Shri Basantji has very succinctly put across the main theme of his talk at ICFAI, Hyderabad. Actually, there is nothing more to add, however, since some BC members say, 'ye dil mange more' and Basant permits someone there to add, here is a random jotting of points (not necessarily in sequence or idea). Basantji can edit/delete anything that doesn’t fall in tune with the message.

All this time, I was reading equitydesk and Basant’s corner to think & follow what Basantji does. This was my first interaction and this was made possible by Basantji by means of obtaining clearance to have guests.  

• Fund Manager’s job is a lonely profession.
• Equities don’t always outperform other asset classes. However, carefully chosen stocks do outperform other assets classes over a reasonable long period.
• Returns in equities are always in bunches and losses too occur in bunches. Some stocks will make you money; all stocks will never make money. At the end, what matters is the bottomline.  
• While discussing what brings a bull market, a cue was given to look at what has happened in US. Normally, that gets replicated in India few years down the lane. There was a mention of Walmart’s success story being imitated in Pantaloon. That was one of the reasons to pick up Pantaloon when the retailing was opening up in India. Something, he called as ‘Copy-Paste’ endeavour. Make money when market gives you an opportunity.
• While discussing how to avoid making big mistakes, he commented on sectors that take away money from investors – Capex Intensive ones & cyclical. While in such sectors, the investors needs to get two decisions right – the entry and exit. However, with secular growth companies, investors can afford getting one act correct i.e. entry.    
• While talking on different types of Moats, he reiterated brand, patent, networking effect (Vodafone connection in family) NSE –Broking community – HDFC Bank network; first mover advantage E.g. Face book Vs Google Plus; need for huge capital investment
•  Opportunity cost: Everything in life has opportunity cost as a deciding factor. The Spouse analogy quoted by Basantji drew spontaneous applause like the Air Hostess one! Another one liner was in the context of ‘Buy what you see’. Instead of 3 inner wears, if one would have bought one share of Page Industries earlier, they would have been able to buy inner wears for lifetime!
• During the Q & A session, regarding PSU industries having the moat, he said, ‘PSU’s have a welfare outlook, while commerce teachers you to look at numbers, the profitability as the baseline’.

Overall, Basantji was a popular energetic speaker, willing to share information with students without sticking to any structured rigid format. Bringing practical market experience to the lecture hall and the classic one liners seemed to make great difference. All these made him engage every person in the audience impactfully.