Some 20 ago I used to work in a large branch of a public sector bank. Early one Sunday morning, before dawn, the sound of the telephone woke me up. It was our branch manager. He asked me to come to the branch immediately with the keys. One of our peons—let us call him Anto—had not made it back home last night and the manager feared he had been locked up in the currency chest.
I must explain that our branch had a currency chest. A currency chest is a vault in which the branch collects and sorts cash from all the other branches to be sent on to the Reserve Bank. I rushed to the branch on my scooter, with just my 10-year-old daughter for company. Once there, the manager explained to us that Anto’s wife had phoned him, saying he had not come home.
Anto was a quiet but meticulous worker. He was a devoted husband and caring father. Not going back home on a Saturday night was most unlike him. The currency chest had a number of vaults with spaces between them. Had Anto inadvertently been locked inside? That was a concern because the chest had extremely thick walls and a solid steel door. We had also heard of such incidents having happened before.
For security reasons the keys to the various doors and locks of the bank were held by three different people. We swiftly opened the main shutters, then the doors and rushed to the vault. Keys were inserted and the wheel of the currency door spun open. Two people quickly pulled the door open. Light switches were thrown on and we split up to cover the area of the vault. We were met with the dank smell of used currency notes, and rows upon rows of vaults and lockers. But no Anto!
We laughed in relief—a relief that quickly gave way to further anxiety. If he was not here, then where could he be? We rushed to his house to see if his wife had heard from him, only to find a sheepish Anto in a lungi and vest nursing a glass of black tea. He had unexpectedly run into an old friend the night before. They had decided to catch up over a few rounds of drinks. One thing led to another and Anto ended up spending the night at his friend’s house. He was extremely contrite about having made us run around in search of him so early in the morning. By the time we left, the sun had risen. It was an incident none of us would ever forget.
Nirmala Menon
Email: nirmalamenon60@gmail.com