DIVERSITY
Sumati of State Bank of India and the Hair Dye
A Tatanagar bank employee’s tale
Sumati Narayan worked for the State Bank of India. En route to work, she sees marigold garlands brightening up a dull street.
The next stall sells disposable containers made from dried leaves. They don’t last very long, but hey, they’re disposables.
That’s not the only way the roads can be eco-friendly, cycle rickshaws have no emissions.
The bank is so familiar, she walks right in without looking up.
Sumati is dressed in a stiff work saree, like the green one below. She wears spectacles and a mask.
Hygiene theater at work
The bank was being swabbed down and disinfected. Hygiene theater, some called it. Well it made her feel safer and she was glad of it.
Off goes the AC
She went into her office — manager’s office! For a while she kept the air conditioning off and the windows open, for the Corona Virus. Then she gave up and turned on the AC. Tatanagar was too hot for open windows.
Bank is choc-a-bloc – 6 feet apart
The outdoor section of the bank was full of customers. Every window had a long line, properly socially distanced, in front of it, and the tellers were busy.
The customers look like they came here straight from bed
All the customers had masks on, but were under-dressed. Not having to go to work had made them lazy.
One lady customer was in the usual three-piece salwar-kameez-dupatta, but the salwar was replaced by a wild check pajama bottom.
She’d thrown a kameez over her PJ's and then wrapped up in a mismatched dupatta and a face mask.
Sumati wrinkled her nose under her mask. She straightened the saree-pin on her left shoulder.
Athleisure banking
Another customer, a man, was in a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts.
Wasn’t this a government-run bank, a corporate office? Why were the customers so badly dressed all of a sudden?
Maybe they wanted to go home and take baths instead of just washing their hands. They certainly looked as if they needed baths.
The last straw – hair dye in the bank
In the cash deposit counter Sumati recoiled from a customer with hair dye in his hair.
He had made a trip to the bank between dying his hair, and washing it.
He was masked, though, and there was nothing Sumati could do about it.
It was a new low for India. Had she ever seen such badly groomed customers in the last 30 years of service in the Bank? No.
The dress codes were for Bank employees, not the customers. It was hot with the windows open. No excuse for the hair dye guy, though. That was just lazy.
She went back to her room and thought that it was a good thing that sarees have some breathing room at the waist.
Pictures taken at the Goods and Services Tax office, and at the State Bank of India, Bistupur, Tatanagar branch.
I had to take pictures of the SBI office on the second floor, because they refused to let me take pictures of the teller window floor.
Story shared by SBI employee of a different branch. Indians are usually as well-turned out as they can afford, and the hair dye story made me laugh out loud when “Sumati Narayan” related it to me.