An hour at the Post office.

Last Saturday of January 2017 it was. I was waiting my turn in the never ending queue at the post office. Needed to collect some paperwork I had to get done for one of my investments. As I wait , my eyes starts to see and observe people around me, their behavior and what they are up to.

There is this fairly tall guy and his wife by his side. They stand in another queue adjacent to mine that purely dealt with savings account and deposits. The couple probably had waited about half an hour in the line before they realized it was the wrong one. They were supposed to get an NSC(National savings certificate) opened. Poor chaps had to get back on to the right queue and wait for another hour or so before they could be attended to.

He had to go through all of this because there is no inquiry desk at this post office I visited. The officers and post masters were also pretty rude to him when he requested that it was not his fault as one of the former had instructed him to be standing in the line that he was until his turn came and the truth had been unfold.

And there was this another man in his forties ( I guessed from his talks on the phone). He was of a normal built but had a huge belly, wore an ill fitted grey shirt and a black trouser. This man abides by the traffic rules so much so that he wears a helmet even to the post office, you see :) 

An excerpt from his phone call to someone named bhaiyya( refers to brother in hindi) enlightened me of some interesting facts. Do any of you own a house in Bangalore? Planning to rent it? What is that you see in a tenant before you rent it to them ?

Simple you need them to be trust worthy. That's all is what I used to think.

Here this gentleman had a list of things he was looking for in a tenant for his newly bought flat in the heart of the city. I'm sure even a bride would choose her groom with lesser pre requisites. Of all that he demanded one fact that got me stunned was what he said to bhaiyya over the phone 'see bhaiyya, no matter what I need right people to rent my flat. I purposefully have quoted a high rent so that only high salaried people opt'.

It still disturbs me when ever I recall this conversion. Even though it was just that man's perception of equating the status quo to the money strata of the family, I wonder there may be thousands of similar men out there in the world carrying such rot thoughts in their minds. May be he was trying to safe guard his stand during his conversation with bhaiyya to ensure he gets the perfect tenant he was looking for but the factual data was misleading though.

Next my vision fell on a cute little girl holding her dad's hand and jumping up to touch the hoarding out there. The billboard displayed schemes that discussed mainly the benefits one could harvest on investing for a girl child. How apt. It was as if I was witnessing the little girl leaping towards her future.

As I was still engrossed in these visual treats , I heard my name called from the other side of the desk.
Ashwini Nagaraja...