Rishton ki jama punji..... Banks and their Social Capital

It happened around afternoon the other day, when some one sent me a panic stricken mail lamenting that his bank had crashed and that his life’s savings had all gone up in smoke and that he was penniless. He further howled in his mail that since he did his business banking from that very same bank and as that account too was disabled, he was done for. He painted a very colorful picture of him begging on the streets as his family starved at him as he signed off.

It was HDFC Bank that they referring to and as I use the same bank, I tried to log into the bank’s net banking site and was greeted by a site maintenance message. This was not unusual either and the bank typically puts this notice up in advance. But when I reported this back to my friend, he reported that the site maintenance had been going on for a while and every now and then, the bank would change the time of the maintenance to be over.

By evening, the HDFC bank site was still down and the bank gave up extending the time for “maintenance” and instead posting a new message reporting a technical snag and that they were working hard to resolve it at the earliest. A couple of news sites had started covering the news and reported that the snag had been noticed at about 8 am and that the bank’s retail operations were crippled as customers could neither access their ATMs or their bank site and were basically handicapped. Apparently a few could withdraw some limited cash from non HDFC Bank ATMs but many couldn’t. After patting my pocket, I check that I had enough cash to hold out at least a day, I went back to my work.

The incident helped put into perspective a whole range of expectations that have arisen in the last decade or less that has considerably raised the bar in customer satisfaction levels. Consider this: in an earlier birth, the bank would have been open for just four hours – typically from 10 AM to 2PM and the banking could only be done only at the branch where you had an account. The accounts would have been maintained manually and we would be huddling together (not queuing together!) with her hands stretched out claw like towards the cage like structure that was the teller’s chamber from where cash would be dispensed. That claw like fingers would be clutching at a clunky yellow metal piece with a number – the all important “token”.

Banking disruptions were much more common then than now, but some how people tolerated them, lived with them and learnt how to cope with them. The bank staff too I n their cantankerous way helped out and cooperated, especially after if a string of holidays and bank strikes led to unusual crowds once the bank opened. Along the way, the banks also managed to build up rishton ki jamaa punji as the Bank of India advertisement campaign talks about.

HDFC Bank of course is a professionally managed bank and the website, net banking and every thing else was accessible as always in less than a day. But this bank, like most of the modern banks which are focused on the net or phone banking or ATMs has not been able to build that web of relationships perhaps that would generate it some social dividend. In that little over half a day that I had mails criss crossing about the HDFC Bank being inaccessible and the “inconvenience is regretted” type notice that they had put out on their web site.

A few were heard saying that when the bank itself would not accept even a day’s default on payments of loans, credit card dues and so on, why should the customers allow it to get away with a simple one or two line apology ? True enough at one level but the fact that the banks of today do not offer the personalized experience of past days and even those rare visits to the bank are a much depersonalized experience in spite of the plush lounges and fancy décor adds to the angst of customers. Ultimately, the new banks will need to fix this bug in some way – they have a lot of jamaa punji but they do not have rishton ki jama punji.

Death of the Chowkidar

When I was in school and lived in Delhi, we often slept on the terrace on the hot, stuffy summer nights. The nights were cool and pleasant and it was still possible on most times to see a sky full of stars. I would drift off to sleep trying to identify the few stars and constellations I knew. The silence of the night would be interrupted by the occasional burst of a car engine and the barking of stray dogs and the rhythmic tap –tap –tap of the chowkidar’s stick along with a shrill puff on his whistle.

Those were idyllic days when crime was little and mostly restricted to petty burglary and nothing more. I never actually saw the chowkidar more than once a month when he came along to collect his wages. He was a genial looking man from the hills, generically referred to as Bahadur and his kindly face inspired no fear or terror but a kind of gentle assurance of protection. The tap-tap –tap of the chowkidar’s stick was a sure antidote against the occasional nightmare and a child’s fears. With my parents by my side at home and the chowkidar blowing his reassuring whistle through the night, a child had nothing to fear.

After school, I left Delhi and came back after a long while; it seemed that an era had passed. Of course, politically, the country had changed a lot. The roots of terrorism were every where – Kashmir was boiling , and so was Assam , closer to Delhi , Khalistani terrorists were rising and had garrisoned off the hallowed Golden Temple and shortly when after Operation Blue Star , Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated by her own body guards, it seemed that the age of trust was over. When the anti Sikh riots happened, the social fabric of trust vanished not just for the elite living in Lutyen’s bungalows but also for the common man. Some where along the way, the chowkidar, the kindly, courteous man, who protected every one, harmed no one and knew every man, woman and child on his beat was gone. His time and role was over.

In place of the mild mannered chowkidar who often served for years if not a life time , now you have the rough, brawny, and uncouth and in your face “security guard” who inspires much terror and little confidence. Indistinctive and impersonal in their often ill fitting uniforms, they swagger around their beat often around a spiked gate erected artificially over a neighborhood designed in gentler times to be always accessible and open.

These guards know no one and care for no one except for their monotonous security drill but they are mushrooming everywhere. ATMs, housing societies, office complexes they all have dispensed with the chowkidar or his morphed cousin in the offices, the Durwan and have hired security guards. The chowkidar greeted every one with a warm smile and a salaam but the security guard greets you with a shabby notebook and a cheap ballpoint pen where to get to your best friend’s house, you have to supply every conceivable personal detail that he requires.

Are we getting better security for all these guards? May be, may be not. The crime statistics don’t tell an encouraging story. But even though the guards may be necessary in today’s day and age and the whistle blowing watch man of yore has been replaced by siren blowing police patrol jeeps and the stiff and starched guards of firms like Group 4, provide a kind of machine like politeness, I will still miss the endearing smile and care of the chowkidar whose heart was bigger than his stick and whose bark was louder than his bite. He belonged to a time when innocence, kindness and caring were the norm and the gentle tap of his stick signified a benign presence guarding us all. The chowkidar is dead but may his memory endure forever.