•But somehow one reason why the crisis looked so great was that we did not anticipate the global credit crisis transmitting itself to India so quickly.

Yes, that is right because we had probably underestimated the linkages that corporate India has built over a period of time through imports and exports.

•So take us back to those days of crisis management.

As you know, September 15 was when Lehman went bankrupt and that was also the time when in India it was the last date for payment of advance taxes, so there was the liquidity squeeze. People were aware of it. Probably, the thinking was that this is because the last date for advance tax has come. It took a little while for us to realise that.

•It’s a bit like somebody has fever and thinks it is normal viral flu and doesn’t carry out a dengue test.

Yes, that’s right, that’s right... In a couple of weeks, we realised that normally the liquidity tightness that happens around September 15 and then flows back into the systems wasn’t happening, and the tightness continued. So very quickly the central bank had to take steps to release liquidity into the market.

•There were weeks when you burnt the midnight oil.

Yes, the crisis, which was essentially a problem of liquidity, got into the capital market arena through the money market mutual funds. And the corporates, as they found their access to credit was getting squeezed, started withdrawing from the mutual funds. And mutual funds had these underlying assets which they did not know whom to sell to.

... contd.