So...well, I've gone and published a book. It's essentially a short story, or rather too long to be short and too short to be a novella. But such as it is, it is.
The idea to write stories set around a modern bank is
probably not a new one. I think others have done some splendid work in writing
both financial thrillers and humorous depictions of office life, so there is
perhaps little that I can add to it. However, given that adding any bit of
writing at all to a world of literature already groaning under the weight of
writers past and present is an act of vanity on the part of the author, perhaps
this is a not-unworthy embellishment.
“DCTMR Bank” is, of course, fictional, as are the
characters and situations depicted in this story. But like all stories, it is drawn
from people and events in real life. Greed, bureaucratic languor,
top-management incompetence, hastily-executed plans, subversion of regulations
and the professional clashes that become intensely personal – all are very much
a part of Corporate Life. Above it all, though, is randomness. Any large
organization comprises so many moving parts – departments, systems, and most importantly,
people, that eventually they work against each other as much as for, and what
ensues is at best organized chaos; at worst, total disaster.
The first story with these characters and situations I
ever wrote was set in a corporate award ceremony (read it here), and the second was set during
an off-site (read it here), and the main character of both was Sankalp Sodey, who was imagined
as the perfectly inefficient low-level corporate employee, and the stories were
essentially humorous. From there, the scope grew to encompass the other members
of DCTMR Bank, and the team too became more specific in its function – from
being just bankers, the characters became ‘Private Bankers’, the ones who
catered to the elite of a Bank’s customers, the super-rich, the ‘Wealth’
segment. More importantly, instead of being humorous stories about a low-level
grunt, they encompassed the higher levels within the hierarchy, and brought out
that they were often just as inefficient and often far more unprincipled than
poor Sodey. As more stories were written, I was fortunate to have them carried
in the magazines Unbound and Telegram. (You can read them elsewhere on this blog - A Holiday for Kalpana Kinnarkar & Hormuz Patravala and the Faith of the Disbeliever)
This particular story though, has a more interesting
background. When India demonetized its currency, or rather at the exact moment
when the Prime Minister made the announcement that Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000/-
notes were to be taken out of circulation, I was in a movie theatre, watching a
showing of ‘Dr. Strange’. Ordinarily,
there is no reason to remember where one is at a particular time, but I doubt
there are a lot of Indians who would easily forget where they were on that day
at that time. I saw the news during the interval, in the form of a text forward
from someone I knew, and over the period of the second half of the film, as
Stephen Strange and Dormammu battled, my mind could only half-focus on the
events on screen.
Most people are aware of how things unfolded over the
following days. The struggles, the long lines, the explosion of ire on social
media. Economists and laypersons grappled over the benefits of the policy for
the economy and for people, but hardly anyone, I thought, paid attention to
what would have happened within the entities that were required to implement
this measure – the Banks. Government politicians blithely spoke of ‘minor
inconvenience’ and a ‘return to normal’, and opposition politicians spoke of
‘draconian measures’ and ‘hasty decisions’. But for the people who sat in
branches and offices and tried to make sense of all that was happening around
them, life had become a mass of random – there is that word again - confusion.
Directives from the Government and RBI came thick and fast and often
contradicted each other. Customers were angry, bosses were frustrated, and no
one knew what to do.
This, then, is a story born from those events. It is
meant to be amusing, I hope it will make you think, but above all it is meant
to entertain, and honestly I shall be delighted if it succeeds on any one of
these parameters.
The characters are meant, mostly, to recur in other
stories, which is why some have larger roles than others, and time and the
muses permitting, I shall write those stories too.
Until then, I hope you will enjoy this one!
Purchase links:
Presently, due to the size and suchlike, I have only kept it available as an e-book. You can read it on any Kindle device, or through the Kindle app on Android (Phone / Tablet) or iOS. You can even read it in your browser on the Amazon website.
Do share your love on Goodreads as well:
The Day Money Died
