In 1991, India was roughly three weeks from defaulting on its international debt. Most people had no idea. The foreign reserves were gone. Import payments were piling up with nothing to back them up. The government had borrowed and deferred, and borrowed again, until the options ran out, leaving a room full of people who needed to figure out what came after that.

The Governor wasn't the loudest person in that room. He rarely was. While others were still processing the scale of what they were looking at, he had already moved past that stage. There's no luxury in sitting with shock when you're the one who has to explain to a room full of decision makers exactly how much time they don't have.