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ALAN BARNETT
Alan and Claire's travel
blog
"Claire retired in
December, 2005 and my business was recently sold. We've decided to use the opportunity to
do some world travelling, something we've neglected to do for some time."
20th March, 2006:
We Dally in Delhi
… After extracting
ourselves with promises to return, I go to the United Bank of India branch in the
downstairs hotel lobby to cash some travellers cheques. I anticipate a two or three minute
exercise of endorsing the cheques. However, after stating my wishes at the counter,
I’m led around a corner to the back of the bank which resembles the back office of a
service station with 6 clerks jammed into a small office in front of the (open) safe.
I’m finally told to sit on a stool at a tiny desk at which a clerk is working on
ledgers and books right out of the fifties. Over the next half hour or so we go through
several steps, some painful, some mysterious and some almost productive. Example. I have
five $50 cheques I want to cash. After laboriously copying massive amounts of information
from my passport to a three part carbon receipt type booklet (we seem to have misplaced
the carbon paper at one point which is cause for a 5 minute absence) he separates one of
the travellers cheques from the others and writes "$50 US" on the first line. He
then fumbles around his cluttered desk to locate a rate sheet which has the conversion
rates for various currencies to rupees. Presume it is up to date, like sometime in this
millennium. Then we go searching for a calculator and earnestly apply the proper sums to
arrive at the converted number for the $50 which is duly recorded on that line. Now
we’re getting somewhere. Except the next step is to take the second $50 traveller
cheque and write "$50 US" on the next line down before searching around for that
rate sheet again. Apparently he’s concerned that it may have changed somehow during
the last five minutes. He writes the same conversion rate down and then goes searching for
the calculator again. Upon finding it he multiplies the $50 by the same conversion rate
and comes up with the same number of rupees as before. This guy is no slouch. I’m no
dummy either and I see where this is going. Sure enough we repeat this three more times
and you know what? We get the same answer every time. After this is completed, the
calculator, in which I’ve learned to have complete confidence, is used to add it up.
I’ve now been sitting in the back room about a half hour. I’m asked to sign the
register and follow to the front of the bank where time has, in fact, not stood still.
I’m motioned to cashier # 4 to whom he gives this miracle of math. There I stand
while (wait for it) the cashier double checks the calculation. As I silently plead with
every fibre in my being that he doesn’t find an error and we have to start all over
again, I’m repeatedly jostled aside by locals who seem to feel that their banking
needs are more urgent than mine. (Let me use the word urgent in this environment very
advisedly). The clerk is on my side however, apparently feeling we’re getting very
close to consummating this transaction and continues to send these interlopers off to jump
ahead of someone else in another line. With great relief I see a satisfied look come over
his face as he initials the form and heads for his cash drawer. He reaches in and hands me
11,000 rupees. Having forgotten the purpose of my visit here, I’m surprised that this
man is giving me money. I then vaguely remember having surrendered some traveller's
cheques earlier that day and suspect that this is somehow related to that event. I
gratefully accept the cash and wander away wondering where I am and what day it is. Claire
greets me with relief wondering where I’ve gotten to.
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