Year End 2025
Warning: This is a long post and has little ‘direct’ correlation to Investing :-). But then, we have always believed in what CRL James had to say on cricket: “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” We think the same principle applies to investing as well. I wasn’t aware that CRL James’ quote itself was an inspiration from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The English Flag” (1891), which contains the line:
“And what should they know of England who only England know?”
Speaking of profound lines, One of the modern Hindi literary greats Vinod Shukla passed away in Dec this year. He was known for being the champion of simplicity in his writings. Below is one of his poems :
The English Translation, courtesy: Business Standard
A man sat down out of despair
I did not know the man
I knew despair
So I went near that man
I extended my hand
Holding my hand, he stood up
He did not know me
He knew my hand being extended
We both walked together
Neither knew each other
We knew walking together.
Vinod Shukla was a Sahitya Akademi and Jnanpith award winner. I found this to be one of the best obituaries on him. The below excerpt is from that article.
Back to something less profound: -). Our Team Updates:
For us 2025 started with Mridushmrita Bordoloi joining us. She comes with more than 3 years of banking experience. We ended up carving a new role (not the first time we have done this) for her, as an Associate in Client Relations Team. We love grooming internal talent for future roles and as part of her job, she would be working in Client Success and Client Relations (shadowing me and my senior colleague Srivatsa Jayanti ). We are now a 7-member team, across three functions: Client Relations, Client Success and Research & Analysis).
A decade of Pruthvi : The first one after me, to have the trust and leap of faith to join the BuckSpeak journey. Pruthvi joined BuckSpeak in November of 2015 and since then has been the pillar of the Client Success Team at BuckSpeak and is now making rapid strides in Client Relations as well. Throughout every ups and downs we have had, his smile has been a constant. He is now a senior member of the team and invariably the mentor for every new joinee.
Our annual off-site
Our annual team off-site was in Goa this year and I chose that same very weekend to have flu and miss the trip. But I guess, who would want their boss on a Goa trip? 🙂
Baithak is a Hindi word, which means an intimate gathering of people, enjoying an immersive experience (traditionally music) and in our case, without any agenda/structure :-). Our Baithaks have a guest and a facilitator. The idea is to listen to the guest’s life journey. We keep the gathering small (20-25) and open for all. We held our first Baithak in July 2025 and hosted five of them in 2025. We are extremely excited to host many more of these (generally once every month, on a Saturday) in the new year. Do DM me (subir@buckspeak.com) or my colleague Sarvani ( sarvani@buckspeak.com), in case you would like to be part of the next one.
My personal High 🙂
2025 was also the year, when I ran my first full marathon at the NMDC Hyderabad Marathon. It took me a total of 5 : 41: 56 to finish the run(in case you are wondering, that is indeed slow 🙂 ) . I enjoyed the process and its ‘aftertaste’, more than I had anticipated. If you haven’t tasted freshly brewed glass of beer after a marathon( or half), you have indeed been devoid of one of the greatest pleasures of life :-). Here are two photos from 10 years apart 🙂
Running has been a huge part of my life in the last 11-12 years and a large part of that credit goes to my running buddies at PCR.
What I liked watching:
Between prep for the full marathon and work, I couldn’t my usual quota of cinema/ OTT content. My favourite this year was Black Warrant (it’s on Netflix). It’s based on the non-fiction book written by journalist Sunetra Choudhury and the former superintendent of Tihar Jail, Sunil Gupta and is his account as a Jailer at Tihar.
Amongst movies, I enjoyed two relatively smaller ones a lot. The first one, Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound, ( Netflix) is also India’s official entry to Oscars this year. The second one was to be honest, best enjoyed in a theatre; Jugnuma, directed by Ram Reddy. Coincidentally it’s the 2nd feature film directed by both the directors. The first ones were equally great.
Travel
While I did travel quite a bit this year, but one special trip me and my son took was to our village in Madhubani, Bihar, just to eat the mangoes :-). And both of us hogged. While my favourite Maldah ( also known as Langda) hadn’t yet arrived, we devoured Bhagalpur’s very famous Jardalu.
That aside, I also discovered a beautiful university town Aarhus, while visiting Denmark and the city grew on me in the 4 days that we stayed there. Some of the amazing sights are the 17 artwork across the city, which are interpretations of the UN Sustainable goals . The project is titled as 17 walls.
Diwali
Diwali is a happy time for us at BuckSpeak and a time to collaborate with the artisans and smaller businesses. For last few year, we have worked with the creative folks at The Burlap People from Kolkata. This year, we decided to celebrate our home : Hyderabad. We worked with three wonderful entrepreneurs from the city (coincidentally women) : Vibrant Living ( a vegan food company), Mattipilla Ceramics and Anuja’s Design Studio (she has now moved to Hyderabad) for the creatives. This year, the BuckSpeak Team, literally got their hands dirty to pack those boxes :-).
What are we excited about in 2026 ?
In all likelihood, we would be moving to a newer office in Hyderabad. At BuckSpeak, there is one phrase, we bore our clients to death with : Long Term. Investing in the new workspace, for us is walking the talk. We are in this for the long haul. It’s going to be bigger, contemporary and lively ( as the current one) space :-). Would keep all of you posted when that happens and would love to host you there. If ever you are in the city or this part of the city and want a space to work from, BuckSpeak would love to host you.
And we would continue to work hard on our code : DeEsRa (Depth In Engagement, Excellence in Service and Rigour in Advisory).
Wishing you, your loved ones and the world in general a lovely 2026
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