Jim Rogers is a legendary investor, a swashbuckling traveller, a man who made his fortune before he turned 40. Now, he is an author and commentator. The man Times magazine once called the Indiana Jones of the world of investing has now morphed himself into a modern dad. In an exclusive interview with Ramesh Damani on CNBC-TV18's show RD 360, Roger discusses his latest book, A Gift to My Children: A Father’s Lesson in life and investing.

On the economic scenario right now, Rogers said we are in for an extended period of difficult times.

Jin Rogers' investment strategy is to look countries where valuations are cheap or paths that are less trodden.  He said, "I do try to find things that are cheap. Normally if something is cheap, it is because it is in the dustbin. People are not looking at it. If everybody is looking at something or if everybody is investing in something, you know as well as I do that it is not cheap. That is how he said he realised commodities was a good play in the 90s. I came to the conclusion at the end of the ‘90s that the commodities had been in a bear market for about 20 years because there had been excess supply in the 70s. But by the end of the 90s, I came to the conclusion that nobody built a drilling rig for 20 years and nobody had been discovering oil, farming had been a terrible business, farmers were going bankrupt all over the world. So, I realised that is going to mean there is less supply."

Here is a verbatim transcript of Jim Roger’s exclusive interview on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: You came into fatherhood fairly late, didn’t you?

A: Yes. I always felt sorry for people who had children. I never wanted to have a child. I thought children were a terrible waste of time, energy, and money. I literally felt very sorry for people who had children. I was never going to do something so foolish. I was totally, unbelievably wrong. I am telling you, it is the best thing that has happened to me. If there is anybody watching this show who has not had children, I urge you to get home and get on with it. You take a day off if you have to. You don’t take a day off these days, go home for lunch. But you should definitely have children.

Q: Let’s talk about the lessons in investing, some of which you have outlined in your book. The first lesson is, how do you size up a country? Can you give us an example of which country you are sizing now?

A: As I look around the world right now, I am not investing in many countries because if I am right about the world economy, we are in for an extended period of difficult times. So, the only place where I bought shares in the past year or so has been China. I have got Sri Lanka on my mind. It is just that I have been busy doing other things that I haven’t been able to get to Sri Lanka. But one of the things that I have learnt is that if you get to a country after a long and bitter war, you usually will find that things are very cheap, you will find a lack of capital, there is low morale, and everything is despondent, and there are usually great opportunities. So, Sri Lanka is on my list as a place where that sort of thing is happening, but there are not many, not these days.

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