A day in the life of a man in queue

Sandeep Sinha 

“May you live in interesting times,” goes a Chinese saying. It is actually supposed to be a curse. So, unable to make head or tail out of the prevailing currency confusion, I found myself standing in a queue outside a bank to exchange the currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, confounded by the chaos and not sure if the step was good or bad.

With procrastination having become my forte, surprisingly, I found myself up and about early on a Saturday, ready to take the bull by its horns, in a rare show of decisiveness. Now, queues in themselves do not put me off. To me, they are primarily a show of order, a willingness on the part of the hoi polloi to abide by the rule of law. It is in their management that governance gets reflected. 

In my adolescent years, I remember going to the LPG dealer where there would be long queues -- first to get the receipt, followed by another long queue at the godown to fetch the cylinder. There were queues at the PDS depots, railway stations, cinema ticket counters, temples for a “darshan” and in the markets during the festive season. 

Even at banks, before liberalisation set in, queues were common. Even to get a bank draft, you first had to complete the formalities in the morning and then hear this stock reply, “Teen baje ke baad aa kar le jana.” 

In the life of an aam aadmi, queues are no fiction but a reality. Been there, done that, I told myself as I steeled my resolve and set off for the bank. The crowd was remarkably enthusiastic. “Modi ji ne dhai saal mein jo kar dikhaya, woh Congress ne itne saalon mein bhi nahin kiya,” said Dharambir, an elderly Haryanavi standing ahead of me. “Sab chor hain ji,” chipped in another, reflecting the disillusionment with the political class. With the media and the government spinning tales of how the step would break the backs of those hoarding money in black, the crowd surprisingly seemed to be remarkably stoic, showing great fortitude in bearing the hardship. Masking their worries over the cash crunch and united in their resolve by their common plight, the ire was directed more against the well-heeled. “Sab setting hai ji. Andar se kaam ho raha hai. Jabhi line aage nahin badh rahi hai.” One got to hear this. 

Tales of cash flowing in the Ganga and being burnt dominated the queue conversation. Instead of wasting currency, it should have been given away to the poor, some said. “Rs 30,000-Rs 40,000 kamane walon ke pas black money kahan hota hai,” asked another. It was surprisingly a security guard, who, taking pity at those standing in long queues, remarked sympathetically, “Bina matlab hungama macha rakha hai.”  

The bank staff, on their part, were cooperative. They filled the cubicles, counting cash, doling them out, satisfying queries. Even the security guards were courteous. After a two-hour wait, I was lucky to have my notes exchanged at the private bank I visited. But the queues at most government sector banks seemed longer.

Achche din? Well, the millenarian doctrine lives on. 

The best of times or the worst of times? Well, only time will tell. 

But Charles Dickens, take a bow, for now. 

The writer is News Editor