22 and timeless

Twenty-two years is a short time in the history of an institution but a long one in an individual's lifetime. The readers who have stayed with us since the beginning must have greyed quite a bit since that October when they held the first issue. Personally, I have made the journey from 32 to 54, which is, in a manner of speaking, almost an entire working lifetime. The numbers and names in the world of Indian mutual funds, too, have changed a lot. When we were preparing the first issue of this magazine, there were 41 fund companies in India, of which many have now disappeared. In fact, some of the highest-flying names of the time, like Zurich, Kothari-Pioneer and Alliance Capital, no longer exist. The way investors interact with mutual funds is also completely different. Earlier, it was all physical, with forms, cheques and statements being physically submitted or transported by post. At first sigh