In November 2025, Kolkata-based diagnostics centre founder Arup Kumar Samanta, 62, was diagnosed with tongue cancer. At the time, he was investing Rs.29,000 every month in equity mutual funds through Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs). Even after surgery, partly funded by health insurance, and 30 radiation sessions, he did not stop a single SIP. Five months on, he tells us over the phone from Kolkata—still struggling to speak, but with spunk in his thoughts and composure—that since his business income is ongoing, stopping his SIPs never crossed his mind.Every year, ET Wealth partners with Crisil to bring you an empirical study on why staying the course with your SIPs pays off — and what it costs you when you don’t. Numbers tell one part of the story. The more interesting part is what real people actually do when life or markets test their conviction. This story travels across India to meet two kinds of investors: those who kept their SIPs going despite personal crises, like Samanta, and those who stopped when markets turned volatile.
ARUP KUMAR SAMANTA, 62Kolkata, Diagnostics centre founderSIP amount:Rs.29,000/monthInvesting since: 2007Crisis: Tongue cancer, diagnosed November 2025; 30 radiation treatmentsGoals: Retirement, children’s education, two flats in Kolkata; all funded or in progressWhy he didn’t stop: Business income was unaffected; insurance covered most surgery costs; stopping never made financial senseSIPs missed: ZeroNote:If my income is going on, I should continue my SIP.”The ones who heldTragedy can strike in many ways. For Bengaluru-based Jagan Mohan K.B., 41, it came in December 2025, when he lost his job. Until then, he had been investing Rs.2.4 lakh monthly in SIPs. With guidance from his financial planner, Wealthy.in, he chose not to stop SIPs entirely, but optimise them instead. SIPs linked to long-term goals were paused, while those funding essentials such as his emergency corpus were retained. His monthly SIP outflow dropped to Rs.70,000—still a sizeable amount.Jagan’s ability to adapt to uncertainty was shaped early in life. In February 1998, when he was a teenager, his hometown of Coimbatore was hit by a series of 13 bomb blasts. His father’s business collapsed, plunging the family into financial distress.Things improved in 2005 when Jagan secured a job at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) through a highly competitive selection process. But with a modest starting salary, he began looking for additional income streams and got drawn into a popular multilevel marketing (MLM) company in South India. Initially, the money flowed. His lifestyle improved and spending became reckless. Soon, he was juggling 30 credit cards, five personal loans, and debt exceeding Rs.30 lakh. At the same time, his father—still rebuilding after the 1998 setback—had turned to equity day trading. With markets booming in 2006 and 2007, the family, in different ways, had become leveraged to a future no one saw coming.Then came 2008. The global financial crisis wiped out his father’s equity day trading portfolio and brought down the MLM company Jagan was associated with. The episode taught him the importance of disciplined saving. Ironically, his next attempt at “regular investing” was through a chit fund run by his uncle, at a time when chit funds were largely unregulated. Meanwhile, an overseas posting with TCS in Malaysia helped him repay his debt through favourable currency arbitrage. But more hard lessons followed after his father’s death, when his savings were depleted again and his health insurance fell short. That became a turning point. With the help of a financial planner, he mapped his goals, structured his SIPs, and strengthened his insurance cover.He bought health and term insurance, and began investing through SIPs. By the time he lost his job last year, he was financially well prepared: debt-free, adequately insured, with savings set aside for his children’s higher education, and in the habit of investing nearly 50% of his salary—about Rs.2.4 lakh a month—through SIPs. So when layoffs cost him his role, he reduced his SIP contributions but did not stop them entirely. Though still between jobs, he has since started a consulting firm advising startups, and continues to invest `70,000 a month through SIPs.Elsewhere, Aditya Chandra, a 36-year-old chartered accountant, gave up his credit card last year, believing it encouraged unnecessary spending. Keen to build wealth without relying on loans, he met his financial planner in 2022, who advised him to shift from multiple fixed deposits to mutual funds. At the time, Chandra was unhappy with his job in Gurugram because he felt he wasn’t getting compensated enough. A strong financial plan and disciplined investing gave him the confidence to switch jobs and move to Mumbai, despite its higher living costs. By October 2025, his SIP investments had peaked at `85,000 a month. Later, he reduced them to Rs.60,000, redirecting some money towards an emergency fund instead of stopping investments altogether.Now settled in his new job, he invests Rs.1 lakh every month in mutual funds through SIPs. “Having investments and putting money regularly gives you the backing to stay strong in bad times,” says Chandra.The question is: is partial continuation significantly better than a full stop, or is the gap small? “It depends from situation to situation, but in principle, investing something is better than nothing, because you are still getting units at a cheaper rate. It’s like if your business isn’t going well, you don’t shut it down, right?” says Shalab Gupta Bibhab, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Bibhab Capital, an Agra-based mutual fund distributor (MFD). “When you continue your SIPseven with reduced amounts, you are still in the ecosystem, your distributors are still in touch with you, the support, advice and guidance still continues. If you stop completely, you might just fall off the grid and lose touch,” says Prabin Agarwal, a Siliguri-based MFD.
