A Trip to a PSU Bank After Ages

My wife has been saying for a (long, long) while that we should go re-activate or close or pull out our money in PPF and SBI. We haven’t transacted in either for a long time, so it was almost certain they were dormant. We don’t expect the process to be easy or clear, but finally we decided to initiate the process.

 

We to the nearby SBI branch. We went in, saw a token generator, and went to get one. It wasn’t working. Ok, so you’d expect a queue somewhere, right? Except the only queue was in a counter to open new accounts! Weirdly, lots of people were seated with no apparent hurry or urgency. Waiting (for what? For who?), filling forms, no urgency, no impatience, no irritation… it was almost surreal.

 

My wife then saw an employee walking by and asked him how to get a token. He gave a wide smile, you know the kind rural folks give urban denizens when they come to a village… Oh, you poor ignorant people. Then he said, “The token system doesn’t work” and helpfully added, “You see such crowds only on Saturdays, madam, the place is empty on weekdays”. Who builds a system if it is only needed one day a week, he seemed to be conspiratorially winking. It was like we had entered a parallel universe to the ICICI’s and HDFC Banks.

 

It became evident that we weren’t the first such misfits he had seen at the branch. Because he helpfully told us, “See that cabin there? Just walk in the moment you see me free”, adding, “If you stay in the seating area, your turn will never come”.

 

We weren’t sure if we were supposed to keep hovering outside his cabin, so we sat in the seating area to, well, I don’t know do what. The place had that sense of time standing still, no urgency, no rush. I then noticed more experienced folks walking into his cabin even while another customer was in the room! The queue, I immediately understood, started inside his room.

 

So we joined the queue and were soon inside the room, 3rd in queue. It was a good thing because I got to learn the protocol to follow. (1) You don’t sit, unless asked to (No, this wasn’t just for the government job folks, we saw “people like us” followed this step too) (2) You address him as Sir always (3) They don’t treat you badly or like they are doing you a favour or anything like that, but equally, the customer isn’t king either.

 

The guy in front of us had forgotten his online password. The manager placed a request in the system and told him the new one would reach him soon. The innocent guy asked if he could try to login on Monday, to which the manager replied, “No, it won’t get done so soon. Wait for at least a week before you try”.

 

Now it was our turn. He went over the accounts, was surprised they were inactive for so long, had a look at the amounts in those accounts and commented in that wry, direct way only PSU employees can talk:

"लोग घर में इधर-उधर छोड़ी गई छोटी रकम भूल जाते हैं, लेकिन लगता है कि आप तो बैंक खातों में जमा पैसे ही भूल गए हैं।"

(That’s Hindi for “People forget small amounts they leave around the house, but you seem to forget money in bank accounts”).

 

We looked at him with the appropriate amount of expected sheepishness and asked him if he could take the request to re-activate them. “Sure, if the accounts were in another city, I would have helped you”, he said, “but these accounts are in Bangalore only. So you should go to the respective branch to do the needful”. Clearly, networking and the Internet hasn’t gone deep enough in this bank. Then he listed the docs to carry with us when we went there, and added a very important detail which would never have occurred to private banking people like us – carry 3-4 copies of each.

 

The whole experience was surreal and amusing, like we had entered a time machine and gone back in time. Clearly, the manager had encountered many time travellers like us and knew how to handle, er, guide us.

 

I am sure the next steps in the respective branches (far away though in Bangalore) will be anything but smooth. But I did have one very positive takeaway from this visit. Remember that line above on people forgetting small amounts around the house? Well, I came back and told that to my 14 yo daughter as “proof of wealth” to the one who always derisively asks:

“If you people have money, why don’t I see a BMW in our parking lot?”

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