How long does it take a country to accept you? Is it when you have moved out of the hotel and have your own flat? Is it when you have television and satellite installed? Is it when you take your first rubbish out or take your bottles to the recycle unit? Or when you wait for the local bus with your neighbours? When someone asks you the time? When do you become comfortable in the city you live in? Is it when you say ‘oh it will be very crowded on Sunday, we can go to the beach on Monday'? or ‘this market is cheaper that the other one’. Is it when people recognize you and you become a familiar figure in the street? Is it when you want to withdraw money from a hole in the wall and know which one works, which one does not? Or is it when you have a local bank account?
Opening a bank account sounds like one of the easiest things to do. It resonates with opening a door, opening suitcases, opening letters, opening lovely presents; it has a smooth, easy, pleasant feeling to it. It can also bring bad memories. You can (not) open jam jars, can (not) open cornichon bottles, (not) open locks. The effort leaves you with the desire to break the glass jar, to get to the tiniest cornichon in the bottle.
Here, opening a bank account is very similar to opening a jar top. There is the jar, the cornichons in it, I want to open it, I want to open a local bank account, and I want my cornichons. A local bank account makes your life a bit easy. You do not have to withdraw money from your overseas account and pay commission whenever you need to buy something. You do not need to carry lots of paper money in you wallet, and count as you pay (they still have zeros in their currency so you withdraw 10.000 Rupees at one go), you can buy tickets for concerts and cinemas online or on the phone. You do not need to travel for two hours all the way to the venue to buy two little tickets for Rs60 a day before the show and drag yourself there again on the day of the show. I want my cornichons, I want my local bank account.
When you are a ‘foreign national’ in this country the procedure for a bank account is quite tiresome. Finding an international bank to do it is difficult. The first one we went said we need to have £1000 as deposit. We left that bank immediately as we could. (This conversation took an hour and a sweet milky tea) . Remember, we need to find a bank open on a Saturday morning to do this. The conversations are tedious, they are very polite, you are taken to a waiting area then to another waiting area then to a cubicle and everything is explained to you a very condensing ‘oh, you mortal foreigners, you do not know how things work here, don’t you have £1000 to pay as deposit oh dear?!, we work with corporate clients –only’. The cubicles are small with glass door, they have Ganesh and Shiva and Jesus lined up on the wall behind the computer, their screen saver is very personal, showing a young daughter or a party scene with happy young girls from the bank. They have nametags with lovely long Indian names. We sit there sipping sweet luke warm tea and trying to understand the logic. ( No, Madame you cannot open an account if you do not have any money, you need a deposit first)
The second bank is more understanding. I have made myself a file full of photocopies of everything, photographs, papers and etc. they never tell you what is needed completely, there is always something missing. The second time I went there, the signatures needed to be across the photos not under the photos , so I went back home. The third time, there was another thing missing. The last time I went, I had to write a letter saying that I am a housewife and I do not pay bills but I reside there with my husband. But there was another letter missing-which I cannot remember what.
I go to the bank every week with an additional paper in my file and am ushered here and there, offered sweet milky teas by lots of people, the guard who opens the door is very familiar with me now and smiles at me , I went through a fire drill with them, I know that the mother of the young man –who works very hard- has been ill and she is fine now and she also asks after me. But I still do not have a bank account.
In Hindu religion, you meditate and suffer for a long time, then one of the gods, (who ever is in charge of what you have been praying for) comes to you and says ‘ I am pleased with your devotion, ask for a ‘boon”. Then your wish is granted. This meditation, this penance , this waiting for it to happen can last ‘1 Chaturyuga’*. I do not know how many chaturyagas I need to suffer for to have my cornichons but I am still trying.
* 4320000 years
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