Banking in Small-Town India: Realizations from an NRI Millennial

Four counters lined the front of the bank. People scrambled to get the attention of the attendant at each, unconcerned about those beside them, and unwilling to follow the signs around the bank to form an orderly line. One fan slowly cooled the office in the middle of the scorching Rajasthan summer.

Having left India at the age of seven, I hadn’t ever experienced doing business — or even running errands by myself — there. This changed after my grandfather passed away, and I returned to help my grandmother wrap up a series of bank and government formalities.

I clutched her papers and stood behind the cluster of people at the first counter. After a few minutes, I realized I would never make it to the front this way. As new people would come, instead of standing behind me (or even acknowledging my presence), they would walk up to the counter and try to speak directly with the attendant.

Uncomfortably, I moved forward, panicking about the lack of personal space and trying to overcome the rudeness of skipping in line, and spoke to the woman behind the counter. Probably in her late 20s, she calmly listened to my request while simultaneously processing two others from the people beside me.

I didn’t understand how she was so comfortable multi-tasking such personal matters — everyone at the counter could see the checkbooks of those beside them being worked on. The American in me cringed at the lack of privacy. She pointed to the bank manager’s office and told me to go speak with him.

Once in the bank manager’s office, I quickly described my request, hoping he’d understand and process the 20-minute task. He nodded and easily said it’ll be done, but to come back tomorrow because he was busy today.

Okay, sounds reasonable, I thought.

I returned the next day and was dismissed the same way. I didn’t understand why he was stalling — so I played the emotional card; “My grandma is old and has trouble leaving the house to come here — is there any way you could process this today?” He didn’t flinch. Second, I played the urgency card; “I’m leaving to go to Mumbai in 2 days, and grandma can’t do this job without me — can you please help us process before then?” No response. Come back tomorrow, he suggested.

Finally, exhausted from the summer heat, fanning myself with the bank papers and sipping my Slice Orange drink, I approached him again, casually leaning on the table. How is your day going, Uncle? He looked up, somewhat surprised and slightly suspicious. He answered with some formalities.

I moved the conversation further — how long have you been at this office, Uncle?

“3 years” he responded, still with a tone of reservation.

“Oh cool, my grandma has lived in Jodhpur for 7 years! It’s such a nice city.”

That was my in. Uncle pointed at the plastic chair next to his officer’s seat and motioned for me to take a seat. I leaped forward, ecstatic to get this opportunity. I sat next to him and proceeded to bond with him — telling him stories about my grandparents journey back to their hometown of Jodhpur, and listening to him tell me about his daughter’s marriage and the joy of playing with his son’s kids.

We bonded over the kids' relationship to him, as mine was to my grandma’s, and also our locality (which I had no familiarity with). And that’s when the magic chord hit. He called the attendant and asked him to get my 20-minute paperwork (which had extended over 3 days at this point) done. While we waited, he pulled out his Whatsapp account and showed me a picture of his grandson. And then a picture of them with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. He even showed me a picture of his house.

I didn’t understand. Back home in the United States, my Wells Fargo crew and I were tight — they sent me a card every year on my birthday and even asked my Mom about my progress through college occasionally, but never had we exchanged pictures given there was so much work to be done.

And that’s when I realized that India is so inherently based on relationships.

From banks to hospitals, it’s about who your friends are that can make work happen for you. In small towns, it (unfortunately) takes years of relationships to get simple things done quickly.

This isn’t right, and it’s definitely not fair for most people who lose days of meaningful work to get simple tasks done at banks and government offices. I wonder whether this will ever change. Will people who hold these occupations become more task-centric? Or will technology just leapfrog this altogether making such banks and their relationship systems outdated?

I really hope so, but I’m not sure how quickly such a culture change will happen. What I do know is that at the end of that last bank visit, Uncle made me promise that if I get married in Jodhpur someday, he will definitely get an invitation.