Nation Building At The ATM

The chaos of a retreating autumn playing out. There was not a sweat in the air, but a general feeling that something terrible was about to happen.

The sun was low in the sky; you couldn’t blame the weather for not keeping its cool. A sparrow on the tree above shifted from foot to foot, staring down at the two serpentine queues, each of which led to an ATM. I was standing in one of the two, with one eye trained on the lines and the other on the sparrow.

People could be heard chanting fervent prayers – the kind that’s usually reserved for instances such as the hospitalization of a dear one – toward successfully completing this relatively trivial pursuit. 

Personally speaking, this was my 3rd attempt in the day, of queuing up in front of an ATM, but I was uncharacteristically numb. The big consolation was that I was now sharing my misery with the hundred odd people in my immediate environment. My number of failed attempts paled in comparison to some of the other people’s, who’d made 7, 10 and in one particular case 13 unsuccessful tries at getting past the cash-dispensing machines. We talked about it, crossing our arms across our chests, our legs jiggling slightly in anticipation.

Second in line outside the ATM entrance door now, I see a man swipe his card for cash, his black T-shirt hanging halfway over his paunch. We had been told by those previously stepping out: “Only Rs 2000 per card allowed.” I now recall that there was no triumph in those voices - only a messenger’s matter-of-fact reporting. 

The text on the paunchy man’s T-shirt reads THIS IS IT and it takes on ominous tones as he swipes his card thrice, and peers despondently at those outside. The subsequent violent shaking of heads, create ripples in the queue, and the word has by now spread wordlessly, “We are out of Cash.” The cash-dispensing machine had been refilled four times in the last 24 hours and we were, in all probability, done with replenishments for the day.

By then the second ATM too had run out of breath. Mutterings of disappointment take over the scene. What seemed like a revolution three days back was now fast losing its teeth. A mother explains to her precocious little daughter that ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine and not Any Time Money. The phrase ‘Ache Din’ is tipped out, with a note of sarcasm. The crowd disperses. 

Back in my office, earlier in the day, a colleague sounded stentorian: “I am ready to face all the hardships that this demonetisation may bring about, as long as it benefits common men like me.” This particular Common Man colleague happens to earn more than Rs 1.5 lakh every month.

“The natural state for the common man is anxiety,” Cummings had once said.

I tallied my colleague’s hope with the hopes of all those other common men who were with me in the queues that day. Even to the most cynical of the lot, the momentary disappointment outside the ATM booths seemed like an investment which would present some tangible benefits in the future.

To many of those, this was the third act in the whole Corrupt Politicians V/s Noble Citizens narrative that they had been constructing in their heads for some time. The denouement was near. Their commonness was about to be rewarded.

The common man is, of course, anxious about money, security, and God, but most of all, he is anxious about his own status as a Common Man.

Attention, all those Common Men waiting to make capital off this demonetisation process - are you up for a thought experiment?

What if standing in long queues and being denied money just inches away from the ATM machine, what if something as unglamorous and unsexy as that, was our only chance of contributing toward Nation Building?

We of course have an idea of Nation Building that conforms to the slickness of action movies (Nayak!) but what if true Nation Building takes place in ways that aren’t half as interesting as that?

The fact of the matter remains that a lot of the social and political corrections that had to happen in India, had to happen because of a minor cataclysm like this one, which disrupts the comfort of our everyday lives. The painful truth is that we were having it very easy materially as a nation for a long time now, to truly care about Nation Building beyond polemics. And this was harming us in ways we weren’t even realizing.

This move, though in no way intended to bring about any discomfort, has helped us step away from our preferred Good V/s Bad narrative and ensured that we make small concessions upon each other. We are finally learning what pulling together through tough times actually means. If I maybe deliberately fancy, all this isn’t too different from teaching an entire generation wedded to iPhones and Shopping Malls, what standing outside a ration office for your monthly quota of kerosene once felt like.

The rumination doesn’t end there; because we haven’t even discussed the poetically sad part yet.

So what if, having to put off all your elaborate purchases and comforts, incurring debts, and not having cash to even pay your doctor, what if all the hardships arising out of this demonetisation process, were to yield you no perceptible benefits whatsoever? Would you then consider this jolting move, a failed experiment?

At this point, it would do the Common Man, i.e. you, a world of good to remind yourself that this is primarily a country of men more common than you. It wouldn’t hurt to reconcile with the simple fact that it is those more common men, and not you, who stand to become the true beneficiaries of all this sweat and blood you’re pouring out on the urban streets.
It would take more than a few broken hearts to realize that this grand-sounding Nation Building exercise when carried out in a country like India would result in change so removed from where you are, and change so infinitesimally small and trotted out in such incredibly unfashionable terms, that you may not even sense any of it.

“So then, is my only role here, to just toil away relentlessly?” a common voice asks.
Of course no, there’s always more you can do; for, you can also subjectively record what it feels like to live through this period.

We Indians have always been bad at recording the nuances that make up something big. We broadly classify Partition as a Blunder, Emergency as a Dark Period, and plainly describe Privatization as Freedom 2.0. In the process, we miss the many shades that constitute such epoch-making episodes.

The Great Depression was a hard time for most Americans but it was also a time of great jazz playing in the background. 

As with this particular event, what we can actually do is record its overlay of chaos, and patterns of disorder, without giving any of that the comfort of interpretation. Record how the tiniest of disappointment rankles, almost like the death of a loved one? Record the confusions. Record even the useless details. Record the hope that springs eternal when those little joys arrive without prior notice. Record all of that honestly, because if you do, your effort will be a record of your time, and will count big in your contribution toward Nation Building.

I am no Modi supporter, far from it, but I think this time, he may have unwittingly given us the stick we so deserved.

“Black Money Crusader,” the posters are out. And the fanboys seem to be lining themselves up for disappointment.

Specific to this move, Modi to me seems less like a Crusader and more like a Patrol Leader. A patrol leader who calls a chattering rookie like you over from the sidelines, and says to you with a smile, “You think you’ll make a better boy scout than the ones here? That’s good. So let us see how many squat pushes and lunges you can do. Ready?”