I was probably in the 5th standard when my parents decided I was old enough to be entrusted with bank transactions. More than anything it was a matter of convenience as my parents would leave home before 8am everyday while the banks raised their shutters leisurely at 9am. My school started at 9.30a and so I, just barely 10years old began to get a taste of the workings of the Indian banking system.
The transactions usually were to withdraw cash and my father would write a self check the previous night, constantly reminding me till he left the following morning that I needed to get cash for the home, always adding that its after all a self check so it should be quick.
It rarely was anything but quick. I would be there at 9a sharp & the only person at the bank would be the guard with his old dusty rifle (which was probably so rusted that it wouldn't have fired anything if the situation needed it), raising the shutters of the bank, opening the dusty, creaky windows. Slowly the clerks would trickle in, most of them were women dressed in their finest work ware and matching jewelery. I would be waiting impatiently for the clerk to take my cheque and process it but she would have her own agenda. First item was to walk around and greet everyone asking them how their day was. Next would be to complement each other on the saree or jewellery that they were wearing, if it turned out there was a new saree store in town, a lengthy discussion would ensue about what was available(silk, organza, cotton) and if the prices were reasonable or not.
By this time a boy would have brought steaming cups of coffee and handed it around. The conversation would slowly dwindle down and they would move towards their chairs with a reluctant sigh. Even after they made their way to their seat and pulled out one of those mammoth ledgers, conversation would continue with their neighbour as to what they had for breakfast and how their children were doing in school.
It finally would be time for her to look up to see the long line of customers with me in the fore front waiting for her to start her work. After handing over my cheque, I couldn't just heave a sigh of relief and wait. I now had to watch carefully as this cheque passed thru two other people's hands before it made its way to the teller. All the while my eyes would drift from the clock to the journey of the cheque. Once or twice I would nudge it along by telling the clerk that it was getting late for school and I really needed the cheque to get passed.
While I twiddled my fingers and waited nervously, if my stars were not aligned that day, a friend of the manager or one of the clerk's would stop by to deposit a cheque and that would pass with lightning speed to the teller and take precedence over all the poor souls like me who had been waiting from 9am. When the cheque finally reached the teller, that was it, I had to let go and wait till my token number was called. At this point I had no choice but to wait and peek thru the glass windows to see if the teller grabbed my cheque or not. There would be a lot of pushing and shoving around the teller window as people waited in anxiety.
At last my number would be called with perhaps 5 or 10mins left for the first bell at school. I would grab the money, run home and keep it in the godrej and rush to school. By nature I was of the sort that liked to be really early to school so you can imagine the tension and anxiety this sojourn with the dinosaur banking system caused me. I managed to avoid getting into the late line at school most of the time, and the couple of times when I didn't and got punished for being late, I would be hopping mad. Here I was being disciplined at school for being late, and there outside was a bank where adults came in as late as they wanted to with no repercussions whatsoever. Where was the justice in that?
Later as I grew up and started working, I began to fantasize going back and getting a job in the bank. A clerk's job now seemed golden with all its leisure, chit-chats, tea/coffee breaks and not much work at all and here I had studied hard to get a job in a fast paced world, with my boss assigning a task to me and telling me that it was due yesterday. It seemed foolish to me that I had worked so hard to get a job where I had to work even harder to keep pace, and out there were the banking clerks whose sole purpose for coming in to work seemed to be to socialize while the work itself was treated with scant disdain.
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