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'He Kept Yelling And Cursing': A Mumbai Banker Recounts How Customers Behaved After Demonetisation

Not an easy job. This.
A bank employee reacts as people shout while they wait to enter a bank in Mumbai.
Danish Siddiqui / Reuters
A bank employee reacts as people shout while they wait to enter a bank in Mumbai.

While the reports on how people are struggling to get their notes exchanged in long queues at ATMs and banks seem never ending now, the bankers who are trying to smoothen the process don't have an easy job either. A week after Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes were demonetized, bank officials are struggling to cope with the huge crowd.

Cancelled leaves and not being able to get lunch most days are not really their major problems. It's the customers to visit them.

"What's ridiculous is how people are behaving— they're treating us so badly. Just 4 hours ago I received a call from a man from a place called Nanded who screamed at me non-stop. He went on yelling, blaming me, cursing in Marathi and I'm sitting there just wondering what I could possibly do and we've received dozens of such calls each day," a bank manager in Mumbai told Humans Of Bombay.

In a Facebook post of Humans Of Bombay, the bank manager talks about the hassles that they are facing since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his demonetisation move.

"...educated people storming our offices and violently asking us for money — we've dealt with it all," she said.

She also said that most of the bank employees haven't even exchanged their own Rs 500 notes because they are trying to help others first and just don't have the time to think about their own money. "We've hardly slept these past few days, we're not taking any weekends off," she added.

The bank manger also said that they are receiving blackmoney and being 'threatened' to convert them into white. She said that some people came to deposit their cash that had been stashed away for years.

"All this cash smells like rotten leather to the point where every one of our branches has ordered masks for the cashiers — that's how unbearable the stench became," she said.

Good things are happening too. The banker said that a builder, who the bank had chased for months for defaulting on a Non Performing Asset, came forward to finally pay the amount.

"We're all in the same situation, we just need to sit tight and understand that steps are being taken to aid the process — this is for the future of our country and the least we can all do at a time like this is have patience and believe that everything will stabilise soon," she said.

Read the FB post here:

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.