• My guest today is India’s most powerful, most media-friendly regulator, M. Damodaran.

Thank you for having me on the show.

• You look particularly cheerful.

Well, I think it’s freedom, in a sense, after 37 years of public service.

• So when did you hold more power — as India’s chief stock markets regulator or as district magistrate in Agartala?

I think it’s not so much about holding power. It’s about the kind of responsibility that goes with the position you have.

• Maybe you got more late night calls then than now.

Well, late night calls one gets even now, except that one learns to take the right kind of calls — those not relating to the market etc.

• Now tell us about some metaphorical late-night calls, some experiences. . .

Well, there have been a couple of investors who have called in recent times, in the context of an IPO that did not do well.

• Reliance Power?

A big IPO. I don’t take names. He wanted to know what we had done or were proposing to do. I clarified that we don’t fix prices, we vend, offer documents, and give our observations on offer documents. Other than that there have been calls about the market.

• Calls from the government?

Calls from the government, certainly not. I wish often there were more calls. In order to get an understanding of what we were doing in the last three years.

... contd.