Haathii agar baiTh bhee jaaye to gadhe se oonchaa hotaa hai

Film : Baap Numberi Beta Dus Numberi
Year of release : 1990
Spoken by : Raman (Kader Khan)
Spoken to : Prasad (his son played by Shakti Kapoor)

This line is often used by me while referring to the financial markets and its constituents. I will come to that in a moment. Now both father and son are in a constant game of oneupmanship in this movie. Prasad goes and fraudulently collects gold from Raman's locker. In the meantime, Raman cleans out the balance in Prasad's account fraudulently. He calls up Prasad to tell him this and also tells him that the gold that Prasad has taken is fake. So the father is reiterating to the son that even if the son grows up he will not really match up to the father. He puts it beautifully

"Haathii agar baiTh bhee jaaye to gadhe se oonchaa hotaa hai"
"हाथी अगर बैठ भी जाये तो गधे से ऊंचा होता "

Now let me tell you my financial markets analogy. There are two common financial assets that people invest in - debt and equity. Now if you invest in debt, the growth is more steady, whereas in equity the journey is more volatile. But even if equity tanks very badly, over a 10 year term it would still end up giving more returns than debt. This has been my experience in the Indian markets over the last 20 years. Hence, if someone asks me the question equity or debt, I say this

"हाथी अगर बैठ भी जाये तो गधे से ऊंचा होता "