest period wherein markets have more or less been stagnant or slightly sideways.

He had not faced this before.

But having started off initially and taken advantage of the initial three to four years of rally, even after two years he continues to be at a CAGR which is relatively in the higher double digits because of the initial sprint that he got based on the rally.

The other way to look at it is: supposing he had started off and the crash had happened.

Fortunately, COVID was such a period wherein after the market had fallen, it recovered pretty fast.

It was not a recovery which happened much later wherein the person had to keep being too worried about it.

But as I said, if you go back to what I told you, if I’m preparing you for the two- to three-year period in the debt component, then even if the market had taken maybe one-and-a-half to two years to recover, which was not the case after COVID, would you still have been vulnerable?

The answer is no.

Very clearly, yes, you would have been worried.

But that’s where it matters that you have somebody with you to explain why you should not be looking at it that way and to set the right expectations.

Portfolio management is more to do with the asset allocation and bucketing principle rather than looking at fund performance or returns.

Principally speaking, if a person has got his asset allocation and bucketing right, then he’s not as disturbed by portfolio performance as compared to probably not getting this piece right but looking more at funds and immediate returns and getting carried away with that.

Then he’s more vulnerable to not having the corpus available to him.

If you give me an example of ₹50 lakh of corpus and a ₹5 lakh requirement, obviously it’s plain maths which says it’s not going to last you.

How do you approach it?

There are two ways.

One: can you really relook at your expenses? Is it more frivolous expenditure? Are you still looking at more splurging and less to do with the basic necessities?

One needs to understand this at this point in time because you would have been able to have that kind of lifestyle before because you had a constant income coming to you.

But now that you realise that you have only so much corpus available, you have to somewhere prune down your expenses.

That’s the first way to approach it.

Now, for whatever reason, supposing that’s not a possibility, then you have to accept the reality that you’re not having enough amount available.

But then approaching that ₹50 lakh with a conservative mindset and keeping it into very safe instruments would be even more harmful.

There’s no standardisation to talk about the equity-debt ratio because, as I told you, it depends upon a lot of factors like the risk appetite.

But in this case, for example, when you see a ₹50 lakh corpus and a ₹5 lakh withdrawal in the very first year itself, and given even a basic 5% to 6% inflation on that ₹5 lakh, he’s going to have relatively less exposure to equity by default, irrespective of whatever the risk profile is.

Because his withdrawal itself is so much that putting his money excessively into equity is not going to help him.

That can make him equally vulnerable when he needs to take out the next three to four years of expenditure requirements.

No, it doesn’t.

But again, what can be the solution?

Is there anybody else?

For example, does he have children who can probably support him to some extent?

Can he look forward to taking some support from the children and managing part of the expenses by himself, and hence cutting down on his expenditure?

But honestly, ₹50 lakh versus ₹5 lakh as a number will not work out.

I genuinely feel that the 3%–4% that people normally talk about is a misnomer.

Again, it’s very subjective.

What do I want to do in my retirement phase?

How do I want to live my life?

What kind of lifestyle do I need?

What kind of things do I want to do?

If I have got the right amount of corpus available based on the discipline that I’ve been maintaining during my working years and building up that particular corpus, and if I have the ability to do that with a little bit of the right allocation of my money, then why should I restrict myself to 3% or 4%?

Maybe life is not going to be there for a longer period of time, so I want to still enjoy my life today and also be adequately prepared for tomorrow.

Everybody, he or she, needs to have that clarity of thought.

What do I have with me?

What is it that I’m expecting out of it over a period of time?

Put in a basic assumption pertaining to life expectancy and inflation, and hence get to know exactly what he or she can do.

It may be possible that in the initial 10 years he may have a relatively higher percentage to be withdrawn because he still has responsibilities pertaining to his children to be completed.

Then maybe after 10 years, the requirement comes down to the 3%–4% level or even below.

It varies from person to person and there is no standardised answer.

You need to look at it over the next 25–30-year period and take it from a holistic perspective as to where you are, how you are and how to go about it.

Actually, we have an example.

A client of ours probably had a child much later in his lifespan.

He’s retired and the child is currently in the 10th standard or 11th standard.

Which means that even if you look at the basic education fulfilment, it will take a minimum of about 10–11 years to complete the basic graduation, and he’s already retired today.

So for the next 10 years, he has to look at the child’s education requirement to be completed.

Obviously, given a typical Indian family, we will look at even the marriage of the child as our responsibility, irrespective of whether we have retired or not.

But if he has absolutely got it right in terms of his overall building up of assets, why is he looking at a 3%–4% rule coming in as a constraint to him?

He’s absolutely well prepared to meet not only the child’s responsibility but also to conduct her marriage, live his lifestyle without any compromises till the time he and his wife are alive.

That’s the way to look at it.

Absolutely risky.

Why is it risky?

Most of the time, the lady of the house does not normally want to get involved in financial matters.

One, because she’s not comfortable accepting that there will be a time when the husband may not be there.

That’s one way to look at it.

Second is the complete confidence, or maybe you can even say overconfidence, that “He’s there to manage it and he’s taking care of it. Why should I get involved?”

But I think the reality is that life has its own uncertainty.

Nobody knows when who will pass away.

You cannot be caught in a state of surprise, both emotionally and rationally, in terms of, “I don’t know what’s happening. How do I go about it?”

There is an emotional loss whenever the incident happens.

But if you do have a basic understanding of where you are placed overall in terms of your finances, whether you are well kept or not, because the earning partner has done enough to ensure that he is going to give you a comfortable life — if you are not aware of it and you don’t know how to access it, there is no point in him having done that.

You need to definitely know what kind of life insurance he or she has taken and where exactly that policy is, because that policy is important for you to give to the insurance company for getting your claim done.

Similarly, you need to know what kind of investments you have and where you have those investments.

Probably get to know a little bit about who is the person you need to connect to in case something like this happens.

And hence take relative control of it at some point in time.

That cannot happen overnight.

If you’re going to be part of this process during the course of time, you will be more and more savvy in terms of understanding.

You never know, you can even give something better in terms of suggestions to manage it better.

From a family perspective, I think it is an involvement that has to happen both from the husband and wife together.

That’s what we believe in in terms of the services that we render.

We typically make it clear that it is planning that we’re doing for the entire family. It is not for one person or the other person.

Number one.

Number two, it is also important that both of them sit through the various discussions that we have over a period of time.

So you get relatively comfortable with the person that you’re speaking to, understand exactly what is happening, get your queries answered, and become slightly better off in terms of your overall perspective.

Then obviously, if the situation comes where you have to manage it independently, you’re not caught off guard.

You know exactly what you need to do and how exactly you should approach it.

First, on will planning, I think people have this notion that a will as a document is only important for the rich or the ultra-rich.

I think that myth has to be broken.

A will is only a protection of the assets, whatever you have accumulated.

It’s not a question of who is rich or who is probably in the middle-income bracket.

It’s more about safeguarding your assets and ensuring that the transfer of the asset happens to the person that you would like it to happen to eventually, so that he or she can continue to live the life that they want.

When you look at it from that perspective, it is critical to have that particular document.

It also comes into play especially when you have certain conflicts within the family or there’s a dispute happening on the ownership of the assets eventually.

If it has to go to that extreme, then the only possible way to fight it out in the court of law is having a will document in place.

I think that is the only thing which comes to your safeguard in case it goes to that kind of extreme.

Having a will is just that one more step that you take to ensure that while I’m alive, I’ve done what it is to ensure that I give my family the best life.

And even if I’m not there, I’m still giving enough protection to them to take care of it.

Obviously, I’ll not be there to look at it, but that’s what I could do. I’ve done whatever I could.

Honestly, coming to the age factor, I don’t think age is a barrier to looking at what kind of exposure you need to have to equity or a debt kind of instrument.

Simply because if you are following the asset allocation and bucketing strategy with the right discipline, then you’re never going to be caught off guard in terms of having what you need to take care of yourself.

Number one.

And obviously, what is left after you is going to be passed on to the next generation, typically.

The next generation is relatively young and hence they can cope with the volatility that we’re talking about.

The typical thing is to try and pass on as much as possible in the best possible manner.

First is to look at yourself and safeguard your requirements without any dependency.

The next is to pass it on.

The only way to hence pass it on is if you have the right mix of equity and debt in your portfolio.

Whether you are 70, 80 or 85 should not come into play in terms of making that particular decision.

But in the example that you gave me, if he believes that he has a higher set of requirements coming in, he wants to give it to his grandchild or something like that, then obviously those are discussions or life-stage changes that happen in a person’s life.

Today, he may have articulated a different set of requirements based on which the planning was done or the strategy was done.

But as he keeps moving forward, at the age of 70, if he has a different requirement — he’s saying, “Look, now that I have a grandchild, I want to pass on a higher corpus to my grandchild,” or “My grandchild is going to turn 21 and I want to sponsor so much of the education cost” — then that’s a new requirement which you have given me at the age of 70 which was not told to me at 60.

The moment you tell me that, I accordingly change the strategy towards that.

Exactly.

I normally always start the conversation by asking them: what is the set of requirements that you foresee which needs financial assistance between now and the future?

The risk appetite or risk score that they have, along with the set of requirements between the short, medium and long term, will decide what will be the allocation to equity and debt.

If the requirement of the client and the comfort of the client says that he wants to put certain money into a fixed-income instrument — for example, after 60 you typically have a Senior Citizens’ Savings Scheme, which is more of a guaranteed kind of return — and that product fits his requirement, obviously that is a suggestion which comes in.

That will have a fixed payout coming to him.

The balance amount of money can be done through the mutual fund route, which will typically have the SWP as the mode of remittance.

As I told you, the only thing that we cannot do is time when the market will go down or up.

Much before that 18-month period comes in, or much before the market downfall comes in, we are prepared to have positioned him or her in that particular space wherein, from that time onward, he is still having the adequate amount of money to take care of his requirements in the debt component.

Hence, the market crash as such is more of a passing phase for him.

That is what we have to ensure.

Any investment strategy, according to us, is not a “fill it, shut it, forget it” kind of approach.

You need to start with a particular thought process or strategy in play.

Then you need to have a constant mechanism of reviewing and monitoring it at a particular frequency.

That keeps ensuring that you’re adequately or better prepared to cater to such unexpected falls.

The standard rebalancing typically should be on a minimum one-year basis.

But if you’re talking about a 10%–15% kind of change, that kind of change will happen only when there is something happening very erratically in the market as an opportunity it provides to us.

More importantly, if there are any major life changes or requirement changes which are getting informed to us, that will be the time wherein there is going to be a major shift of a 10%–15% kind of rebalancing.

Otherwise, the typical strategy-wise rebalancing will happen more on a one-year basis.

Good question.

Again, the age factor — 100 minus age coming into your equity exposure — is something that we do not believe in.

I think it has more to do with mindset and behaviour than anything else.

It’s not that equity is the only asset which is volatile.

You have fixed-income instruments which are equally volatile.

It’s just that you’re getting comfort from a guaranteed percentage which gets announced to you.

Whether that guaranteed percentage is as low as 2.5% to 4%, which is what the savings bank offers today, or an FD which is probably offering you 5.5% to 6%, you just get comfortable with that guaranteed number.

But is that a static number which is there?

No.

That is also volatile depending upon how the interest rate movement is and how the overall economy is looking in terms of inflation.

One has to realise that volatility exists in every instrument that we’re talking about, and it is only for a particular period of time.

That guaranteed percentage — is it comfortable for you to withstand your cost of living with inflation?

That is something you need to have an answer to before you take comfort in that particular space.

Otherwise, if you have gone through periods of cycles, if you’ve understood that markets also have volatility, but if you look at it from an overall timeframe perspective, you generally do not tend to lose money in the markets if you have done it in the right manner.

What I’m saying is not timing the market.

If you know what extent of equity exposure you should be taking, you stick to more or less that kind of equity exposure, and you wait it out or have the patience to be in that phase or at that percentage for that period of time.

I think those two elements should always take you towards a positive return coming out of equity.

You’ll normally not look at a loss coming in from equity as such.

I think where people tend to get prone to the risk of volatility or losses is when they do not have these numbers in place — the extent of exposure — and the waiting period is not there.

Maybe they impulsively take it out in the wrong period of time.

That is where they probably face this kind of scenario.

Or even to some extent, when you tend to go a little overboard because the returns are absolutely wonderful and you say, “Let me stay more invested in equity.”

Then when the drop happens, you suddenly face a loss.

Or the other way to look at it is that you get scared or fearful.

Those are moments wherein you actually see a negative impact.

Otherwise, if you have the overall clarity in place, if you have a holistic view, if you’ve been given a basic minimum plan and outlay to your overall finances, one will not be in a position to look at a negative impact coming from the asset class.

The asset class should not be blamed.

Equity is an important factor to look into, given where we are today and given where inflation is.

I think that’s one of the only asset classes which can give you the comfort of beating inflation from a longer-term perspective.

That’s the whole idea of wanting to have some exposure to equity.

Why would anybody want to go through volatility?

Nobody wants to actually go through it.

The reason you’re doing it is: is there a better way to beat inflation?

Yes, there is, if you have a substantially high corpus.

But then what percentage of people will have that kind of corpus and a modest lifestyle wherein that can be taken care of?

That’s a question mark.

The second thing is, retirement from whatever we’ve been seeing and listening to — people think retirement means the end of life.

We want that approach to completely change.

You started your life. You did the first 20–25 years studying and getting into a job.

Then you’ve been slogging it out for 30–35 years trying to meet your family requirements and somewhere not being able to give yourself that time.

Now you’ve reached a phase wherein responsibilities are done.

You can completely look at yourself without feeling ashamed about it or shy about it.

Then again, you say, “What happens if I run out of the corpus? What happens if I do this? What happens if I do that?”

You have been living a compromised life right throughout the journey of life.

So when did you actually enjoy it?

You need to start looking at it that you deserve, or you have the right, to enjoy.

That enjoyment comes in when you have that particular solution in front of you:

“This is my potential income. This is my potential expense. This is my lifestyle, and I want to live this lifestyle as a bare minimum standard of living that I want to keep up for myself.”

I want to do other things till the time I’m healthy.

I need to continue to do that.

If you have the answer that you can have a balance between the two, and the only disturbing aspect is something which is more like a wave of volatility that you have to withstand, but not necessarily a loss, and if you understand that — and it’s not that I’m expecting you to understand that on day one — you will understand it if you stay with it and are guided by a particular person throughout the journey.

I think you’ll be able to do that.

Yes.

Sachin, for me, when I started off this company of ours, very clearly one thing was that people have to understand that money is more of an enabler in life.

It’s not the start and the end point.

It’s just available to you to make you do things that you want to do.

Not that money is everything, but there are things in life that you cannot do without money being available.

One needs to have that clear understanding.

One needs to be relatively prudent about it in terms of how he goes about it and have a balance wherein he is able to live his life today and also be prepared for living his life tomorrow without any gaps.

I think maintaining that balance is what is called living life.

As long as he or she is able to understand that, I think there’s nothing to look back upon.

Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you so much.