A heavenly encounter with Zero
By: Balakrishna Adiga
Tags: Corporate Culture

Zero. A powerful word despite its simple meaning. Truly made in India. Shoonya in Sanskrit which means nothing or emptiness. Sifr in Arabic. Due to the context in which it was used, Sifr also means Cipher, a code. That is a different story. Let me stay in India and share with you a very interesting encounter I had with Zero recently.

Everyone these days has heard of Zerodha, India’s largest retail stock broking agency. A status quo disrupter like no other. Champion of KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle. Some call it Robinhood of Indian market. I would like to think Robinhood of as a wannabe Zerodha. I have been a Zerodha customer for more than 8 years, perhaps one of their earliest customers. Before becoming a Zerodha customer I had tried industry big names. They are still light years behind Zerodha. I must have completed thousands of transactions with Zerodha but haven’t had an unhappy one. In software engineering I think its called WAD, works as designed.

Coming back to my encounter with Zero. Last week I asked for a meeting with a senior executive Karthik at Zerodha. I needed to get clarifications to some regulatory questions I had. He is a very kind person. I call him Guruji as he has been liberally teaching me the complex theory behind equity and derivatives.

Guruji, like most Zerodha employees was working from home but agreed to meet me at his office. I went there on time. The lady asked someone to escort me to a conference room while she informed Guruji. I was led to a sparse meeting room. The person escorting me served me water and enquired if I wanted coffee or tea. I thanked him and said no. He said Guruji would join me in few minutes.

While I was waiting for Guruji I was checking my cell for messages. At that time I felt the presence of someone in the room. I turned and saw that a most beautiful creature of God was waiting at the door, checking if I was a friend or a foe. The sight reminded me of the verse from William Wordsworth

She was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely Apparition, sent

To be a moment’s ornament;

Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;

Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;

When I assume she realised that I didn’t look hostile or even scared of her, she came close to me and looked into my eyes. She was amazingly graceful, unworried about the environment, not a care in the world, just happy to meet one more human.

I remember a night many years ago in an upmarket hotel in Delhi. It was slightly late and I had asked for a table for one at the restaurant. The waiter had escorted me to a quiet corner. While I was choosing my meal, he placed a large glass bowl with a beautiful fish swimming in it on the table. When I asked him the reason for the same, he had told me with a smile that the hotel didn’t like their clients eating alone. The fish was going to be with me while I ate. I never forgot that experience.

This experience with this beautiful creature too was similar. In few minutes Guruji walked in and saw this beast in a chair next to me enjoying the company.

Zero at her best

That’s when I had the formal introduction. I came to know that her name was Zero and that she was an Indie stray. When Zerodha founder Nithin Kamath used to live in an apartment, she had landed up at his door at the 10th or 14th floor unannounced. It is a mystery till date how she reached the high floor. From that day she was part of Zerodha. I also came to know that Nithin had several strays floating around in Zerodha office, all taken care by him. The only other place I know where strays had free rein and well taken care of is Bombay House, the Tata head quarters. The hospitality there too, as in Zerodha is amazing. There was a time in my career when I had to spend long hours at Bombay House for meetings. and I had developed good bonds with all the dogs there.

I thank Zero for the great experience that day and Nithin Kamath and Guruji for making that happen.