Word: changoiwalas
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...Changoiwala follows this schedule because it is what he has done every day since he became a stockbroker in 1956, and because it is what his father did every day for 22 years before that. He perhaps also feels that he should set an example. He is the patriarch of a family that has followed in his footsteps. Ten among his children, nieces, nephews and younger siblings are stockbrokers. Or maybe it's 15. "I lose count," he says. "But you can say we have a tradition...
...Mostly, though, Changoiwala still goes to the office because he is a proud man who cannot accept the prevailing wisdom: the world he has known for more than six decades has been shattered beyond repair. "He is in a state of absolute shock, maybe even denial," says son-in-law Sandeep Harlalka. "It will take him some time to face the truth and start thinking about the future." The truth is that Changoiwala has little money to invest and even less work to do. His firm is deathly ill and his relatives are looking for jobs elsewhere: a daughter...
...Calcutta's brokers were not just victims of the March crash, but among its instigators. The Securities and Exchange Bureau of India (SEBI) concluded in a May report that the city's traditional broker families and their old-fashioned way of doing business?the very things that people like Changoiwala hold so dear?helped turn their bourse into a magnet for hot money and market manipulators. Foreign pundits are even less forgiving. "A cesspool," is how John Band, the Bombay-based CEO of investment bank ASK-Raymond James describes Calcutta's bourse. Many foreign bankers have judged the exchange...
...There is not a broker in Calcutta who will deny what was going on. Indeed, most passionately defend it. Changoiwala's brother, Kanta Prasad, gushes that the relationships forged by families who traded with one another in the gray market gave "touch and feeling" to Calcutta's bourse that was "absolutely unique." Mention unofficial finance to Mahajan, the former exchange vice president, and he gets so excited that his arms flail like the rotors of a distressed helicopter. "Nobody ever failed to pay up," he coos. "It served Calcutta for 100 years. It was a beautiful system. It was something...
...people in Calcutta believe the heyday of the bourse, or its roguish charm, can be restored. The city's private financiers were burned by the crash and are less willing to take risks, even for a friend. "All the trust has been lost," laments Kanta Prasad Changoiwala. Volumes on the bourse are expected to take another hit after July 2, when SEBI plans to introduce new rules?including regulated futures and options trading?aimed at controlling market hijinks. Some brokers think the Calcutta Stock Exchange may cease to exist altogether in a few months. For Changoiwala it would...