Time to speak out
The day two of the conference clearly belonged to Dena Bank chairman Ramesh Mishra. "You tie our hands, tie our legs and yet want us to swim," said Mishra giving vent to his frustrations. This inspired other bank chairmen to become bold and come out with stories of board room trauma and government pressures. Most of the bank chairmen attended the conference were at the fag-end of their career and readying for retirement over the next few months.

On the receiving end
Leo Puri, principal, McKinsey & Co, was at the receiving end for most of the time after he made his presentations on mergers and acquisitions in Indian banking industry. UBI Bank chairman Biswajit Chowdhury demanded an apology from Puri for making "derogatory" remarks on Calcutta banks. "May I ask you to explain what do you mean by saying others can go the Calcutta banks way?" Chowdhury said to which Leo actually did not have any answer. "It was a way of speaking," he said.

Merger mania
Merger mania was the central theme of the conference on the second day. Corporation Bank chairman RS Hugar said he was gheraoed by his bank employees at 8.30 in the morning at his residence after a newspaper carried a report HDFC was eyeing Corporation Bank. The only way to calm them down was to tell them that it was the other way round: Actually Corporation Bank is looking at HDFC, Hugar said.

Behind the mask
YV Reddy, RBI deputy governor, dissected governor Bimal Jalan's speech in the most pragmatic way for the benefit of senior bankers. "Don't get carried away by the governor's smiling face. Behind the smiling exterior, there was some strong signals. I hope, you have noticed them," the Reserve Bank of India deputy governor said.