LUNCH WITH BS: M S Verma

Fish curry and a level-playing field

He stands just five feet four in his socks. But Maya Shankar Verma, former State Bank of India (SBI) chairman has been the tallest banker in town in his time. My admiration for him went up several notches when I heard he had declined the finance ministry's offer of a six-month extension as the chief of the country's largest commercial bank. But I did have one grouse: unlike other SBI chairmen, he had never hosted a party for journalists.

 

But, wait a minute. Verma did throw a party at the Bombay Gymkhana: to celebrate the success of the Resurgent India Bond. And the party? Senior executives from SBI gathered at one end of the hall while their wives, clutching glasses of Coke and Pepsi, sat at the other end, in the classical Indian