[Reader-list] Changing banking practices in Udaipur

[faraaz mehmood]

Anna goes corporate!!

As the dusk descends on the hot airs of the day things
start brightening & getting lighter in my bank. Anna
has spent the day with her grandmother who caters to
her needs & tantrums patiently. By six o’ clock in the
evening her patience has worn thin & she needed a
change. The yet to be three year old Anna too welcomes
a change of scene. So with the advent of the evening
Anna makes her entry to join her mother Maithili
Bhanawat the operations head of the bank & will remain
in the premises till nine p.m. Magic realism lurking
in the corners of the bank throughout the day now
permeates every inch of the floor space. The piercing
commands of Maithili, her barkings on all of us to get
on with the deadlines, her reminders which sound more
like threats & the ugliness in her hoarse voice will
now be replaced by the change in command, anna & her
coaxing reminders. 													Anna is a frail child,
mere bones clad in wheatish skin always on the move
with the feet of a ballerina. She lacks all the
trappings of a television kid, no chubby cheeks, no
rosy lips. Her daily presence from the last one-year
has given her a deep unconscious awareness of banking
procedures without ever taxing her brains about its
meaning. The relevance is perfect though. After
circling a few times around her mother. She climbs the
back of the chair to get the level with the cash
counter. The three guys sorting the cash & the cashier
get a dose of the evening wisdom. Picking up the
mannerisms of her mother in her childish baritone she
yells at the cashier “rajan Uii entry post karo.
Keerti atm envelop kholo. cash close karo. Sohan
bundle bandho”  as the evening progresses she diverts
her attention towards the front-office guy animesh in
the same command voice “Cumm modify karo, atm card hot
listing karo, ddpall khali karo” 		all this while she
is playing prank with the bank paraphernalia.
Sometimes sitting on the bundles of the currency
notes, while the cash is being loaded into trunks to
be taken into the vault, picking up tabs & discarded
cheques from the rubbish to build up her imaginative
stories, pirouetting & orchrestating into perfect
postures to get to the concerned persons with the
correct commands.  							At the clearing desk
Mangilal gets ready to receive the pearls of wisdom.
Tugging at his sleeve, anna orders him “ Mangilal,
final entry maro. Tod post karo, bm aage bhejo, afi
khali kharo, octm karo”. The beauty about anna is she
never gets into anyone’s way, no intervening, no
obstructions. She makes her presence intangible,
ethereal. She skirts her way into every section of the
bank: home loans, demat, insurance, clearing, personal
loans, front office & even cash. Her persuasive voice
does not irritate or interfere with the hectic
schedule of the closing activities. Far from being
impertinent, the bank literally waits for her
corporate innocence to sweep away the heavy pallor of
monotony we all suffer from. 											Last year
around this time when I started my career I rather
pitied the two-year-old infant spending her evenings
in the glaring lights  & the humming air-conditioner
of the closed environs.  I pitied the child for her
yearnings for her mother, for losing the shouts & glee
of the evening parks, the tilting seesaws, the swings
in the air. I discreetly inquired about her presence
in the bank & I was told that anna gets to sleep
before her mother reaches home, hence the arrangement.
Soon my notions have to be changed & discarded
completely. Here is a child who is making the most of
the situation. She has accumulated the banking voices
into a child’s play with the precision & relevance of
a corporate boss. Far from being pitied or
condescended she has earned admiration, love & respect
from all the bank employees who wouldn’t lose a single
opportunity to complain, gibber or back bite. Her
amazing innovations, the prattle of her dancing feet,
her appearance on the various desks at the right
moment with the right advise turn the harsh reality
with the magical softness. Every evening we wait for
anna to bring in that soft glow of the setting sun,
the cool air of the descending evening to lighten the
heated airs of the day.    													
                Rooplal to the rescue	
		
The office attendant of my bank is Rooplal, an amazing
character of five feet, who cycles his way to the
workplace, twenty kms. To display the vigour of the
bird hopping from desk to desk on a twelve hour
schedule. He has been in the branch right from its
inception  & has gained the invaluable insight, an
experience of five years. His meagre education a pass
in the sixth standard did not ever hinder him from
learning the intricacies of the banking software
finacle, going through the daily rituals of
interconnecting the various desks with the operations
head, sales manager, the branch head, interacting with
the clients attending to their whims & complaints,
reminding the outer agencies for the lapses like
non-deliverance of the courier packages or delay in
compliance to the provoking demands of an HNI (High
Net Worth Individual). 							The man Friday is loaded
with work like the rest of us. The only difference
each employee is responsible for his own area of work
while Rooplal is shouted upon when he lacks behind in
bringing finished work from every desk to the
operations head. My branch has six different areas of
work, which has to be compiled into reports at the end
of the day, generated & fired to be handed over to
Maithili Bhanawat at the. The corporate motto is less
people more work. After slogging for twelve hours we
all shirk the tedious ritual of feeding the report
around nine-p.m. Rooplal cannot leave the premises
without delivering the stack of fifteen reports from
various employees to the operations head.  So he eggs
on all of us to go speedily over the tedium. Due to
more work & less pay the rate of attrition is
monumental. At any given point of time half of the
bank is peopled with newcomers, tentatively learning
the intricacies of finacle. Even a week old employee
cannot afford to make a mistake. Whatever he is
feeding in the computer gets directly connected to the
Bombay headquarters. To escape the rap on the knuckles
the green horns sheepishly grin & whisper for Rooplal.
The djinn appears on the elbow with the finacle help,
“ Eph Phour maro, Eph likho, Y likho or ab eph 10
karo” when the novice demands an explanation for
punching the relevant keys then Rooplal offers the
stock reply, “ sab karte hain  is liye aap bhi karo” .
					For all his physical & mental gyrations Rooplal
earns a princely salary of Rs. 2000 a month. He
punctuates his hectic circling with several
five-minute breaks when he leaves the air-conditioned
opulence of the bank to sit under a tree on his
haunches. Long drags on his beedi restores his balance
& gives him ample opportunity to profitably interact
with the banks neighbours. My bank is located in a
multi storeyed building with many worthy occupants the
most admirable being the income-tax dept. Rooplal is
marked with the bad luck of getting his bicycle stolen
every few months.  He likes to shackle his bicycle in
a chain, safe & secure for the long day ahead.  For
the various sorties he has to make around the city he
requests the peons of the income tax dept. to lend
their motorbikes. In turn he gets many assignments
done for the obliging neighbours. Encashment of
cheques without standing in the queue, speedy demand
drafts, exchange of currencies in big denominations &
so on. Across the road is the NCC headquarters &
canteen. Getting work done of the NCC men is more
alluring for Rooplal. The exchange offer is for all of
us to see. Snazzy T-shirts, fatigues, military boots
at throwaway prices & a bottle or two which Rooplal
discreetly hides in layers of newspapers. 						 
Contentment is writ large on the face of our man about
the bank. His only grumble since he is not a proper
employee of the bank he is not allotted a finacle id,
which prohibits him from independently operating the
computer. He would rather prefer to feed, generate &
fire the fifteen odd reports Mathili Bhanawat demands
at the end of the day from each employee. Instead he
has to assist, remind, coax & egg on all of us to
speedily go over the filing rituals while we attend to
the pressing multitudes of the bank each day.  



		
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