On the way from school at Sawantwadi in Konkan to an M.Sc. in Mathematics from the Benares Hindu University, he picked up Kabir, Mira, Tulsidas and they still offer him relaxed company. Promptly at 8, Rama opened the door to a cheerful Vinayakrao Joshi and Sneha. “Namaskar,” boomed Vinayakrao as his wife tried to hush him. “In this house, I can shout,” he retorted as my family chuckled.

With Ganesh and Vidya, the couple engaged in Marathi even while pointing to me with the comment, “Baap apka angrez hai (Your father is an Englishman).”

Joshi loves idlis only slightly less than Kabir and the two went for the Tamil breakfast. When the coffee came, Joshi lighted his large size Gold Flake, breathed out a puff into the air before settling down with a “Ram, Ram 221;.

We got down to talking of banking and the times when bankers were allowed to have their views and also put them on files.

“In those times, my bosses, never put me down for disagreeing ; some welcomed it as they thought every issue has more than two sides or two hands (on the one hand and on the other hand). They did not demote us or hold back our increments.

“The change came in the 1990s and with that followed scams, all originating in public sector banks. In the first year of his term, a new bank chairman will show less profits; with his term ending, the profits will shoot up to impress the bosses in New Delhi.

“Bank balance sheets are written by chefs.

“Every exiting bank chairman books a chair on the board of some company or becomes a member of the many government committees throwing up identical reports on the same subjects.

“At meetings, RBI officials were scared of bank chairmen, aware of every detail. Now, both sides prefer to sip tea and talk of Mumbai getting badly crowded.

“Before financial inclusion became the fashion, the banking system had come up with the concept of priority sector credit; it is a different matter that priority sector funds never reached the poor.”

Sneha got a bit edgy as the talk kept out the others in the room. “That’s enough. You, your bank and your bankers,” she told him.

It was time for Vinayakrao Joshi to be at his office but Joshi did not much care. He demanded a second cup of coffee and the talk veered to Indian cricket, as any talk has to in any office or home in Mumbai.

“When will Sachin quit,” Joshi asked my son, an admirer of the Mumbai player. “He should play for some more time,” Ganesh said and was backed by Sneha.

She made public her grievance: “For years, I have pleaded with my husband for a pavilion ticket at Wankhede Stadium. It has not come.”

After getting a third cup of coffee from Rema, Joshi casually mentioned he was moving into an apartment in the LIC Colony in Borivili. “Then we will go together for morning walks,” he added. “And after the morning walk,” one asked.

“Like old times we will debate who is greater, Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky; or better still match The Old Man and the Sea of Hemingway with The Outsider of Albert Camus. And one thing more. I am working on setting down my family tree which will include details of Sneha’s ancestry. But it is going to be a hard job. I have called up many in my banker family and told them to flag the eccentrics. That will help me write a banking folktale of my times.”

P. Devarajan

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