I returned home early that day. Home means my rented quarters. It was very unusual for us bankers to return early, early means there was still daylight, dusk was about to set in. Normal time to close shop was beyond evening hours, when the evening was no longer young. There was always tasks to perform, a never ending list of returns to fill, chain of queries from head quarters to answer to, other accounting works that demanded hard labor of summations of long columns of numerical figures, not to mention continuous persuasion of persons who preferred to forget repaying installments unless poked. Add to that the ever increasing demand of targets for implementation of welfare schemes that the banks were burdened with. There were other compulsions too, what with daunting targets of a milieu of abracadabra that were never achieved, only to be berated in a future meeting that the people at the helms so loved! It was a time when there was no computer, everything needed to be done manually, no SMS alert or message or whatsapp group.
