You know things are going to take a turn for the worse when an adult starts an argument with, "When I was your age...". That's exactly how a professor lecturing us on stock markets started his lecture.

A class of 19-year-olds majoring in Economics, we were too shocked to comment when he said he had already planned retirement when he was our age. Of course, we dismissed all of it as a scare tactic. But we learnt the hard truth - that textbook knowledge and financial gyaan are two different things; the latter comes with actually putting your money in the market. And mutual funds have always been the hottest basket, with a slew of advertisements that come with the disclaimer, "subject to market risks".