My New Year Nightmare

The beginning of the new year, the first week of January, is a time of joy for everyone. A time of new beginnings, new hopes, resolutions, plans…

For the past few years, this time of the year is the dreariest for me. Of course, I do feel good about all the new beginnings, hopes and stuff and even the new semester which starts in January. At the same time, there is something lurking behind all this- that sinister feeling that something is terribly wrong or something horrible is imminent. This happens every year that I seldom get to revel in the splendour of New Year Celebrations, because I know- If New Year has come, can “that day” be far behind?‼

Yes, it is in the first week of January that my annual, mandatory visit to the bank is due and nothing can make me more uncomfortable than that. In banker’s lingua, it is just child’s play- closing an FD and starting a new one along with an RD with some SI issued to SB. And for me, taking a round trip to Mars would be much simpler. Oh, by the way, I hope you know what FD, RD, SI and SB are. If not, please don’t ask me.

Even the Christmas festivities are marred by the flashing thoughts of the impending encounters with the counters. While people dream about Santa Claus coming down their chimneys and dropping gifts in stockings, I have dreams of sweating and reeling inside a bank.

And that day was today. I get geared up for the day with an extra cup of coffee (need that to keep my head strong) and 5 almonds (helps sanity, I heard). I go to the bank chanting the manthra “I can do it, I can do it”. As I step in, I see about 75 people in different sizes, shapes and attire at different counters. “Why are there so many of them here! Why can’t they all just stay at home?!” They make me nervous. Oh! Cashless economy, I remind myself.

To the first person I see, I give my SOP-Statement of Purpose. “I need to close an FD and start a new one”. I have been practicing this line for the last one week, and wow, I said it in one go! She gives me a token and asks me to wait for my turn. “Oh! What sophistication‼” I mutter. I sit down on the couch which is exactly as comfortable as a dentist’s chair making me want to just get up and run. I peer intently at the display of token numbers. After a mere 25 minutes when my number is displayed I proceed to the assigned counter and recite the now well-memorised SOP again. The lady at the counter gestured me to sit down and hands over to me 4 forms (!!!) to be filled. That’s too much torture for me to take. But, at least, I have not fainted yet. The coffee is helping.

I fill the form or at least think I have and give it to her which she returns promptly saying I haven’t filled my account number and that I haven’t signed on the forms. Really, what fuss these people make over such trivial details!

Umm…Account number? Yes, I know where to find that. It’s on my passbook. I remember. Well, the almonds are helping too.

And signature is easy. I scribble something under the form- a miserable excuse for a signature. I resubmit the edited form. She gives a nod of approval.

Yayy! Success! I get up to leave.

“Wait, Madam!”, she says.  “Don’t you want your FD receipts?”

“Sure, I can take them.” I say, with an air of doing her a favour. She tells me it might take a few minutes and I continue fidgeting.

Now this lady is no ordinary being. Physically, she seems to have two hands, but virtually she has at least four more. She does twenty things at a time. While she was dealing with me she was handling 6 other customers. Her multitasking reminded me of a juggler at the fair tossing and catching 7 balls at a time, and I was one of those…Hope she doesn’t drop me!

There are two others who have come to close their FDs and one of them is  sent back twice because the signature on the form doesn’t match with signature given at the time of starting the FD. That puts me on alert. So I have to sign the same way to close this FD as I have done a few minutes back while opening it, and I have already forgotten what I scribbled at the bottom of that form. That’s a nice recipe for disaster.

Two others have come to open new FDs. There is a senior citizen whose fingerprint the machine refused to accept to process his pension accounts. A student has come to report to a change of address. While the super woman was taking care of the address change, the signature change of customer 2 and lack of signature of mine, she entrusts this student to keep pressing the elderly uncle’s thumb on the machine until the machine accepts it.

Seeing so many things happen together, I am searching for a wormhole to escape to another galaxy when a girl enters the scene and her grievance is grave. The bank is transferring double the amount she has instructed from her SB to RD each month and now she is deprived of any money in her SB account.

“Aha, so you have come here to apply for a loan to buy bread?” I ask.

“Oh, that can be done?” she asks much to my happiness at finding another bank-o-ignoramus creature.

The superwoman at the counter was still supercool.

“It’s a system error which will be rectified soon”, she says and adds, “such things happen”

“Bade bade deshon mein aise chote chote batein hothe hee rehte hain”, commented the guy who was still pressing the uncle’s thumb on the machine.

So, is the same going to happen to my RD? I want to ask, but I don’t because at that moment she hands me the receipts and I just want to get away at the earliest. It is then that I realize that I hve been sitting at that counter for more than 90 minutes just for this FD business and 6 others have come and gone on the adjacent seat. She’s so smart handling so many at a time, I had thought. Or maybe I am so dumb, that by the time I achieved the Himalayan task of filling the forms for an FD she could take care of 6 other customers. Whatever be the case, she deserves a salute. I thank her and leave the building.

So the worst is over. The rest of the year can only be better. Cheers!

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