The Great SIP Story: How Ratan Babu Outsmarted the Market (and His Own Anxiety)
Ratan Babu was your typical middle-class office warrior — expert at making Excel sheets, terrible at making financial decisions.
Every month, he would proudly start a SIP.
And every three months, he would panic-sell it.
Why?
Because the market dipped by 0.73%, and his inner voice screamed:
“Beta, bazaar to doobchhe! Bachao!”
But this time, something changed.
The Legendary Day: Market Crash of — whatever random day Sensex feels moody
On a perfectly good Monday morning, the market fell.
Not a polite fall.
A “slipped on banana peel and crashed into the neighbour’s TV” type fall.
Ratan Babu opened his app.
Red everywhere.
His SIP dashboard looked like a crime scene.
He held his chest dramatically like a Bengali TV serial hero.
Just then, his wife Rupa looked at him and said:
“Jodi panic-sell korte chai, age ektu cha kha — brain ta thanda hobe.”
(If you want to panic-sell, drink some tea first. Your brain will cool down.)
Ratan paused.
He drank tea.
And suddenly realised something profound:
“Aami jodi crash e hi sell kori, tahole uthe gele buy korbo? I’m doing opposite of what clever investors do!”
The Wisdom of SIP Guru Kaka
Enter SIP Guru Kaka — the neighbourhood retired banker who gives life advice without being asked.
Kaka heard Ratan’s tale and said:
“Market jodi roller-coaster hoy, tumi to seatbelt pora thakle holo.
SIP holo sei seatbelt.”
Translation for non-Kaka speakers:
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Market will jump.
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Market will fall.
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You stay strapped.
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Don’t jump off the ride halfway.
Then Magic Happened
Instead of stopping his SIP, Ratan did something brave:
He increased it.
Why?
Because he remembered Kaka’s golden line:
“Market jodi sale e thake, tumi shopping koro — SIP increased hoye jabe.”
And slowly… very slowly… painfully slowly…
His portfolio grew.
Not every day.
Not every month.
But every year, like good biryani — slow cooker success.
Fast Forward 15 Years
New Ratan Babu is unrecognisable.
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He walks like a man with compounding confidence.
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He opens his portfolio app with pride, not paracetamol.
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He understands volatility like Indians understand power cuts — “Aasbe. Jaabe. Habit hoye jaabe.”
And one day, he tells his younger cousin:
“SIP is not a fast-food item.
It’s a slow-cooked investment biryani.
If you lift the lid every 2 minutes, only steam milbe — biryani hobena.”
The Moral of the Story
Patience kore thako.
Crash koruk, news bhebe bhebe matha garam koruk —
tumar SIP quietly kaaj korte thakbe.
Compounding doesn’t reward talent.
It rewards behaviour.
And Ratan Babu learned it the hard (and funny) way.
