The Longest Night
By: Ashok Peer
Tags: Prejudice, Discrimination

Then came the day I received a letter from the Banking Service Recruitment Board, Western Region, of my selection as Probationary Officer. It was followed by offers of appointment from Bank Of India and Dena Bank. My cousin was working in Bank Of India. She chose the bank for me. My father somehow had felt that I was quitting M.Phil midway and curbing my desire to do a PhD in Theoretical Physics for reasons other than getting into a good job. He asked me privately if I were sure of quitting, for a good cause, a long-cherished dream of doing a PhD, hastily adding that he would support me financially for pursuing my dream. I replied honestly that I was quitting because I was finding the advanced level of Theoretical Physics beyond me. He got convinced and gifted me air travel from Delhi to Bombay. I was to reach the Zonal Office of the bank in Pune in fifteen days and meet personnel officer Mr Wagh.

On a cold and cloudy morning in February, in Srinagar, my family and friends saw me off at bus adda to Jammu. And on the morning of two days after, I was in front of Mr Wagh, in Pune. Mr Wagh was a tall and solidly built man. He was partially bald with densely haired long moustaches curled upwards at the extremities. He received me warmly and, after a while, told me that he had carefully chosen Jalna Branch for my on the job training. He then began explaining me at length why Jalna Branch suited me the most as if I had refused to go there.

In the evening, I was in the dusty town of Jalna. On my way to Bhagwati Lodge on a cycle rickshaw, a slow wind carrying the pungent smell of red chillies blew into my face setting me into a frenzy of sneezes. My tryst with the new place and new people began with Bhagwati Lodge. Lodge’s manager, on knowing my name looked at me in askance. He was trying to figure out how a man from Kashmir with the surname Peer could have Ashok as his first name. I tried to clear his confusion and told him that I was a Kashmiri Pandit. It seemed he wasn’t entirely convinced. While delivering me the keys of the room, he asked if I was doing seed business in Kashmir. “ No, I have come here to join my job in Bank of India,” I replied, curtly.

The next day morning, I was in the branch. The first person I met there was Mr Gotla, the branch accountant. It was early, and not all branch staff had come. Mr Gotla was an oversized and well-groomed Parsi gentleman. He was the first ‘Parsi’ I had ever met and known. It was through him I came to know about Parsi history, culture and food. The first time that I had Parsi delicacy ‘Patra Ni Machi’, was in his house.

After a while, a suave young man swaggered into the branch and sat into Branch Manger’s chair. He was Mr Gadre. Mr Gadre had recently joined as Branch Manager of the branch after returning from the foreign assignment, in Singapore. It was pleasant to talk to him. I was impressed by his demeanour and knowledge. He didn’t want me to stay in a lodge and of his own arranged a partly furnished room, on rent, in the house of Shri Bhagwat.

Mr Gadre was extraordinarily inclined towards me to the envy of other officers in the branch. He took me under his wings and taught me the basics of banking in a manner no one after him did. Banks, he would say, were institution primarily meant for “Lending”. So banking revolves around two sets of four words each ‘ Lending (Is) Done For Future’ and “ Trust, People, Clarity (&) Risk’. For the next nearly six months, before I was transferred to Latur, he showed me practically what these words meant in real-life situations. I remember to this date the days he spent with me on factory floors of two units, Mahyco Seeds and Gedore Tools, explaining their working and what a lender in a working unit must never miss perceiving. His teaching remained a touchstone for me in my long career in banking.

Shri Bhagwant had a beautiful two-storied house, and my room was on the first floor. He, with his wife called by all as Kaku and their servant, lived here. He was a retired civil servant. He would proudly tell his neighbours that a young Bank Officer, a Kashmiri Pandit, was his tenant. Mr Bhagwat was an excellent host and fond of talking. Every day, we had morning tea together, and he would speak to his heart’s fill for an hour. He would talk to me in Marathi knowing well I didn’t understand language. He would tell me, like a parent, to listen to him carefully, and I would understand the language in due course. And I did.

He generally talked about his past. He was proud of his ancestry and also of his children. His three children, two sons and a daughter, were doctors, settled in Pune. He would talk fondly and with an air of reverence too, about his ancestry and of big clan-ship. His ancestors accordingly to a folk tale were Saraswat Brahmins from Kashmir. Some hundreds of years ago, they were invited to perform a Yagna in a village along the Konkan Coast, near Chiplun. The villagers were awed by their profundity and knowledge and requested them to stay back permanently. The Brahmins deigned to request of villagers and grew from there over the years into a large clan-ship which was scattered all over Maharashtra. Sadly, none from the clan lived in the village now. Shri Bhagwant believed this story as real. He was, therefore, treating me as if I were Godsend emissary to him from the land of his deep ancestors, and I enjoyed this privilege without making it obvious.

On Sundays, four of his friends from neighbourhood Shri Kulkarni, a Senior Executive in Mahyco Seeds, Shri Kale, a businessman, Shri Shripad, an Ayurvedic Doctor and Shri Deshpande, a retired Science teacher would join us in our morning rendezvous. The topics of discussion were on or around Marathwada politics, water scarcity in Marathwada, Shivaji, Nizam of Hyderabad, failure of the cotton crop, corruption in sugar cane growers cooperative, worldly gossips and Kashmir. These ostensibly mundane conversations were profound learning experiences for me. Outside the bank and the gentry, Kailash, a small cycle shop owner and. Usman Ali, a pan and cigarette vendor, were always eager to share town gossip and street news with me. Listening to them was entertaining and useful, too. Their talks gave me the other view about the place and the people.

On one Saturday, late in the afternoon, I went with Chanderbhan, a cashier in the branch, on the invitation to his house. He lived with his wife, a six-year-old daughter and a toddler son in a modest single-storey row house, at the periphery of the city. Chanderbhan excitedly introduced me to his wife and daughter. They were shy to talk to me, and I didn’t insist. There was only one chair in the room, and without asking, I sat into it. Chanderbhan sat on the floor opposite to me, resting his back against the wall. He asked me if I would like to have tea. “Yes, I would like to have it”. But I could feel that his wife was hesitant to prepare and serve tea to me. They exchanged some brief verbal note in difficult Marathi. She, then, willingly went inside to make tea for us and happily served it. After tea, she also served me some beetle nuts, and her shyness had worn off.

I cycled back to the city, and at the fall of dusk reached my rented house. Mr Bhagwat gave me a stern look from the edge of verandah and turned in jiffy inside the house. It was unusual of him, but I didn’t take it seriously. Before I could enter my room, Bhagwant’s servant came running and said to me, “ Shaheb, it was Purnima today, and Kaku asked you to come for Puja.” On all Purnimas, I was Kaku’s guest for dinner. I took a shower and wore puja dress of freshly laundered white cotton Kurta-Pyjama and went for Puja. Shri, Bhagwat seemed annoyed. He didn’t respond to my salutations. Kaku showed me with the wave of her hand to relax.

After Puja was over, Shri Bhagwat sat beside me and told in a sermonising tone that I was a good person and it was my Dharma to be helpful and kind to others, more so when they were my friends and colleagues. But I didn’t need to go to their homes and have tea and snacks with them. I was shaken. He continued his talk and without mincing words told me that he was annoyed with my action and if I continued to do such things that might force him to ask me to vacate the house. Here, Kaku forcefully interjected and asked me to ignore him. His words had already hit me hard, and I was raging from inside. I wanted to protest and say to him firmly and loudly that what he desired of me was against my principles and he was nobody to ask me what to do. But I couldn’t. Instead, I submitted meekly and said sorry, in a very feeble voice.

That night, was the longest night for me.

(This story I dedicate to 16 Migrant Workers who were run over by goods train on the railway track between, Jalna and Aurangabad, on 8th of. May 2020)