No, I’m going to step down.

• And when will that be?

Shortly. You would like to do something else in the last five-ten years of your life. I’ve done this for so many years.

• What is shortly? You are young.

Even then, you must give chance to other people.

• So what is shortly?

And the very fact that you said that I’m a brand and I’m synonymous with HDFC . . . that’s a wrong thing to happen. And it’s dangerous. So it’s better to step down and give others a chance.

• I didn’t say you are synonymous with HDFC. I said you are a brand that represents India’s financial sector. Because when Deepak Parekh says rates may go. . .

But you know, you journalists have only one point of view on rates of interest. Wherever I go, whenever I meet a journalist of any hue, the only thing they want to know is interest rates. Is it going down? Everybody actually thinks that rates may go down.

• All journalists are borrowers. They are living on EMI.

That’s true . . . that’s true.

• So what would retirement mean for you? What will you do?

Instead of being full-time, one can be a non-executive chairman and spend time doing other things, like start playing golf, do some exercise, which I’ve not been doing.

• Before we go to anything else, bread-and-butter issues. Since I also live on EMIs, will interest rates go down? If yes, when?

... contd.