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By Matthias Knab

Emerging markets are a hot topic for all investors. Hedge funds focused on emerging markets are doing very well. Emerging market opportunities, and issues, are widely discussed now even in the mainstream press. At Opalesque, any given week we receive updates if this week the Indian Tiger is on top, or if the Chinese Dragon is flying ahead on the global investor’s asset allocation. After having been to mainland China in 2005, where I was chairing a hedge fund conference in Shanghai, I was excited to have an opportunity to travel to India in September 2006. For me, travelling to the region, going “behind the news” by simply going there, is part of my “common sense” approach. This trip quickly became a different experience than looking at a GDP growth chart. In this article, I am sharing my first hand experiences during my three weeks in India.

I should have known it. The signs were there. Looking back, I should have realised it much earlier. After 21 years, I travelled to India for the second time in September 2006. While waiting in line at the immigration at the Mumbai international airport, I witnessed the harshest, certainly the loudest (and almost violent) confrontation I ever come across in a public building. It was one traveller of Indian origin (he was the loud one) versus one, then two, then three Indian immigration officials. It was the weirdest thing I ever saw at any airport. I was soon to find out t......................

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