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By:

Kaustubh Kale

10 September 2024 at 6:07:15 pm

The Umbrella Mindset

In Mumbai, July is the month when the monsoon is no longer a possibility, but a full-blown reality. Over the last week or so, the city has seen heavy rains. One minute the rain slows down, the next - the skies open up again without warning. And yet, most of us carry an umbrella. Not because it is raining every single minute, but because we know it can start again anytime. The Umbrella Mindset We don’t wait for the first drop to go shopping for umbrellas. We keep them ready in advance, knowing...

The Umbrella Mindset

In Mumbai, July is the month when the monsoon is no longer a possibility, but a full-blown reality. Over the last week or so, the city has seen heavy rains. One minute the rain slows down, the next - the skies open up again without warning. And yet, most of us carry an umbrella. Not because it is raining every single minute, but because we know it can start again anytime. The Umbrella Mindset We don’t wait for the first drop to go shopping for umbrellas. We keep them ready in advance, knowing full well that even if this moment looks clear, the next could be a downpour. The umbrella becomes our silent weapon - a simple tool that saves us from chaos. Oddly enough, this very logic is often forgotten when it comes to our finances. Timing the Market Most investors want to “time” the market. They wait for the perfect entry point. They follow headlines, economic predictions, even astrological forecasts, hoping to invest only when the conditions are ideal. But markets, like weather, move on their own terms. They rise without notice. They fall when you least expect it. And the biggest gains often come in short, unpredictable bursts. If you miss even a few of those good days, your long-term returns could take a serious hit. Discipline beats Prediction This is why seasoned investors don’t obsess over timing. They focus on discipline. Just like carrying an umbrella during the monsoon might seem unnecessary when the rain pauses for a few hours, investing through monthly Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs) might feel boring during flat markets or downturns. But the magic lies therein. This very habit - regular, automatic, and emotion-free - helps you achieve financial goals and financial freedom. Financial Umbrella A good investor doesn’t predict the market. They prepare for it. Think of your SIPs as your financial umbrella. You may not need them to perform immediately, but when volatility hits, they shield you. When markets recover, they make sure you are already in. And just like Mumbaikars would never step out in July without checking for an umbrella, serious investors never skip their SIPs. Lumpsum Investing Importantly, besides SIPs, it is also necessary to keep doing lumpsum investments frequently, without worrying too much about markets. Just ensure your time horizon is long term, ideally 5+ years. So, the next time someone asks, “Is this the right time to invest?” - just smile and point to the umbrella in your bag. The goal isn’t to wait for the rain. It’s to be ready when it comes. Conclusion Don’t wait to invest. Invest and then wait. The best time to invest is as soon as you have the money to invest. Don’t try to time the market - your time spent in the market, meaning remaining invested, beats timing the market. The pessimist bear may sound smart, but the optimist bull creates wealth. Keep deadlines. Execute. Don’t indulge in analysis-paralysis. Scared money never wins. (The author is a Chartered Accountant and CFA (USA). Financial Advisor. Views personal. He could be reached on 9833133605.)

Caged Lives, Vanishing Wings

Pinjar literally means “cage.” But the word can be expanded to mean more than a cage. In Rudrajit Roy’s debut film, the title refers both to birds, the bird-catcher and to other characters held captive in the larger and invisible cage called Life.


“Pinjar is about captivity in its visible and invisible forms. It asks whether freedom is an external condition or an internal awakening. It does not provide solutions. It observes, reflects, and invites the audience to confront their own cages,” says Roy.


Pinjar is the director’s response to cages - literal and invisible - we construct around others and ourselves adhering to societal templates. The story mirrors a bird torn from its forest, struggling to survive in captivity. Like that bird, Jhimli, Paromita, Shefali, Tarak, and Iqbal are all ensnared by patriarchy, poverty, grief, and violence.


“Their struggles reflect the quiet tragedies we normalize, naming it as resilience. This film is a protest against that normalization—a resistance to cruelty, silence, and systemic oppression. But it’s also a soft, urgent plea for compassion, for liberation, and celebration of individuality.”


The film opens with a stark warning on the global decline of bird populations, tracing it to the widespread poaching and caging that have driven many species towards extinction.


Tarak (Sagnik Mukherjee) is a bird-catcher who is very poor with a growing girl Jhimli to take care of, her mother having died at child-birth. He belongs to a low caste and finds it difficult to eke out a bare living because there is a severe depletion of birds in his village. The camera focuses and closes in on some birds like the Asian fairy blue bird, the yellow bird, the black bulbul, the Darjeeling woodpecker, the white-rumped shama, the streaked spider-hunter, the zebra finch and the blue-winged laughing thrush. “These birds are familiar in the Indian sub-continent which makes their disappearance quite disturbing. The idea was to show that loss often begins quietly,” says Roy.


Jhimli (Swastidipa Das) cannot cope with the cruelty of capturing birds but helps her father as much as she can. Poverty keeps her away from school but she keeps tracing alphabets and letters on the floor with a stick. Tarak doubles up as a pseudo priest to earn some extra money which is wrong as he is not a Brahmin and neither does he know the rituals that go into Hindu poojas and prayers. He has a Muslim friend Iqbal (Ishan Mazumder) who helps him eke out a living. Soon, he too is trapped in his profession because of his faith. Paromita (Satakshi Nandy) is young and attractive widow who ekes out a bare living by cooking for the children in a local school.


A completely different track narrates the story of an urban, beautiful, working wife and mother Shefali (Mallika Banerjee), a sad victim of domestic violence. This track has no connect with the main story and sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise beautiful painting. One wonders why a smoking, drinking and working wife with a boyfriend is so quiet about the domestic abuse and quits her husband and home when the husband is unwell. It does not make sense. Pinjar would have been a beautiful film if this track did not exist.


Pinjar has been screened at around nine national and international film festivals. Sagnik Mukherjee as Tarak and Swastidipa Das as Jhimli are brilliant. Manas Bhattacharyya’s cinematography captures the beauty of Nature as eloquently as it catches the pained expressions on the faces of Tarak, Jhimli, Iqbal and Shefali. Ratul Shankar’s background score and songs are beautiful including the soundtrack filled with the chirping of birds, the unending circular staircase a tired Shefali climbing slowly back to a home which was never hers, are beautiful.


The film was shot in rural Bengal and parts of urban Kolkata, including residential high-rise interiors and Jharkhand. A wild life cinematographer shot the birds and recorded their exact sounds for a span of 18 months in India and Nepal.


Asked what defines the trigger for a film beginning with caged birds, Roy says, “The image of a bird struggling inside a small bamboo cage stayed with me for years. It raised a simple but haunting question: who is truly trapped — the bird, or the man who traps it? From that question, the story gradually expanded into a meditation on captivity.”


(The writer is an award-winning film scholar.) 


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