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The attrition of your happiness started the second you entered the musty, tube-lit premises of the department. On one aspect, there have been snaking queues resulting in the glassed-in counters. These traces moved so slowly you questioned why there weren’t cobwebs rising between the ready clients. From the withdrawal counter the teller would dispense cash with the reluctance of somebody parting with their household jewelry. On the deposit counter the aversion to taking the money and offering proof of receipt was, if something, much more pronounced, as if the smallest wodge of notes was a stake by means of the financial institution’s coronary heart.
On the different aspect was a low wood barrier of the type you noticed in courtroom scenes in Hindi movies. It felt as if you can solely cross this barrier when summoned by one of many officers sitting at a desk — although some individuals have been assured sufficient to simply undergo and interrupt whichever official they wanted to buttonhole. Usually, an officer would name you to their desk, sit you down after which disappear for a number of minutes with out clarification.
This meant there have been some desks the place orphaned clients sat going through empty officer chairs, whereas at others the financial institution karmacharis labored away going through empty buyer chairs. Now and again the withdrawal and deposit counters would even be left unmanned, the related queue snaking up in shuffling supplication to an absent god. As a buyer, heaven forbid that you must lose your mood in any of those conditions. The financial institution employees have been an unforgiving lot and would make your life depressing with lacking or slow-moving paper-work.
I used to be vividly reminded of those financial institution visits after I lately landed at London Heathrow’s Terminal 4. Getting off the airplane I duly adopted the acquainted route with the indicators to the immigration counters for non-British passports. Wanting on the intestines product of standing people, what I may make out was that two flights had landed in shut succession to one another. This meant that there have been about 600 international passport-holders presenting themselves for entry to Britain.
In T4, there have been about 30 counters that I may see. Had about ten of those been manned, averaging one minute per non-problematic entrant, one may have hoped to be by means of to the bags declare space in about an hour. Because it was, a most of about 4 counters have been energetic at any given time and normally it was nearer to 2. Officers would come, sit, ignite their computer systems, course of 4 or 5 individuals after which stand up and stroll away, to not be seen for one more half-an-hour or extra.
Others of his majesty’s uniformed servants would simply climb into the counter and sit, doing their mysterious sums, monk-like of their non-communication with the passengers. One counter intermittently, slowly, processed everybody in wheelchairs. Often these with infants got precedence and despatched by means of. For lengthy durations at this seemingly Dena/UCO Financial institution department on the Thames, there was completely no motion in any respect. Aside from infants crying and making an attempt to flee their mother and father by means of the forest of queuing legs and suitcases. After the 2 lengthy flights from India to right here, standing in queue for two-and-half hours, I may virtually odor the small bottles of glue, virtually really feel the marginally rusted edges on the staplers of the desks of these financial institution officers in Seventies Calcutta.
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